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Removing/Copying files from windchill

tracehae,

You are correct, I really cannot argue with any of that.

I will just clarify one point. The training portion for us was only 1 week for 2 employees. The implementation took 3 weeks, but that was the VAR's time, not ours. In total, I'd say the Engineer dept. spent maybe 5 hours in meetings discussing the options for customizing. What I'm getting at is I don't really agree with your reasoning with regards to lost time.

I then "trained" the other users on the fly, which I still do, daily. NOT because PDMLink is difficult to use, oh contrare mon frare, but because people are just plain stoo-pid.
smiley36.gif
 
gggggggg,


OK, then lets take the time and money completely out of the equation, although I think it is still a valid point. Anyway, it sounds like you are a seasoned veteran of PDMLink, so my question is, have you ever lost any data with PDMLink? From readingthe posts on this site that is something that happens often. Also, how much administration time is needed per week in your relatively small engineering group?


The only reason I keep pushing on this is because a majority of the posts I see about PDMLink are negative and I'm just surprised to hear from someonewith trouble free operations.


By the way, what else do you do with it besides the items I listed above?


Thank you for theinteresting exchange,
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Have I/we ever lost any data in PDMLink?? Absolutely not. No way.

With all due respect to any PDMLink user that has lost data in PDMLink, you either have the software configured very poorly or you have done something completely wrong. In fact, it is nearly impossible to delete data from PDMLink, which, I understand may be different from losing data.

How much admin time is required per week?? I'd say 5-10 minutes, tops. I'm telling you broham, PDMLink is not the problem here. Poor installs/configurations and lack of training are what is going on here.

We had our system installed/configured by a literal genius, and guess what?? It works. Should PDMLink require Mr. Einstein himself to install/configure?? Well, that's probably best left for a different thread. All I'm saying is we had the install/config done by a qualified expert, supplied to us by the VAR.

As far as what we use the software for that wasn't listed?? I don't remember all that was listed but I'll try to name some things anyway. We use it for revision control of assemblies/models & drawings; promotion to released state; we are in the process of investigating using the ECN functionality, which I think we're going to go forward with, so possibly ECN's; we can retrieve old versions of any assembly/model or drawing (which is part of revision control)...

Admittedly, we don't use alot of what PDMLink can do, but we've only had it for just under 2 years. As I said before, we are investigating the ECN process currently. Part of my job is to continuelly look for ways to use PDMLink features (that we are currently not using) that would help us.
 
ggggggggg,


Last question and then I'll leave it alone.


What did your companypay for PDMLink? Just the software, not including training or installation.
 
Well, I was not involved with the financial side of things, but basically we paid $20,000 for the software and $20,000 for the training, install & configuration.

Although, all these things were not really itemized as such. We paid a single, all encompassing price of $40,000 (estimating) that got us the whole ball of wax.

I'm gonna go ahead and throw it out there: if anyone has specific questions as to how PDMLink is supposed to work, just ask me. It is a truly wonderful software that for us, has done everything we need and has never let us down.
 
Danwolf,


If someone renames a part then it is renamed everywhere it is used? Does this include released assemblies, other peoples workspaces, and commonspace? And if the answer is yes, what if you don't want someone to rename your part that you have in an assembly, is there a way to keep it from changing? Also, if a part is in a released drawing is there a way to keep it from changing names so you can keep the integrity of the released drawing?


I have another related question. Imagine two people start a part from scratch and just give them some temp names until they get further along in the design, say they both call the part "bearing1", and they go to check the part in for the day. Is it first come first serve on who gets to use that name? Will the second guy get an error message saying that "bearing1" already exists or does his version copy over the other veersion?


Thanks for the info.
 
Tracehae,


In Windchill PDMLink, the answer to your first question would be: Yes, PDMLink renames the part everywhere in the system. Commonspace, and workspaces. The only exception I can think of would be if the part was new and hadn't been checked in yet and the user renamed the part in their workspace.


No, you can't prevent the system from renaming it in your assembly. But why would you want the same part with two different names? If you wanted a copy to modify into a different part, there is a save as functionality that allows you to do that.


In the case of conflicting names, the second person to try to checkin bearing1 would get an error message, and they would have to rename it to a unique name.


I would also have to agree with Danwolf and g^10 that all data loss is caused by user errors, and non PTC data management systems do not handle the internal relationships correctly. In my experience, a lot of data "loss" is just the user not being able to find the data that they are searching for.


That being said, there is a lot of work PTC could do to reduce the chances for user error by making the system more user friendly and easier to use to reduce those errors.
 
In regards to the Renaming issue:

In a "properly" configured PDMLink install, only a user with "Product Manager" rights can rename released data.
 
Mardeb,


If the rename function renames the parts in a released assembly then your released drawing would change without even a change in revision. Wouldn't this cause a problem if you send out a drawing to a vendor and then later you send out the changed version of the same revision to another vendor and they don't match? I would see it as a big problem to have a system change a released drawing in any way without the revision being changed and it going through an approval process to ensure the change is valid.
 
Tracehae, you are correct, that would be a problem.

But my response is "shame on you". You can't rely on PDMLink to prevent you from doing something stupid.

PDMLink is just a tool, you can miss use it all day long.
 
Tracehae,


The rule of thumb that we use is if it changes form, fit, or function, then you need to revise the part and drawing.


Renaming a part used in an assembly really doesn't impact form, fit, or function so would not need a new revision number.


Additionally, as Danwolf and gggggggggg have pointed out, only a few restricted people have the capability to rename parts, and usually need a pretty good reason or are following a ECR / ECN / ECO process to do so.
 
mardeb,


You are correct that a different part number doesn't affect the form, fit or function of the assembly, but it does affect the bill of materials. How would your manufacturing people know which BOM is correct if there are 2 different drawings with the same revision.


Do you alsouse that rule of thumb on parts? If the form, fit or function has not changed then do you leave it at the same revision? For example, if youremove some none functional material to save costthen you haven't changed the form, fit or function, so would you keep the same revision? How would you be able to identify one drawing from the other if they have the same revision?
 
Tracehae,


For objects in the ERP system, that requires an ECO. So manufacturing would be notified by the change process. In Windchill, the objects would be revised. This would result in an new revision. For example, 2.4 to 3.1


In your second example, I would consider removal of non-functional material to be a change in form. That would need a ECO.


For a change that wouldn't impact form, fit or function, one example would be an alternative material. You would need to add a note to the drawing, and maybe change the Pro/E material or a 3D note. In this case, the objects would be promoted from released back to in work, modified and promoted back to released. This would result in a new version. 4.3 to 4.4 for example.


Everbody does this a little differently from company to company I think... At least that has been my experience.
 
Hey group,

I am interested in learning the contact info for the VAR that gggggggggg is talking about but he never replied to my PM that I sent him. Does anyone know that information or have a really good VAR that they would recommend?

Thanks,

John
 
handyman2000 said:
Hey group,



I am interested in learning the contact info for the VAR that gggggggggg is talking about but he never replied to my PM that I sent him. Does anyone know that information or have a really good VAR that they would recommend?



Thanks,



John
Click to expand...

PM sent...
 
I am currently at a company who is getting rid of Windchill, for our own reasons. Like the initial poster, I simply want to know how to get our Pro E files out of there.


I see that it appears the question was answered for them, but I did not get an answer from reading the posts. Can anyone tell me how to get our files out? We have thousands of files, I do not think opening them oneby one and doing a backup or save as will work for us.


Please help! I would really appreciate it! Keep in mind, our knowlege of Pro E/Windchill is very limited, step by step instructions would be appreciated. I know it has been a long time since this question was posted, I hope someone is still following it who can help me.
 
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