Pick a user as a Problem Report creator

[Ben_A]

I need a way to edit a problem report and pick a user (from an intelligent search UI) to apply to the Creator Role, replacing whoever is there, or at least updating a separate attribute. We have people on the shop floor that don't have the authority, training, or computer to create their own PRs, so a manager often creates it for them. However, when questions arise, we need to know who identified the problem originally. The PR currently has an attribute (string) to capture who identified the problem but names can be entered in a variety of ways (first last, last first, first.last, using initials, using nicknames, etc). Because of this, generating reports that identify specific individuals doesn't work as there could be any number of different Jon Doe's all indicating the same person. Being able to pick their name (from an intelligent search UI) instead of manually typing it would ensure consistency in the data.

I've looked at what a custom DataUtitlity would evolve, and would prefer not to go down the custom path. my company wants to avoid Windchill customization as much as possible and CM rejects most proposals.

[avillanueva · Accepted solution]

Tough box to be in without customization. Yes, the requester attribute is what you are looking to enhance and yes a data utility would make most sense to turn that into a dynamic drop down. That would then need to interface with a true source of people like Active Directory to provide you names to pick from. 

The only "non-customization" way would be a constraint on that attribute which contained a legal list of people. If it was a small and relatively unchanging group of people, you could enter their names into that list and it would allow you to pick them.  I see that as not a work able solution as you would be updating that list often. If you have a large group of people, list would also get very long but its not customization. Good thing is that if you did this weekly, that's only 52 times a year to update and you would need just to generate a string of names that is pipe delimited;

Tom|Richard|Harry

next week:

Tom|Richard|Harry|Manny|Moe|Jack

copy and paste into the conditional.