Windchill - Do's & Dont's

Yikes

1/ Do read all the threads in this community

2/ Do use Google search starting each query with 'PTC'

3/ Repeat at 1/

I'd recommend working with a partner to help with the implementation. Our reseller was extremely important to helping us get our initial configuration setup.

Enforce simplicity. There's so many posts on this community where someone is trying to make the system do something it's not intended to do, and it's not intended to do it because it's bad practice. If there are "requirements" that will make implementation difficult, ask why, why, why. Is it really needed? Do other companies do it? If not, why do we need to do it? Maybe there's a need specific to your business, but often it's just they way people are used to doing it.

User training! When we first implemented Windchill, we did a multi-day offsite mandatory training for our core engineering team. Our reseller led this training. We've since developed our own internal training, but that was really helpful to help us hit the ground running. 

Admin training too! Again, our reseller led some in-person training for our admin team. This was bundled with our initial configuration/installation.

You'll use the PTC support page a lot. Also use this Community. Often with some searching you can find answers faster than opening a ticket for PTC.

Two more things that have really helped us be successful: a ticket system outside of Windchill for user support, and an internal company Wiki. With the ticket system, users can request help (including help logging in). With the Wiki, we publish very short articles on how to do specific common things. It's a lifesaver to point someone to an article instead of explaining the same thing over and over. Most of our team now knows to check the Wiki first.

If you must do it yourself, read the guides very carefully. Lots of little steps and they may not all be in the same manual.

Create a working instruction document of each step needed, Mine is 25+ pages long. My upgrade one is 13 pages.

The community can be a big help on some issues. If the installation throws up any errors, open a help desk ticket with PTC and not the community. The community can only go so far in helping solve error types of problems. The Windchill support team at PTC is very good.

If you do use a consulting company be sure they document what they do and give you a copy when they are done.

Train the users in the initial use of Windchill.

Write documentation on how your company expects them to use Windchill. File naming, storage (context) locations, WTparts, etc.

Keep it as much OOTB as possible. This makes upgrades easier. 

Don't be afraid to throw an install away and start over so you get a clean installation for going into production.

Have a second set of servers for development and testing.