Urgently Need Help on FRACAS Data Migration

[rkumarbanerjee]

A single Report in Windchill FRACAS may have multiple attachments. Attachments are stored on the Windchill Quality Solutions Server in the attachments folder in the installation directory. If the defaults were selected during installation, the path is C:\Program Files\PTC\WindchillQuality Solutions 10.1\Windchill Quality Solutions\Attachments. The files stored in this

folder are assigned randomly generated names when they are uploaded.

We are migrating FRACAS Data from a legacy system to Windchill and facing the problem on how to map old/historical files in Windchill FRACAS. Our old files are named with Incident Number which are available in Windchill FRACAS too. So for Example: If we have an Incident number as ANQTP and if it has 2 Attachments, then Attachments are named as "ANQTP_1.xls" and "ANQTP_2.pptx".

Please suggest how we can do this mapping . Appreciate your quick answer on it. This is urgent.

[mgupta-2]

Dear Rajib

Before I suggest something, could you please advise how are you migrating the data ? I mean what tool/framework are you using  ?

Regards

Mahesh Gupta

[rkumarbanerjee]

Hi Mahesh,

Our Legacy FRACAS system is running on Oracle 8 and files were attached in BLOB format. Initially we thought we could convert those back to files and then in  Windchill FRACAS we can just place those files in File Server after updating the File Path for each incident. Our thought process was found completely wrong when we did deep analysis on how Files are stored in Windchill Fracas. We found the path where files (attachments) are getting saved in Windchill FRACAS and that is C:\Program Files\PTC\WindchillQuality Solutions 10.1\Windchill Quality Solutions\Attachments. But files/attachments are stored in CLOB or some binary format. We can access the DB through SQL Developer and can see the Attachment table. We are very new to Windchill and that's why we had no clue at the initial.

We are not using any tool or framework , actually we don't know if any tool is there in Windchill which can help on this.

Now what we are planning is to get access to the Legacy system's DB  and from backend if we can do anything.

if you can share / suggest anything would be great help!  We have already migrated all Incident Records with other data in Windchill FRACAS. Only thing pending is to attach those old Attachments with their respective Incident Number.

Thanks,

Rajib

[mgupta-2]

Dear Rajib

If I understand correctly, here is what you need to do. If my understanding is not correct, please share more details so that I can point you the right steps.

1. Extract/Export all your legacy data from Oracle 8 and have it downloaded to some common location. You may to talk to your DBA/developers to do this.
2. WQS has a capability to import the data from system. Use Template functionality where you can define the mapping and use the same template for all your data load.
3. You also have an option to schedule an import job in WQS which would read all your data to load on WQS.

Let me know how it goes..

Regards

Mahesh Gupta

[rkumarbanerjee]

Dear Mahesh,

On the Incident Form ( from Incident Table), we have placed "Attachment" option . In this table we have the Attachment column but when we are using Import Wizard, this column is not showing but all other showing.

Actually from the source DB we have converted BLOB to Files for attachments and saved in a location. Windchill is not storing any data in Incident::Attachment. All it is doing is posting the file to C:/Program Files....../Attachments folder and renaming the file with some fixed length random number but keeping the original name in another column safely. In Incident table , just updating (appending ) the Attachment IDs.

We are now trying to build an automation with help of Java which will read the files, keep the original files name safe and rename it with fixed length random number and then place the file in Attachments folder in server. Will see if we can do this automation and can get something better.

Do you have any other thought. Appreciate your time and help.

Thanks,

Rajib