How do you run design reviews today at your company? Do you print out drawings and sit around a conference room? Do you currently use the Promote process in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x? How do you include reviewers that don't use Pro/ENGINEER?

The old way for design reviews in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x
When we were planning the next generation of Pro/INTRALINK, we took a look at the Request to Promote process in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x, the release procedures and how to improve it when working in a web environment. The result is a new Promotion process available in Pro/INTRALINK and Windchill PDMLink which really enables more flexible, more intuitive and more powerful reviews of Pro/E designs and other development ideas (including specs, test plans or any other documents).

Some of the areas of Pro/INTRALINK 3.x Promote process we focused on enhancing for the web - improving the usability of creating a design review proposal, making it easier to notify users about reviews (within Pro/INTRALINK 3.x, all notifications about reviews are through the Pro/INTRALINK email system - which is separate from other emails), making it easier to participate in a review - only reviewers with Pro/INTRALINK 3.x client installed as well as Pro/E installed could see and comment on the design and lastly, making it easier to see the comments from the reviewers and whose comments are still needed. These restrictions made it tough to get broad review of designs in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x.

The new and improved Promotion process in Pro/INTRALINK Now, with the next generation of Pro/INTRALINK, design reviews can include any user in your team with access to a web browser! Everyone is notified using your standard company email system and, if you have the visualization option for Pro/INTRALINK or are using the next generation of Windchill PDMLink, a simple viewable of each design proposal is automatically created, baselined and stored with the Promotion request. (See the picture below of the new Promotion Wizard).

So, people who traditionally do not use Pro/E (or know how to use Pro/I 3.x) can see, review and comment on new ideas - all they do is choose a hyperlink in the email message and they see the design. With the next generation of Windchill PDMLink for your whole development team, now your boss and the manufacturing team members, remote sites, marketing team members, service team members as well as many others can easily participate in Pro/E design reviews - they don't need to know Pro/E, they don't need drawing print outs and you don't need to schedule a conference room! That's a lot more ideas and early stage validation for designs!

The Promotion process with Pro/INTRALINK has also been improved to make it easy for you to add team members to a specific design review when it makes sense. As you follow the wizard process to create the review, just add their name to the review team and they get the email, and are part of the review process. Also, with PDMLink, you have full access to create your own specific workflow processes and tailor them with different workflow steps, add new roles, add escalation steps or other company-specific needs you may have.

Great, people say, but how do I get started putting all of these capabilities together with Pro/INTRALINK? Several companies have asked me about examples of how to get started.and I'll cover that in my next blog.

Any comments or suggestions for topics? What do you think? Drop a note in the forumsI look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,
James
PTC