What is an IBA?

[jfrancis]

Can someone recommend some reading material about IBA

[ShirishMorkhade]

Hi Joseph Francis‌,

IBA stands for Instance Based Attributes. As its name indicates, they are Instance based.

By mean of Instance based - they are defined on particular object type (WTPart, WTDocument, etc). For example if you look at Name, Number, they are available for all object types. We call them as Modelled objects.

Instead, IBA can be defined on either WTPart, WTDocument, etc.. they are specific for those types. Additionally, you can also define IBA for soft types too. It means you can define attribute say IBA_1 specific to soft type to softtype_1.

I hope this helps you.

Regards,

Shirish

[cgorni · Accepted solution]

As indicated by Shirish in another reply, IBA stands for Instance Based Attribute.

Since Windchill 10.0, and the addition of other options for attributes, they are called Global attributes, see Help Center here.

The Help Center is also a good starting point to gather more information on such Attributes and how to create them, here for Windchill 12.1

The article CS357203 collects different resources on Types and Attributes and could be an interesting next step.

[Herve_Mercier]

Hi,

Global attribute are bugged, you can't search based on them and PTC don't plan to fix this.

Don't base your PLM architecture on that :

https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS373513?source=search

[HelesicPetr]

Hi @Herve_Mercier 

I would like to see example what advanced search do not return if IBA is used as a criteria.

PetrH

[Herve_Mercier]

Hi,

Ticket opened (16940270)

Attribute type created as reusable attribute

enumeration used by the attribute

the attribute definition on the doc type :

The search that give 51 results :

A report provide more than 1700 document with this value.

Have a nice day

[HelesicPetr]

Hi @Herve_Mercier 

Thank you for the example, so if the IBA is enumerated, then there is a case with results. 

I always use the IBA attributes to search and it works as I expect.

PetrH

[buenosroas]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, and for providing a detailed example. I don't think there are many Windchill implementations out there in the wild that does not make use of Global Attributes/Reusable Attributes/IBAs, and I find it rather baffling that PTC has no plans to fix it in the near future. The search capabilities in Windchill is one of its many touted selling points. At least the conclusion wasn't that it's "working according to spec", but I think that this is an arrogant approach from PTC nevertheless. 

I will try to reproduce this in our own environments to see if I can get the same results, and if so I also will raise a case on this. I think that PTC could do with a little community pressure if this really is a widespread problem. 

[buenosroas]

In light of reproducing the issue:

Do you search with or without Indexing/Solr? If you do, may I presume that you have performed a full reindexing? 

Do you see the same behaviour regardless of searching for an enumerated IBA or not? 

I note that our system does not make use of our own global enumerations. Our attributes that are made using Reusable Attributes have the Legal Value List or Enumerated Value List constraints instead. 

I will regardless try to reproduce and see the results for myself. 

[Herve_Mercier]

I have SolR but SolR is not used with advanced search if I'm correct.

And if I use the indexed search, I obtain more than 2000 results for "SSForm Drawing" (it include PDF indexed and other)

What do you mean by "enumerated IBA" ? a value list entered manually and not linked to a global enumeration list ?

For your info, I'm on WC 11.1 M20 CP30

[buenosroas]

Yes, you are correct. I was thinking about keyword search, so ignore my question about reindexing. 

Enumerated IBA: In your example you have created a Global Enumeratation and then used that to represent the available choices.

We have a similar setup, but instead of linking to a Global Enumeration we have added the possible options directly.

On creating an Enumerated Value List constraint you may either make use of a Global Enumeration or make a new one directly. Our system uses the latter, so I do not have a vast amount of objects I may search for under identical circumstances. I'll try to test it out regardless.

[HelesicPetr]

@Herve_Mercier 

I would suggest to test if the IBA value is searchable without the Enumeration definition. So you will search the key value. 

If the results are expected then the case is connected with enumerations. 

PetrH

[Herve_Mercier]

Hi all,

Thanks for the help, it looks like changing the type of enumeration change the serach behavior !

here is the only change I made :

The result with the same search as the previous one :

I wonder if it's linked to the migration made of this type of document and if only the document modified since the migration are displayed by the search ...

Whatever I have a solution thanks to you all, I will apply it on production server now, because I only have this attribute that use this enumeration list today, it won't be a big issue.

Thanks for your time folks !!!!

Have a nice day