Search for associated items within 1 document

[MSC12]

Is there a way to link multiple non-existant model numbers to a single document?

For example, our company has a lot of items that are similar so instead of having a drawing for each assembly or part when theres only 1 difference, we put reference dimensions on the drawings and have a chart on the drawing with all the actual items relating to that drawing:

Document is called 38xx.drw

This contains 1 drawing with a chart to the following items:

3801

3802

3803

.

.

.

3809

Is there a way in Windchill that I can somehow attach the item numbes 3801-3809 (which don't have their own models or drawings) to the document 38xx so when I search for say 3801, the 38xx document will appear in the search.

[MSC12]

Anyone? Can Windchill search within excel attachments to accomplish this? So if I were to list all the item numbers within a document in a seperate excel file and just attach that to the example 38xx document?

[MikeLockwood]

Windchill can include full text search if indexing is installed on the server and a one-time bulk indexing process is executed on the server, then all new content indexed as it is added to the system.

Full text indexing in place utilizes the "keyword" field on the Advanced Search, which is populated by the simple search single field in the upper right. Therei is a global preference to utilize full text search and each user can set their own preference.

Full text search is a great capability but has some quirks. Careful about turning it on via Site preference globally - users will all of a sudden get hundreds of results in place of a few.

[MSC12]

Do you have a link that explains how to do this?

Would this work for PDF files? Thats actually more along the lines of what we need to point the searches to.

[ChrisSpartz]

Here's a link to the Index Search Overview topic in the Windchill Help Center:

http://support.ptc.com/cs/help/windchill_hc/wc102_hc/index.jspx?id=WCSysAdminIndexSearchOview&action=show

Take a look at that as well as the other Topics under the "Windchill Search Administration" topic for the documentation on full text search.

You'll need to install the Windchill Index Search module to use full text search. Then, you'll need to run the Bulk Indexing Tool to actually index your indexable content files. And yes, both PDF and Excel files are indexable.

[MSC12]

I have three questions.

After looking into what you suggested and a few more documents, I was able to figure a few things out for Indexing. I looked at my list of indexable files and the list is so long that the Windchill Shell won't let me scroll to the very beginning. Is there a way to disable all of these at once and only enable the ones I want to index? I know you can set them individually but since I don't know all of the file extensions can they all be set to disabled at once?

Second question I have is how can I index a single file? I'd like to test out this indexing to make sure that it works and I don't want to do the bulk indexing feature to find out that there was an error and have to redo them. Do the documents enabled for indexing automatically get indexed when they are checked in or uploaded to Windchill as long as wt.index.enable=True?

How can you know for sure that Index Search is installed? I am assuming that since I have been able to find the list of indexable files that it is installed and the wt.properties file shows wt.index.enable (was originally set to false).

[MSC12]

Where can I locate Windchill Index Searching (solr) to download and install to make sure it gets properly setup?

[MikeLockwood]

On PTC downloads under Windchill PDMLink it's listed as Windchill Index Search. As of 10.x, it's SOLR (Microsoft).

• Once installed to Windchill there are multiple "solr" folders.
• Execute bulk indexing from a Windchill shell.
• Multiple additional queues appear.
• Database table INDEXSTATUS gets populated.

I wish there was a simple toggle in the Search UI's to utilize index search or not, but users have to change a preference.

[MSC12]

Does this work for Windchill PDM Essentials or is it only available with PDMLink?

[MikeLockwood]

Not yet familiar with PDM Essentials but doesn't sound promising. Does PDM Essentials allow installing software, running commands, etc?

[MSC12]

To my knowledge, yes. I am able to open a Windchill Shell to change properties and there is downloadable software in Windchill (such as Desktop Intergration).

[MikeLockwood]

Ok, should be able to use this.

How to execute bulk indexing is documented by PTC about 40 times in various PDF's and on line help pages, but I didn't find a whole usable procedure in any of those. I can help you if you want on this on a web session:

-

[MSC12]

So come to find out PDM Essentials doesn't support indexing. I was directed to insert the item numbers associated with a document as an attribute and search for the item numbers that way.

Is there a guide to adding a new attribute? Everytime I go to add a custom attribute I get an error saying I have to use the AddColumn utility.

Also, how can I add a new attribute to the search criteria?

Thanks for everyone's help so far.

[MSC12]

This is the error I am getting when I try to add a new attribute

[MSC12]

Nevermind, I figured out how to add global attributes. Incase anyone has this issue in the future, here is a video that goes over it quite well.

http://root-videos.com/Creating-Global-Attributes-WF5-101_v974

[SvenVanDroogenb]

You should create a WTPart for each model and associate it to the drawing.