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Lifecycle based document type

ptc-5263270
1-Newbie

Lifecycle based document type

Hello

I have a problem that I need to resolve in a fairly manual non integrated manner.

I need to be able to have a system where a s ingle object can have two data types based on its lifecycel state.


For example when a word object is in draft and reviewed it will still be a word document as soon as it goes to released it will need to be a pdf. Now the creation of the pdf can be done manually outside the windchill system and then uploaded but I have no idea how toset up and tie up this type of behaviour.

Thanks in advance

Oleg

7 REPLIES 7

May be a matter of terminology here.

Different document types may be used for: Different permissions, different lifecycle, different attributes, different reports, etc. What is your need to have a different type by state (this is actually like divide by zero in math - not defined).

Hi Mike, thanks for the reply

the requirement by state is just how I see it at the moment but as soon as a document becomes released there should be a way of flattening the document, putting it into the system and allowing the allocated users to see just the pdf. Is this not something that is commonly done and intertwined with lifecycle states?

Regards

As always - may be more to the story...

1. A Windchill Document can contain multiple files - which opens lots of possibilities. For this you may want the editable content file (e.g. Word) to be an attachment, and a PDF of that to be the Primary content. This requires users to be very careful to always create a new PDF before checking in and to select correctly. May or may not be the the best solution.

2. Above you say "object" so not sure if this addresses both CAD and non-CAD. If you have publishing in place for either or both (publishing of MS Office is optional and extra cost but for us has been fully worth it), then publishing creates the needed PDF's automatically. Users access the "viewable" of the editable content, via Creo View. This solves a whole bunch of problems and prevents others and enforces best practices. Publishing can be set up such that republishing is required when the state changes or to dynamically overlay a watermark that lists the current state without republishing (we do this second - can' t understand why more don't do this).

These are fundamental, important business decisions - affects a lot of people ongoing. Good to thoroughly research and get examples.

Hi Oleg

Assuming I have understood your requirement properly, we have this step in a few of our workflows. Once the word/excel document is ready to be turned into a PDF, I have an activity that goes to an admin team to turn the document into the PDF. This activity is triggered after a state change.

They then replace content for the PDF and complete the task.

This doesnt completely remove the word or excel but it does update the primary content so users would have to go searching for the non PDF.

You might be able to use deny permissions here to prevent anyone being able to open the word/excel but I haven't explored this myself.

Hope this helps a little


Kelly

Hello Kelly

Thank you that sounds like a good simple process based way of doing this which I will investigate.

However is there also a way of getting back to the master word document when you create a revision? So I am guessing when you revise said document it would pull out the pdf rather the word doc. Or is there a mechanism that you are aware of that can handle this?

Regards

Oleg

Hello Oleg

Yes you can get back to the word doc by going to the 'history' tab on the document.

This will show you all versions and which file was held as the primary content on each file which can be viewed.

To my knowledge, it will always pull out the file in the primary content on the latest version, unless you have specified not to.

Kind Regards

Kelly

During our implementation project of managing documents by (Windchill 10.0 M030) beside the CAD files/documents, I found out the same problem.

Maybe it's a solution to add (unfortunately I don't know how) a MS Office pdf creator(Adobe or freeware) to the WVS(Windchill Visualization Services) of Windchill? Just like the std. CAD worker of Windchil which creates automatically pdf's of the (latest) native Creo files in the several lifecycle states in Windchill.

It's strange why this functionality isn't std available ootb. in a PDM/PLM tool like Windchill yet.

Another related problem is the status of the document as shown on the Office document during it's lifecycle/promotion actions.

For example: Sending a document status: concept (shown text on the document) to reviewers/approvers for promotion should automatically result in a released status (shown text on the document) after approval. Otherwise the document released status (shown text on the document) should by promoted and reviewed/approved again for only the status change as shown on the document!

This can only be achieved by the installation of the DTI (desktop integration) of Windchill in my opinion and not automatically without the DTI or in another way. Or am I wrong?

Kind Regards

Bas

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