Windchill 10 - Versions and Iterations?

[Bob1]

Hi. We are just about to move up from Intralink 3.4 to Windchill 10.0. So far, only the Design Engineers have seen Intralink. Every drawing created in Pro/E for the last dozen years has been exported as an Autocad file or pdf. But now with Windchill, we will be opening up the system to many more people in the company.

One issue that has been raised is the Revision-Verison-Iteration scheme. Intralink always had Revisions and Versions, but people outside of Intralink only saw the Revision on the drawing. Nobody ever saw the version. In other words, they saw 'B', not 'B.5', or whatever.

But in Windchill, everything seems to show 'B.5'. Some folks here are worried that people will be confused at seeing this extra iteration information that nobody has seen before. Also, People are worried that if we share files in Windchill with vendors, that there might be some confusion over drawings that show 'B' but Windchill pages that show 'B.5'.

So my questions is: Is it possible to hide the Iteration information? Maybe on a Role basis. The Design Engineers understand what the '.5' means, so they should still be able to see it. But nobody else cares what the iteration is, so is there a way to hide it from everyone else?

Thanks!

[ptc-3978723]

We have recently started with windchill 10.0. You're right you can use roles to limit when someone sees a drawing. I assume your current drawing format has the iteration on it when it is released/published or whatever phrase your company uses when it distributes vetted data. Changing your drawing format if possible would fix it. The iteration still appears on the details page under "general". Because so much was new for us, I developed a users guide as a reference to help people understand everything they are looking at. I used screen shots, then made reference to specific information. This was helpful, additionally, I encouraged users when they learned something useful to share it, I've incorporated those tidbits into the guide and published an update. Hope this is helpful.

[ptc-3978723]

We have recently started with windchill 10.0. You're right you can use roles to limit when someone sees a drawing. I assume your current drawing format has the iteration on it when it is released/published or whatever phrase your company uses when it distributes vetted data. Changing your drawing format if possible would fix it. The iteration still appears on the details page under "general". Because so much was new for us, I developed a users guide as a reference to help people understand everything they are looking at. I used screen shots, then made reference to specific information. This was helpful, additionally, I encouraged users when they learned something useful to share it, I've incorporated those tidbits into the guide and published an update. Hope this is helpful.

[MatthewKnight]

Similar thread here (http://communities.ptc.com/message/167752#167752)

Your file would probably be netmarkets/jsp/part/attributes.jsp

[Bob1]

Thanks! That other thread certainly seems to deal with the same issue. I don't know enough about Windchill yet to start messing with data utilities, but at least now I know what I need to learn more about...

[JeffZemsky]

Some notes here on this topic -

• There is no reason the Pro/Engineer drawing needs to show the iteration at all. The mechanism to show revision or revision/iteration is no different than in Intralink 3.x
• If you start playing with the data utility you run the risk of giving your users some very confusing results. For example
  • If they do an all version serarch you will see a list with B.1, B.2, B.3, B
  • Depending upon the configuration specification used to return a CAD or Part structure you will see mixed revision or revision/iteraion (and this might not work for many UIs)
  • Inconsistent results in reports
• Intralink 3.x also showed revision / iteration so this is not a new concept - example -

[Bob1]

Thanks for the reply. I do realize that the drawing doesn't need to show the iteration. And I know that Intralink 3.4 already showed Revision and Version.

But the information in Intralink was only seen by the Deisgn Engineers here. Everyone else downstream (manufacturing, marketing, vendors, etc) only saw exported pdf copies of the drawings. So they only saw the Revision. The plan is that once we get Windchill 10.0 up and running, we will open it up to many people beyond Design Engineering. And some folks are concerned that these new people will be confused by seeing 'B.5', for example. Especially if the drawing still just says 'B'. We have guys on our shop floor who have been working off drawings for 10 or 20 years or more, and they've never seen anything besides a letter there.

Based on the other thread linked above, it seems as though we aren't the only company that is worried about something like this. And the answer there indicated that some sort of fix is possible. I guess my question now to everyone is whether, in your experience, people who use Windchill besides Engineers understand how revisions, versions, and interations work. In other words, is it better for us to attempt to play with the data utility to keep information in a format that people are used to, or is it better to tell everyone that this is the way it is now and that they'd better learn how to use it? This includes shop floor workers, marketing execs, suppliers in China or elsewhere, etc. Thanks!