In the QMS module the Nonconformance has a couple of trees it can work with.  I'm looking to use the Quality Classification Tree in the WTVariance object.  I was hoping it'd be as simple as setting the constraint, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  In Nonconformance the ncCategoryCode has the following constraint... And selecting a classification from the picker populate not only the ncCategoryCode but also the ncCategoryPath. This seems to be the solution that the makers of QMS came up with for Cascading Dropdowns...       How could a guy extend this functionality to other form objects such as WTVariance? ... View more

The problem: I need some task instructions that are robust enough to require multi tiered list but not so robust that they require a whole other document.   The solution: Indented lists in the Task.   OOTB the tasks in Windchill look similar to the following... You have been assigned a task for the change notice. 1. Review the object displayed. 2. Complete the work required. 3. Enter comments in the Comments text field below. 4. Click Complete Task to advance the change activity. You have been selected as a Evaluator of the Nonconformance. To complete the task:- &nbsp; a. Add comments(Optional) and save the task. If no comments are required, skip this step. &nbsp; b. Click on the <b>Task Action</b> and identify the Business Impact. &nbsp; c. Determine if <b>Further Investigation</b> is required. &nbsp; d. Determine if <b>Disposition</b> needs to be performed for the Nonconformance. &nbsp; e. Click <b>Complete Task</b> to advance the workflow or click <b>Save</b> to advance it at a later time. Which generate ok looking tasks as long as they are single level.  But, without being able to use tabs, you are are reliant on spaces and &nbsp; characters to create these tabbed lists.   I want to use HTML lists to create a better experience for my users and have succesfully done so.  Here is that code: A variance requires your attention. <ol type="1"><li>Review the variance details. <li>Review the identified variance objects. <li>Determine potential changes. <ul><li>"Change in Glovia Required" <dl><dt>Select this option if a change to Glovia information is required such as temporary BOM changes. This selection requires that the Production Scheduler role has at least one participant.</dl> <li>"Change in Windchill Required" <dl><dt>Select this option if the product should be revised in Windchill to include changes implemented by this variance. If this seleciton IS NOT selected, then the Observer role needs at least one participant.</dl></ul> <li>Determine the appropriate route. <ul><li>"Clarify" <dl><dt>This sends the variance back to the author for additional information. Anything typed into the Comments field will be sent along.</dl> <li>"Send to Approvers" <dl><dt>Select this option for high impact variances that require voting by each Variance Approver. This item requires that the Variance Approvers role has at least one participant.</dl> <li>"Approve" <dl><dt>Select this option to approve low impact or documentation-only variances.</dl> <li>"Reject" <dl><dt>Select this option to reject low impact or documentation-only variances.</dl></ul> <li>Enter comments in the Comments text field below. <li>Click Complete Task to advance the variance.</ol> The quirks that I ran into exist, I assume, because this field (instructions field in the activities tab of the work item) is meant for plain string input with some html formatting such as <b></b> for bold. Quirks: A return after a list declaration will result in a blank list item.  Start your first list item immediately after starting the list block. Completing a list item <li> with it's </li> will result in a blank list item following your actual list item. No idea why this happens, but simply do not use </li> </dt> or </dd> tags. Each list block <ul> <ol> or <dl> must be terminated. Despite the above behavior for list items, the lists themselves must be termated with their </ul> </ol> or </dl> tags. I hope this information helps others out there as it took a bit of discovery on my end.   ... View more

One of my first projects in Windchill was to implement Nonconformance.  Being new to Windchill I was relunctant to make many changes to the out-of-the-box implementation.   While walking my clients through the process of Nonconformance I was consistently being asked the generic question of "Why can't I see that information in my task?  Why do I need to dig into the Nonconformance to see the information I need?" and I couldn't give them a good answer.  I did what I could but the best I could do was use the PersistableAdapter api to get information stored in the Nonconformance itself.  For example... com.ptc.qualitymanagement.nc.Nonconformance mine = (com.ptc.qualitymanagement.nc.Nonconformance)primaryBusinessObject; com.ptc.core.lwc.server.PersistableAdapter obj = new com.ptc.core.lwc.server.PersistableAdapter(mine,null,null,null); obj.load("dateFileOpened", "number", "name","description","OBSERVATION","ncKey","requester"); java.text.DateFormat df = java.text.DateFormat.getDateInstance(java.text.DateFormat.MEDIUM); java.sql.Timestamp tempDate = (java.sql.Timestamp)obj.get("dateFileOpened"); java.util.Date dateVar = new java.util.Date(tempDate.getTime()); dateNcCreated = (java.util.Date)obj.get("dateFileOpened"); ncNumber = (String)obj.get("number"); ncName = obj.get("name").toString(); ncDescription = (String)obj.get("description"); ncObservation = (String)obj.get("OBSERVATION"); ncKey = (String)obj.get("ncKey"); requester = obj.get("requester").toString(); container = (String)((com.ptc.qualitymanagement.nc.Nonconformance)primaryBusinessObject).getContainer().getName(); Early in the implementation, this was the best I could do.   One of the latest requests I have had in the Nonconformance implementation was to get a list of the Immediate Actions taken for each part of a Nonconformance presented in the Nonconformance Disposition task.   I first started looking at the out-of-the-box Nonconformance reports to get an understanding of the object family structure.  That led me to trying to find the APIs for Nonconformance, didn't find any as there are no such supported APIs documented in JavaDoc.  If I have a report, then I'm getting the information I need.  How does the report present the information?  Can I use the report itself?  My initial path was to get the URL of the report itself and parse the response for the data I needed... what a mess (and points to just how new to this stuff I am).  Then I found ReportTemplateHelper.generateTableModel().  This was my ah-ha moment.  I can build a report template that has all the information I need for a task, a notification, a custom jsp, and generate a TableModel then parse it like a 2 dimension array and display its contents.   So, here's how I do it...  First I need to generate the TableModel.  To do this I use the following method found in ReportTemplateHelper.   Here is the code... package ext.daktronics; import java.net.*; import java.io.*; import wt.query.*; import wt.query.template.*; import wt.fc.QueryResult; import java.util.HashMap; import wt.util.WTException; import wt.pds.StatementSpec; import wt.session.*; import javax.swing.table.*; import wt.query.template.ReportTemplateHelper; import java.util.Hashtable; public class Reporting { public static TableModel getReportTableModel(String reportName, HashMap<String,String> hashmap) { TableModel reportData = null; try { QuerySpec qspec = new QuerySpec(ReportTemplate.class); qspec.appendWhere(new SearchCondition(ReportTemplate.class, wt.query.template.ReportTemplate.NAME, wt.query.SearchCondition.EQUAL, reportName), null); QueryResult reportQuery = wt.fc.PersistenceHelper.manager.find((StatementSpec)qspec); if (reportQuery.hasMoreElements()) { ReportTemplate report = (ReportTemplate)reportQuery.nextElement(); if (hashmap == null) { hashmap = new HashMap<String, String>(); } hashmap.put("action", "ExecuteReport"); hashmap.put("format","formatCustom"); hashmap.put("xsl1","templates/reports/simpleHtmlFormat.xsl"); hashmap.put("oid",report.toString()); Hashtable<String, String> hashtable = new Hashtable<String, String>(); hashtable.putAll(hashmap); reportData = ReportTemplateHelper.generateTableModel(report, hashtable, null, false); } } catch (QueryException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } catch (WTException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } return reportData; } public static TableModel getReportTableModel(String reportName) { return getReportTableModel(reportName,null); } }   Now that I have the TableModel, I can parse it.  In an expression bot in the workflow where I parse the information and create an in-line report layout in a workflow process level string variable... HashMap hashmap = new HashMap(); hashmap.put("NC Number",ncNumber); javax.swing.table.TableModel reportData = ext.daktronics.Reporting.getReportTableModel("Immediate Actions for NC", hashmap); int numCol = reportData.getColumnCount(); int numRow = reportData.getRowCount(); for (int i = 0; i < numRow; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < numCol; j++) { if (reportData.getValueAt(i,j) != null) { immediateActions += reportData.getColumnName(j) + ":&nbsp;" + reportData.getValueAt(i,j).toString() + "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"; } } immediateActions += "\n"; } And the result looks something like...   I have used this method for independent jsp implementations (such has having a printable Nonconformance without having cognos), email notifications that include a list of affected objects and related people and places, and workflow tasks.   I am still new to the Windchill community, only working on this server for a little over a year.  Every week I learn something that turns something I figured out prior into garbage.  I don't think this method will fall pray to that.  Using this I can meet information presentation requirements by... Build a report that meets the information requirements. Generate the TableModel of the report. Parse and Present the TableModel. If there are better ways, please link them to me and let me know.  I am always looking to improve how I do things. I hope you find this as useful as I have, thank you. ... View more

In our company the Deviation process is a Quality owned process.  Prior to implementing Deviation, we have implemented Nonconformance and have Quality Libraries.  I would like to limit the creation of Deviations to only Quality Libraries (which would force them into using the Changes tab of Browse to even see them, but we can cover that in training).   My question, assuming I figure out how to limit the creation of Deviations to just Quality Libraries (all the while managing ACLs at the Org level), how do I get "Create Variance" added to the Quality Action Links on the Homepage? ... View more

Last December Daktronics brought the first of many Quality processes into Windchill from Infopath, Nonconformance.  There were many things to figure out but one of those things was the capturing of reporting location (which manufacturing line, value stream, or area is reporting this NC).  We decided to capture it in the ncCategoryCode classification tree.  This has been working great and now we are moving onto our second Quality process to migrate into Windchill from Infopath, Temporary Deviation Report (or Deviation as Windchill would call it).  Since this is a Quality owned process, we're going to have some growing pains considering the differences between Change objects and Quality objects.  The first one I have come across is how do we capture the same value stream information in Deviation that we are in Nonconformance. We don't want to reinvent the wheel here, so the first thing I wanted to try was enable the ncCategoryCode classification that's on NC in Deviation.  This is that journey. In an effort to expose the ncCategoryCode (Value Stream Classification Tree) to the TDR I created this file (attached as AddClassificationContraintsToVarianceAttributes.xml) based on what I saw from this article ( https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=CS259850&art_lang=en&posno=1&q=classification%20constraint%20nonconformance&source=search ) and digging into the xml file referenced in the article. Using wt.load.LoadFromFile, I loaded this xml document and got a semi-success.  I could see a classification driven string in my create new wizard for Deviation.  BUT when I tried to populate it I got the following error, "It seems that you have not defined the callback function or the there is some error in it: PTC.csm.classificationPickerCallBack exception: TypeError: PTC.csm.classificationPickerCallBack is not a function". This looks to me like there some sort of Interface I need to put into Variance to get it to support classification in a similar way that Nonconformance does it.  Whatever caused this error, I didn't dig into it as the effort has out paced the value in do this.  For a moment I thought I wasn't going to be able to undo some of what I did in our dev system, but I was able to undo it with the attached file (attached as RemoveClassificationContraintsFromVarianceAttributes.xml) and the deletion of the created attributes. Moving forward, to be consistent, I will most likely implement an enumeration and change the Value Stream classification in Nonconformance to use this enumeration rather than the classification tree.  I write this to share my experience in exploring this rabbit hole and hope you find it useful.  If there is a simple way of fixing this error, please let me know. ... View more

We have the Supplier Management module installed to manage supplier parts.  We are currently implementing the QMS Nonconformance objects, using QMS Contacts and People or Places to maintain Supplier information.  We are finding ourselves needing to maintain both of these data sources in our one Windchill solution separately.  We'd like to see the Supplier Management module maintain Supplier information in a similar fashion as QMS People or Place, or have QMS People or Places feed/update the information in the Supplier Management module. ... View more