Newbie Questions from an ECAD User

[jimolson]

An electrical engineer that designs circuit boards, I’m a new poster to this forum and new Windchill user.

Could someone bring me up to speed on a few matters?  Our WC admin guy, bless his heart, is a mechanical engineer and can’t fathom why my non-PTC circuit board layout tool (Altium Designer) doesn’t mesh as well with WC as his Creo MCAD tool does.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading of Windchill support documents on PTC’s website but I’m still puzzled about something called Windchill Desktop Integration, which might be the basis for the questions that follow.

First Question: When I click on a file shown in WC’s HTML presentation of my files  (what is Windchill’s term of art for this presentation?) I indeed get a file downloaded to my computer.  However, the downloaded file has a weird name like data(2).wcdti.

Why won’t the web-based presentation of my WC files deliver me those files in the form (i.e. file name) that I originally uploaded to Windchill?  

Does this mean that I must manually restore every downloaded file’s true name after using the HTML download tool?  Or that the HTML tool is not useful for downloading WC files?

Second Question:  My workstation has been modified by a Windchill plug-in that modifies Windows Explorer’s presentation of WC files.  I noticed that this modification only applies to files stored in a file area reserved for Windchill, not to non-WC files stored elsewhere on my computer.

Windows Explorer (after modification by the plug-in) shows the WC file’s:

--file number
--version number
--state
--who has checked out the file
--some other stuff

But why doesn’t Windows Explorer display the complete file name in its plugin-modified rostering of files?  It omits what old guys like me call the file extent.  This is a problem because many of my ECAD files can be distinguished from each other only by their file type.

For example, an Altium schematic file name takes the form M1182 Main Board.schdoc while the companion PCB layout file name is M1182 Main Board.pcbdoc.  The file's significance is lodged in the file type to the right of the period.

Is there a setting that will force WC's modified Windows Explorer presentation to show file type?  Alternatively, can I make the words “schematic” and “layout” be candidates for Windchill's |Type| field?

Unless I can correct the shortcoming of missing file extents I’ll need to include the file type in the file’s name to the left of the period.  For example, I would start naming schematic files like this:

 M1182 Main Board Schematic.schdoc

Thanks for any feedback you can offer on these questions.

[ScottMorris]

Windchill Desktop Integration is used for managing Microsoft Office documents in Windchill. To use it, you must install the Windchill Desktop Integration application from Windchill and configure accordingly for your Windchill Server. It will also allow you to access objects in Windchill defined as Documents, which are not limited to Microsoft Office, using Windows Explorer. This solution is only supported on Windows.

The error message you're getting is from not changing the download preference in Windchill to use Windchill Desktop Integration (DTI).

Check out these pages in the Windchill Help Center for more details on getting installed, configured and operational (require PTC account)

• https://support.ptc.com/help/wnc/r12.1.1.0/en/index.html#page/Windchill_Help_Center/dti/DTIAbout.html
• https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS320675

Sounds like your plan is to manage Altium ECAD projects in Windchill as Documents. Windchill does not offer a direct ECAD integration any more, so you'll have to look at alternatives if you want a more elegant solution. Check out XPLM or Altium Enterprise (365). Both of these tools connect and communicate directly with Windchill.

[jimolson]

Thanks for the quick reply, Scott. 

On the topic of Altium Designer integration with WC, I had a conversation with an Altium employee who formerly worked for PTC.  She let me understand that better WC/Altium integration is available for larger companies than ours who are prepared to pay Altium a mid-5 digit upfront charge, switch to Altium Enterprise, and consent to use a web-based version of Altium rather than the client-based version we have now.

My posting to this forum was an effort to manually interact with Windchill to accomplish two unchallenging tasks: file archival and version management. 

The Star Wars type of integration that Creo guys enjoy with Windchill is probably not in the cards for me and my ECAD stuff.

[ScottMorris]

Got it. In that case, you should check in with XPLM for a more affordable solution. We use Altium Enterprise, but there is a lot to it. XPLM specializes in the direct integration from Altium Designer to Windchill.

The document route is a quick and easy way to go for archival and revision control. We used to put the zipped project file in as a single object rather than trying to map to all the ECAD object types.

[avillanueva]

For what its worth, you can almost approximate full integration with WTDocs. We added the ECAD publisher (need a license for this) which gives us neutral data and thumbnails for the ECAD schematics and fabrication files.

[jimolson]

Avillanueva, what is the "ECAD publisher" you mention that requires a license?  Is it an extra-cost option for WC acquired from PTC?  Or a third party add-in for WC?

It would be nice to have a thumbnail of a PCB layout or schematic in WC to confirm my impression of what a listed file applies to, but I wouldn't pay a year's salary for this feature.

Thanks for the feedback.

[jimolson]

"We used to put the zipped project file in as a single object rather than trying to map to all the ECAD object types."

I tried that here until our company quality manager caught wind of it, whereupon I was directed to find some way to implement version control of schematics and PCB layouts even if it meant changing the way I normally manage Altium files.  "We didn't buy Windchill so you electricals could use it like Dropbox." 😊

[avillanueva]

The Creo View Adapter for Allegro and Design Capture CIS (ECAD tool we use) was about 3,100/yr. Its more than thumbnails. Enables your ECAD data to be viewable in Creo ECAD ($5420 approx floating seat) and interrogated outside of native ECAD tools. I believe it publishes to .eda files. You are able to bring up schematic, fabrication data and even 3D CAD if you publish via IDX into same session of Creo View, query/search, cross-probe items across the different designs. I think value lies outside of your group but check it out.

[avillanueva]

First off, welcome to the party and happy New Year! Looks like you are using WTDocuments to manage your ECAD designs and also using the Windchill Desktop Integration. This is an office plugin that allows Word, Excel, Powerpoint to have Windchill menus for each check in and out. It also can add menus to Windows Explorer to make browsing Windchill folders like Windows folders. This is controlled via your preferences (QuickLinks - My Settings - Preferences) in how it downloads content. When the desktop integration is chosen, it downloads those data.wcdti files which are read by the desktop integration. Think of them like a pointer or a handoff to a local client which does the actual download. There should be a local folder when they get downloaded to which is a mirror or local cache of data in Windchill.  If you are dealing with ECAD data, might be easier to switch to basic browser to interact with Altium.  This might spawn more questions but hope that handles first.

Second, yes I believe you can change how the data is viewed. If you right click on a product or library, this menu appears. Windchill Views are same as

Creating a new view is done in the folders page via the browser. Yes, filenames can be added as a column which will show the primary filename for that document object. When you return to the desktop integration in Windows explorer, your new view name should appear.

[jimolson]

For other newbies that are following this thread, I found among older PTC training documents this direct answer to my question about the loss of file extensions when listing files using Windows Explorer file manager:

This suggestion to reclaim the file extension by hovering over it with the mouse does in fact work.  However, simply clicking on this Windows File Explorer instance of the file doesn't bring up the schematic in Altium.  You must browse to the file using Altium's File>Open command.

I found the "clicking won't open it" matter to be unusual because clicking on a non-WC instance of the same schematic file stored elsewhere on my local hard disk will indeed open the file.  I "registered" the .schdoc file type with Windows 11.

This inset image spotlights a bad habit I must change to take full advantage of WC's version control features.  I must stop endowing my file names with creation dates and revision letters.

[avillanueva]

You also have auto-numbering turned on for WTDocuments and you are using numeric versioning. Ask your admins if that can be disabled to allow you to enter in the actual number for your schematic (drawing number). Yes, get rid of dates since that will automatically be captured by the system in iteration history. Right now, those show up as different objects when they should be together as one. Version would show H.x where x is number of updates or check ins. Number would show M1082? and name would be a nice drawing title. You have to think of managing objects not files when it comes to Windchill.  

[jimolson]

My thanks to you, avillanueva! 

This is the kind of advice I've been needing for weeks as management rode my behind on achieving quasi-integration between WC and Altium Design.  They bought WC on the assumption that it works with all CAD tools as well as it does with Creo.  I think I can come close to that goal with time and effort on the front end.

Our WC administrator is an ME who spends his work day designing plastic parts.  He will reasonably ask for PTC reading materials when I request (a) user-chosen file numbers and (b) version numbers that include alpha characters.   His pushback might be that those changes will disrupt procedures the MEs use.

Any suggestion where on PTC's website this kind of admin stuff is documented?

Another helpful change for us EEs would be to administratively modify this WC list of File  Attribute Types:

to include things like SCH, PCB, GBR, OBD++, and BOM.  Is the administrative change to accomplish this documented somewhere?

Thanks again for your help, and seasons greetings from frosty Indiana!

Jim Olson
Curative Sound LLC
Carmel, IN US

[jimolson]

avillanueva wrote:

"When the desktop integration is chosen, it downloads those data.wcdti files which are read by the desktop integration. Think of them like a pointer or a handoff to a local client which does the actual download."

This is a powerful comment that upends my understanding of how Desktop Integration works.  As a WC newbie I believed that when I click on a file name in the browser-based roster of files, the chosen file will be downloaded to my computer followed by Windows 11 opening the downloaded file using the ECAD tool I have mapped to the file type.

However, avillanueva writes that this is not the case.  When you click on a file name in the WC browser, a tiny 3k byte pointer file data.wcdti is downloaded to your computer--not the larger file you requested. 

Presumably some aspect of the WC plug-in for Windows has the ability to convert this tiny downloaded pointer file into the original WC file itself.

If you right click on the downloaded data.wcdti file in Windows File Explorer and chose open, only then does the heavy lifting of WC file downloading actually begin.  It appears that the heavy lifting is accomplished by code embodied in the WC plug-in. 

A second after choosing to open the data.wcdti file you're prompted for the local destination folder into which the complete, full-size file will be stored.

I'm sure there's a good reason for this two-step downloading procedure that is over my head as a PC board jockey.

[avillanueva · Accepted solution]

I hope this helps a bit. I have my local cache set to go to u:\Windchill pdmlink folder. There you will see a mirrored structure. Now, I can browse this folder and see my products, their folder structure and the actual files that I had opened.

Here is an example of a PDF I opened from some product in the Export Control Memo folder.

When I look at the DTI via "This PC" section, I am browsing virtualized folders directly from the server.

Notice when I go to that same relative location via Windchill Documents, I see this which is meta data about that same pdf file.

And here is showing a different "view" of that folder which I configured to show filenames.

Yes, by downloads folder is also cluttered with the wcdti files that I occasionally clear out.