Windchill Tips

Check out this video on Using Windchill "CAD Driven BOMs" from PTC Application Engineers Presenters: Dale Westhoff (Solution Consutlting, Fellow) and Ryan Butcher (Solution Consulting, Fellow). Original Date Presented: July 20, 2022   To dive deeper into the subject, check out Windchill: Advanced BOM Management with Connected CAD Structures   (view in My Videos)

Applicable Release: Windchill release 10.0+   Description: In this video, we will be enabling server side DEBUG Logs by adding additional properties to log4jMethodServer.properties file.              log4j.logger.com.ptc.windchill.uwgm=DEBUG log4j.logger.wt.method.server.timing=INFO log4j.logger.wt.adapter.verbose=INFO

Applicable Release: Windchill release 10.0+   Description: In this video, we will learn setting server side DEBUG Log levels using Windchill shell

  Applicable Release: Windchill release 10.0+   Description: In this video, we will be enabling server side DEBUG Logs using Windchill Monitoring Tools.

Applicable Release: WWGM 11.0 and above   Description: In this video, we will learn how to setup and collect DEBUG logs for Windchill Workgroup Manager interactions using WWGM Logger Utility.

About this event: The CAD-Driven BOM The part-centric methodology orchestrated by Windchill is an integral component to the digital thread, enabling enterprises to realize their digital transformation goals.  A model-based approach of driving the creation of the eBOM from native CAD data delivers an automated mechanism providing a highly visual BOM to the extended enterprise.  Although this may sound simple enough, CAD design decisions don’t always match the way engineering expects the BOM to be structured.  Managing these complex associations while keeping information and changes synchronized, whether made in CAD or to the BOM, can prove challenging. Join presenter Steve Shaw, PLM Solutions Director, on March 11 th  at 10 am EST, for this Tech Tips session where he will: Explore the recent improvements to the tools and capabilities available in Windchill’s CAD integration and BOM management; Demonstrate how these tools and capabilities can help streamline the process, identify differences, and manage the connection between CAD and the engineering BOM; Explain how to synchronize all of the information back to the BOM for downstream consumption and visibility. You won’t want to miss it so Register Today! 

Windchill Extensions from SiliconExpert Ensure Design Viability By SiliconExpert and PTC   Garbage in.  Garbage out.  The familiar computer science concept refers to the fact that the resulting output is dependent on the quality of the input.    The same is true for industrial design.  Complex product designs are dependent on the components required to build them.  An otherwise beautiful design can turn to garbage when composed of parts that are non-compliant or become obsolete.      Windchill PLM software reduces the time to industrialization by digitizing and connecting your enterprise across the globe.  Product design is a complex process that requires information from a myriad of sources.     Windchill Extensions from SiliconExpert help ensure the long-term viability of your designs.   As a leading development and administrative support suite, SiliconExpert is unifying semiconductor and mechanical parts management from design to end of life.  SiliconExpert’s team of electronics engineers are available to answer system questions as well as maintain a current database of data points to ensure users are confident in the components which make up their designs.      SiliconExpert CONNECT    SiliconExpert CONNECT is embedded into Windchill, providing access to trusted design and component libraries.  It identifies potential risk from lifecycle classification and compliance information, while providing crosses, stock levels, and pricing data. This means your engineers get access to reliable data when they need it in order to drive their decisions and streamline design processes.    With SiliconExpert CONNECT, engineers can search and validate orderable part numbers using the SiliconExpert validation algorithm, resulting in a list of standard parts.  You can also analyze your bill of materials and identify parts that might put your design at risk.  With the click of a button, proprietary algorithms give you a thorough risk review by part and allow you to cross reference replacement parts.  All known form-fit-function cross-references and supplier replacements for a manufacturer part number can then be found.    SiliconExpert Synch    With SiliconExpert Synch, your engineer’s designs are synchronized with the parts in an information repository. Engineers can initiate synchronization from a part, a folder page or a search, and obtain new information regarding compliance, availability and price. This ensures their design has the most current data available.          SiliconExpert electronic engineers stand behind this information, since their relationships with suppliers enhance the accuracy of a part’s expected availability as well as its regulatory compliance.  When this information is updated, SiliconExpert Synch makes it possible for designs to update regularly as well.    State of the art technology and machine learning play a part in enhancing information. Through SiliconExpert, data points provide insights into material prices and availability in order to adjust parts’ forecasts.     Integration with Windchill provides visibility at every stage of the life cycle, ensuring the right parts for your design, saving time and money by preventing errors. This eliminates “garbage” from entering your designs and ensures pristine outcomes.    Try the SiliconExpert CONNECT Starter in the Windchill Extension Center and render live data in the Windchill interface, allowing your engineers to monitor a part or a BoM to check for compliance, obsolescence, end of life, and more.  The Starter extension is limited to 200 parts, but does not require a SiliconExpert license.  It’s a great first-look at the value SiliconExpert brings to Windchill.    To learn more about SiliconExpert extensions, visit the PTC Windchill Extension Center at  https://windchill-extensions.ptc.com/home

Polaris strives to give a great end-to-end experience for its riders, from customized purchase options to enhanced safety features. To achieve this vision, Polaris is adopting a step-by-step approach to digital transformation through PLM. In this series of 10 technical demos, you'll see what Polaris has either currently implemented or is considering as a part of its PLM/digital transformation roadmap.    BOM Management and Global Platforms — Manage and link CAD data, bills of material, and visualization for a modular EBOM structure and generate options and variants for design verification and visualization Family Management — Plan product families and manage options, choices, and assignments in multi-year product structures Change Management — Manage change of a new option from EBOM to MBOM through process plans and work instructions Augmented Reality — Variant-specific AR design review and visualization and process plan visualization BOM Transformation — Associatively transform EBOM to MBOM and EBOM to SBOM with options and logic Manufacturing Process Planning — Concurrently develop mixed-model assembly process plans Role and Task-Based Access — Access digital product information based on the task and function within an organization BOM Costing Application — Create custom mashups of variant-specific cost tracking and roll-up Interference Detection — Develop variant-specific validations with DMU/interference analysis Visit: https://www.ptc.com/en/products/plm/everyday-innovation/innovator-spotlight-polaris/polaris-plm-demonstrations to check out this great demo series - we hope this gives you some inspiration in your own digital transformation initiatives.  

From Windchill 11.0 M030 onward, 32-bit Windchill Workgroup Manager client is not supported.   It means that installing the Windchill Workgroup Manager on 32-bit Windows OS is not supported and/or it may not be possible. Installing the 32-bit Windchill Workgroup Manager on 64-bit Windows OS is not possible For the detail, please refer to CS265512 - "Discontinuation of support of 32-bit Windows with Windchill Workgroup Manager 11.0 M030.

Last time, I showed you how security labels can be added to your table displays for CAD workgroup managers (here).  In addition, a new capability for setting security label values for newly created CAD data has been introduced.  The implementation is quite different from how it is done for Documents and Parts (wizard based approach).  It is also not enabled by default even when security labels are configured, so I thought I would show you.   It is often the case where new CAD documents in Windchill are created directly from the CAD tool itself (using File > New) and then saving these files to the workspace. At this point, access to these objects is only available to the user that owns the workspace.  Other users do not become aware or have access until these new CAD documents are checked-in.  So, this is where we introduced the ability for setting security labels on newly created CAD documents.  You do this by adding your security labels to the table view of the workspace Check In window. Hmmm… The security label "Training Required" is listed and shows its default value, but I don’t see a way to set its value.  This is where additional system configuration is required.  We have introduced a property setting that enables you to set the security label value during this step, similar to how you change its location.  To configure this behavior you will need to add the following property to your wt.properties file:   com.ptc.windchill.uwgm.cadx.checkin.SecurityLabelEditing=true   This of course should be done by following the standard procedure of adding this property to your site.xconf file and then propagating it via the xconfmanager command from a Windchill shell.  Here’s the syntax of how this should be added:   <Property name="com.ptc.windchill.uwgm.cadx.checkin.SecurityLabelEditing" overridable="true" targetFile="codebase/wt.properties" value="true"/>   Now that the property has been set and the method server has been restarted, let’s take a look at the Check In window again. As you can see in the previous figure, the cell value in the security label column consists of a drop-down allowing you to select from the available security label values.  Once you select the appropriate value and check-in the new CAD document, its security label is set accordingly.  Note that this is only available when objects are initially created/checked-in.  To change the value of an existing object (one that has previously been checked in) you need to use the Edit Security Labels action.  

Starting in Windchill 10.2 M020, security labels and their values can be displayed in your workspace views.  If you have security labels configured, you are now able to add security labels to your workspace table views, just like any other attribute.   You do this by creating a new table view in your workspace.  In the New View wizard, add your security labels as part of the Set Column Display (step 4).  This can be done by either adding the “All Security Labels” from the "Available Columns" list on the left over to the “Selected Columns” list on the right. This, as the name suggests, adds all of your defined security labels into your table view in one step.  Alternatively, you can select individual security labels by name from the Available Columns list as shown in the following figure with the security label “Training Required” moved over to the Selected Columns list. Now that your workspace table view is saved to include your security labels, you are able to view them directly from your workspace listing. This eliminates the need to navigate to individual information pages to find out specific values. In addition to the workspace itself, this is applicable to all workspace related UIs such as the model structure report on the CAD document information page and the Check In UI (more on that in my next post).

PTC is happy to announce the new HTML5 based drag-n-drop file upload utility with Windchill 10.2_M020. This new utility will replace the existing Java based drop target and give people a much simpler and more intuitive way to upload new documents and attachments. This video demonstrates how easy it is to add multiple attachments using the new drag-n-drop upload utility.   This video does not contain audio, yet...   (view in My Videos)

PTC is happy to announce the new HTML5 based drag-n-drop file upload utility with Windchill 10.2_M020. This new utility will replace the existing Java based drop target and give people a much simpler and more intuitive way to upload new documents and attachments. This video demonstrates how easy it is to create multiple documents using the new drag-n-drop upload utility.   This video does not contain audio, yet...     Unable to play video. Please try again later. (view in My Videos)

The following video illustrates some of the workspace upload improvements expected with PTC Windchill 10.2.   (view in My Videos)