Solidworks Revision Table Link to Windchill

[DK_10562712]

Hello,

I am trying to investigate if there is a way to link the Solidworks Revision Table with the Windchill Revision and data. 

So basically, when i enter the revision information on solidworks custom properties tab, it should update the revision table in solidworks drawing automatically. 

the revision version itself should be linked to windchill version. 

This makes a lot of things automatic and saves me typing/ doing the tasks twice and its a more cleaner option. 

Is this possible in windchill? i know i have done this with Solidworks EPDM system but not sure how or if we can do it on windchill. 

Any help much appreciated. 

Thankyou, 

[avillanueva]

I would reverse it. There should be attributes pushed down to the Solidworks file from Windchill that give you the Windchill revision of the object. When you revise in Windchill, it would update in the Solidworks file.  Sounds like you are keeping a table of revision history (running list of revisions, dates, changes, etc). Typically, the current revision appears somewhere else like lower right of drawing. That should be drive by Windchill which would automate things for you. As far as the running table, I cannot see a way to link that unless you create some kind of macro. As an aside, we ditched the running revision table in place of a simple block pointing to last change notice. Full history would be found in Windchill and avoids having to manually renter this data again on field of drawing. 

[DK_10562712]

yes the revision currently is in the bottom right corner and it is driven by windchill script. 

it was mainly to do with the revision history table. but i understand that this is not straightforward to do. we could have a single line as you suggest which we thought about but we wanted to have the history on the drawing so it would be visible to production staff and they would not rely on drawing office for that. 

as a stop gap solution, i am now just using a manual version of the revision table that is readily available in solidworks which is an improvement to what we have today. 

thankyou for your help. 

[avillanueva]

Sample:

Lifecycle also is linked and republished on state change.

you good on this question?

[DK_10562712]

sorry i am a bit confused, are you saying we can get the revision table linked to windchill? below is what i have currently have and i am trying to link all these fields from windchill. i was trying to get a contact at ptc to see if they can quote me to do the work but i was unable to get any replies from the contact page on their website. 

[avillanueva]

"Linked" is not likely. The only way to pass data like this is via an attribute on the CAD Document. Since you have multiple rev, changes numbers, dates, it would be a non-static set of attributes. It is possible to create a report in Windchill which can construct this table based on change notices and which revision was released on what and their dates. This report would need to be downloaded, converted to a drawing table, and swapped out with what you have shown. This can be accomplished with some macros and VBA coding but the process would be more of a refresh process. It would take a few keystrokes, logging in again (for Excel VBA), processing data, converting to table and, table swap. I doubt this is something PTC would be interested to work on.

Since all the data in Windchill that appears on this report, we opted to remove it instead of recopying it.  Leaving the last CN number was enough for those reading the drawing to pull the thread if they wanted to walk the history. We also have a report that takes in a drawing number and outputs a table in Windchill almost identical to what you have on the drawing. The trade here was saving the designers time to maintain, checkers time to check, real estate on field of the drawing against the lookup time of someone who needed the true data in this table. 

[Chris3]

Some companies have solved this issue by having a Windchill side report that produces a PDF that get appended to the drawing output. A coversheet if you will and then all of that information gets removed from the drawing.

[Chris3]

I think you want to upvote this idea:

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Windchill-Ideas/Add-Windchill-parameters-for-latest-change-number-and-where-used/idi-p/470362 

[avillanueva]

I would but its from 2015. Chances of getting that from PTC are nil. As for ASME Y14.35, is required the right word or "suggested". In the days of paper drawing, a lot of information was crammed on to the drawing. A good example is Where used, qty. etc. That stuff can change at anytime outside the drawing release and is best managed in the PLM system. We've been slowly removing this data from the drawing which simplifies creation and yields more accurate data. 

[DK_10562712 · Accepted solution]

thankyou all for your help. I think i realise its not a straightforward solution that i can do in half hour. this is what i wanted to know and i can feed this back to my team and take it from there.