What is CAD document life, right from user checking it in until it gets accessed back by other user.

[SModugu]

I am a System admin and would like to understand how a CAD document goes through the various parts of windchill, right from its creation and checking it in to windchill until it gets accessed by other users.

what are the Agents involved in making this CAD doc life cycle. I just need a simple crisp steps that it crosses inlcuding Q mngmnt,WVS, CAD workers and other. if any.

[avillanueva · Accepted solution]

At high level, this is what occurs. Beyond this, I would suggest diving into the PTC University courses as fast as possible to backfill your Windchill knowledge.

CAD files are saved to a workspace which is a structured folder on the user's system (meta data and obfuscated files). There is a "workspace" object on the server side. Before a check in starts, CAD files are uploaded and placed in a CAD Document object in that workspace or the users personal area. No one else but admins can see them. The files would normally be stored to the default cache vault as a temporary landing location. During the check in step, the object status on the server is updated to be visible to others and moved into a Library or Product area "folder". This files that are associated with this CAD Document are then moved from the default cache vault to the main vault depending on the vaulting rules of the Product or Library. The Database keeps track of where those files are.

Depending on your WVS rules, on check in, a visualization job is kicked off to a CAD Worker. They typically operate like normal users. They open Creo, download the files to a workspace and publish content for Creo View. That data is packed up and sent back to the server. More visualization objects are created, linked to the CAD Document and the published content, guess what, is stored to the vaults. 

[KeithKarain]

Hey avillanueva - 

My name is Keith Karain, and I am a Senior Instructional Designer with PTCU. 

This is a very good description, so kudos for that. For SModuga, I agree that attending some PTCU Windchill courses would be an excellent way to backfill WC knowledge. Here is a link to the WC training catalog for everyone in this conversation - https://www.ptc.com/-/media/ptc-university/curriculum/windchill/ptc-university-windchill-curriculum-en.pdf

I suggest the Business Administration courses will deal with the questions SModuga might have about what happens to a business object over its WC life. 

Also, to echo BenLoosli below, I also have been working with WC for over 20 years, and there are things I still have to look up/research/test before implementation. That's okay, because WC is a very large, mission critical application that manages product data from design all the way through to service. You can be an expert in design and never know what happens in manufacturing, or be an expert in service and never know what happens in design. However, understanding how the digital thread is managed by WC is important, as what you learn in service can refine the design process, for example. PTCU courses help enable that understanding. 

[BenLoosli]

That is a lot to understand! I have been using Windchill/PDMLink for almost 20 years and still don't understand it all.

LifeCycles control the state of an object (CAD Document, Word Document, WTpart, etc.) in Windchill. When we create a new object at revision A, it is set to the Design state. The user finishes their work on the object and creates a Promotion Request to send the object for review and if approved, the state changes to the next level. In our system this next state limits what actions a user may perform on the object. If the need to make a change, the do a Revise in Windchill and that will change the state back to one that the users have rights to modify the object.

We have the system set so an object is published by the WVS whenever it is checked-in to Windchill.