Reuse Issue

[ptc-2268933]

This is partly WC, partly AE, but I thought to try here first.

We are in a unique situation of trying to build a database in our WC using XML files from our parent company's WC system. They zip the files from a book and send them to us, complete with graphics and XML documents. Their documents in the attribute listing already have iterations and revisions (not in the file, but in the attributes for some reason), and when we burst them to WC they start over as A.1 Minor bugs, but this is ok at the moment.

If they send us a revision to the book, including the entire book again, how can we best distinguish revisions without having to check each original document's revision level against the new zipped files? Our WC will read A.1, and their's can read C.1, D.3, etc.

We are working at trying to come up with a solution, but at the moment we are stumped. We did try creating a burst metadata rule to show the revision in WC, but were unsuccessful.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Also, we are using WC PDMLink 9.1 and AE 5.4 M100.

Thank you

[AL_ANDERSON]

Use a modified document loader to load the Revision at the desired
revision level, and when you load an update, modify your loader to load an
iteration of an existing revision at the desired revision level, but
include a "check in comment" indicating why it was updated (i.e. date, zip
file name, whatever).

For example, if the customer sends a zip with

123 Rev A
456 Rev D
789 Rev F

Then you load

123 Rev A.1
456 Rev D.1
789 Rev F.1

If you then get a new zip file with

123 Rev A
456 Rev D
456 Rev E
789 Rev F

Then you load

123 Rev A.2 (with a check in comment)
456 Rev D.2 (with a check in comment)
456 Rev E.1
789 Rev F.2 (with a check in comment)

etc.

Now you get the numbers at the correct number, the revisions at the
correct revision, and an iteration history of each revision indicating why
and when it changed after its initial load.

You would have to write a loader based on an out of the box document
loader, but this is not a difficult programming job for a decent windchill
developer.

Al Anderson

[ptc-2268933]

Thank you, I will have to test these ideas and see where it takes me. I'm not sure the replication server idea will work at this point, because our parent company will not share a windchill database.