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When you apply AutoNumbering, I agree with "
Regards, Hugo.
<< ProE WF5 - PDMLink 10.1 M040>>
I think you should consider one consistent approach to identify your articles, whether or not CADdocuments are involved, whatever system you use to create them.
Regards, Hugo.
<< ProE WF5 - PDMLink 10.1 M040>>
Tom
Our current policy is what you describe as your aim, and I’m thinking hard about moving away from that completely.
Our system is completely overrun with examples where the numbers don’t match and it’s really hard to police. You might have well behaved process obsessed users so it’s not such a problem in your case. Currently I cannot trust with enough certainty when looking at the Windchill part number that the describing CAD Doc number matches or the filename matches. As for whether the number displayed on the drawing is correct you have to trust your designers and your design process. Windchill cannot validate this.
If you really manage your BoMs in Windchill, the ultimate truth about which document describes which part is defined by relationships between objects not whether the numbers match. Matching numbers are very familiar and reassuring to users but sometimes they tell a lie.
We are also considering using different numbers for parts/items and documents. I would love to hear from others who have experience for or against this approach.
Auto number parts and CAD Docs = nothing to manually keep in sync. – see attached
To support this way of working I envisage some work on custom BoM reporting. If the download/view link for the describing document is right next to the part number, there is no requirement to know anything but the part number in order to get the drawing.
Our developer has created a very flexible utility for all types of bulk admin task. We create reports, expose them in Excel and then have a set of tools for performing actions on items in the report, such as renaming, deleting ACL, deleting and editing OIR rules etc.
Regards
Darren
Interesting scheme, Darren. Our situation (I don't have a nice picture yet), mostly driven from historical reasons:
Regards, Hugo.
<< ProE WF5 - PDMLink 10.1 M040>>
Hi Hugo, thanks for sharing.
I'm wondering if you have justifications for repeating the same information in multiple fields, or if it's just for historical reasons?The fields are there, most are required, so we have to fill them somehow.
Hugo, may I ask you and others?..
give proper document for this
I have written many versions of a rename/renumber script. Just a Java program that takes a list of object numbers and issues the reidentify method. We recently renumbered all of our CAD objects to a new standard. I have written it for WTPart and EPMDocuments which also has the filename or CADName to deal with. If you are working with EPMDocuments and alter the CADName (filename) and make that change at the database, the previous objects will not know what the new name is and be lost (like assemblies).
So if I'm reading this correctly, changing these directly in the database will break things but changing these via the 'reidentify' method will not break anything. Is this script something you are interested/willing to share?
Here is a snipit I used for changing name field. You can also change object number. But as I mentioned, CADName or filename is another method:
QuerySpec queryspec = new QuerySpec(EPMDocumentMaster.class);
/*queryspec.appendWhere(new SearchCondition(EPMDocumentMaster.class,EPMDocumentMaster.NUMBER,SearchCondition.EQUAL,number.toUpperCase()+".prt"));
QueryResult result=PersistenceHelper.manager.find(queryspec);
if (result.size()==1)
{
prj.logger.info("Found master of " + number);
EPMDocumentMaster master=(EPMDocumentMaster)result.nextElement();
IdentificationObject identificationobject = ((Identified)master).getIdentificationObject();
EPMDocumentMasterIdentity identity=(EPMDocumentMasterIdentity)identificationobject;
identity.setName(name);
IdentityHelper.service.changeIdentity((Identified)master,identity);
prj.logger.info("Identity Changed");
Do you know how to write Java programs to run against PDMLink?
Do you know how to write Java programs to run against PDMLink?
Nope. I've modified and recompiled a few class files provided by PTC (afterloader hook, etc.) but I've never written one from scratch.