Change Document Soft Type

[BrianToussaint]

So I have a document soft type that I put in for our test reports. I was wondering if there was any way to change it so that it acts like a Reference Document. The reason why is that we want to connect it to some wtParts as reference type documents and it will only allow us to do Describe By Document. This document will not change when the wtPart changes and that is why we want it to be a reference document. Does anyone know if I can do what I want?

Thank you,

Brian

[BenPerry]

I don't understand what has to change? If you haven't associate it to anything yet, just use the reference link to the WTParts instead of the describe link.

Do you have a screenshot of the method you're trying to associate, and error you're getting?

[BrianToussaint]

Okay, I don't get any error, but when I am on the wtPart and I try to add a reference document it doesn't even show up in the search field. It shows in my recent documents but not in the search. It will appear when it is done as a Describe by document though. No errors, just nothing in the search. I can only do Describe By in the document itself.

Reference:

Describe By:

[HugoHermans · Accepted solution]

Hi Brian,

It's a matter of configuring Windchill whether it allows you to choose the type of the link or not regardless the type of WTDocument. OOTB it doesn't allow you to choose. We changed our Windchill and removed that limitation, we are happy with it. See Preference Management > Part Management > Part to Document Association Logic.

Regards, Hugo.

Quote from the help:

Controls the logic for how documents are related to and displayed for a part. A value of false uses the PDMLink logic and a value of true uses the Windchill PDM logic. The PDMLink logic enforces that a document of type Reference document can only be associated to the part as a References document and all other document types can only be associated to a part as a
Described By document. The Windchill PDM logic allows References and Described By relationships to be created from part to document regardless of the document type. See the References and Described By tables on the part information page for a description of the behavior of References documents and Described By documents. In addition, the PDMLink logic enforces that a part be related only to one version of a document; whereas the Windchill PDM logic allows a part to be associated to versions of the same document.

[BrianToussaint]

Thanks Hugo! That worked like a charm. I don't understand why that isn't set that way OOTB. Makes a whole lot more sense to me. Especially where we have multiple soft type documents that we would like to attach as reference documents.

[mdebower]

Hugo,

We are considering changing this preference as well. Any downside that you have seen to doing so?

Are existing documents, WTParts and their associations impacted at all?

-marc

CAD / PLM Systems Manager

TriMark Corporation

[HugoHermans]

Hi Marc,

The most important downside, my opinion, is that you will have to explain the users what the difference is between the two strategies, and that they can and will make wrong decisions. We don't do much, yet, with documents in Windchill, and until now we can manage this extra dimension of complexity. For us, the main reason to change this preference, is that we considered it too difficult to decide during the creation of the document what the character of the link to the article is going to be.

And no, there is no impact on existing WTObjects.

Regards, Hugo.