My question is, is there a method with Windchill 9.X to re-link the correct models/filenames to assemblies and drawings?
Background:
I'm working on a project that transitioned from folders to Windchill. While at the folder stage, various assemblies were siloed, but so were sub assemblies and piece parts. As time went on they renamed parts and some subassemblies, some with related drawings in memory, mostly not, but because they were siloed, this resulted in multiple names for essentially identical models. It also results in a patchwork of versions, where an individual part can appear 20-30 times at different suffix numbers and save dates and renames. Model tree - meet wood chipper.
As a further challenge there is a project to upgrade the resulting documentation that has caused further Creo-level Save-As activity, further splintering the models.
I don't care to reassemble hundreds to thousands of parts when the internal features are unchanged. Attempts by the upgrade group has seen assembly features go undefined (lots of lost references to section and set datums.)
In the Windchill PDMlink User Guide I see a reference to a Save-As option to allow unrelated replacement, but it says that it is off by default to prevent breaking assemblies. What the Save-As preference setting doesn't say is where this replacement can take place and how it is used. I suspect the problem could be readily solved with database level table edits, but that's not going to happen.
One thing I have noticed: Assemblies don't care as much about the contents of subassemblies as drawings do. For example, If I have an assembly A that uses subassembly B, and there are two versions of B, one that uses B-1x detail parts and one that uses B-2x detail parts, the top assembly doesn't seem to notice. Items assembled to B-1xs will still be constrained to B-2xs if the B-2x was created by Save-As. The drawing seems to drop detail references as it seems to tie leaders directly to the component name, not to a reference to the component ID chain.
As an example of the trouble this can cause - the top level, A. was pulled from it's silo along with all the other parts and subassemblies that go into it before the drawing of B subassembly with all its detail parts and subassemblies, detailed parts renamed in the subassembly silo. Now the detailed parts on the B assembly drawing have different names than are seen in the assembly that uses them. Symbolic version: Drawing of B assembly originally used B-1x parts. This was renamed in its silo to use B-2x parts. Assembly A was pulled from it's silo where it was still using B->B1x parts. Drawing of B was then pulled from its own silo, so it now shows a B assembly which uses B-1x parts and has B-2x detailed items. This means that changes to the detailed parts don't show up on the assembly unless the work is doubled.
