How can an average user tell if Part has been published to the ESI services to ERP System?

[avillanueva]

Version: Windchill 12.0

Use Case: Looking for a way for a PDMLink user to tell if a part exist in our SAP system if that user does not have access to SAP. Looking for a way to see an indicator that the part was previously published via ESI.

Description:

For average users, they may have access to PDMLink but not SAP. They would like to request that some parts be transferred to SAP which we have configured via ESI integration. The parts may or may not exist in SAP already, assumingly previously published. Is there a way for the user to tell that the publish had already occurred and they can assume that the part already exists in SAP? I am looking for if you see this, then highly likelihood that you are good. I am trying to avoid having people look things up for them to be sure. 

[Casey_Swain · Accepted solution]

Can you use the distribution targets table on the related objects page?

It will show successful publishing by distribution target, if multiple plants are in play.

The only downside is that it's version specific, so a user may need to look at multiple previous versions if the latest has not yet been published.

IIRC, they will need read permissions to ESI distribution targets and transactions.

[avillanueva]

Duh on me. Thanks.

[avillanueva]

Actually, just tested this alias attribute, might be my way forward:

https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS286891?source=search

[Casey_Swain]

Nice find!

One caveat, it seems to show the distribution target(s) regardless of whether publishing has actually occurred.

Depending on your business processes, that might not be an issue.

Also, if that's not an issue, you can also turn on display of distribution targets in the structure browser.

I've looked for ways to show actual publish status in the structure, but haven't found one yet.

[avillanueva]

Improved it ... better. I created the alias attribute then a calculated attribute off of that. 

!(isNull(ESITarget)) is the formula I used. I just need to pretty up the display name, like "Exists in SAP?"

[Marco_Tosin]

Hi Antonio,
our consultants have developed for us something like what you need.

Basically, when you go to the information page of a WTPart in Windchill, some BAPIs from SAP are called up to get several pieces of information, about the material master, the bill of materials, and the related cycle, if it exists.

In the first case (material master), the display BAPI is called up and, if it has already been created and is aligned with the data sent from Windchill, the green icon with the big teeth that can be seen to the right in the attached image appears

The icon on the left, with the traffic light, on the other hand, is for the status of sending the bill.
Clicking on the traffic light performs a real-time comparison between the Windchill BOM and the SAP BOM.

In the second image is an example of the compared data, purged of sensitive data such as name and number