Last week, PTC released Windchill 11.1. While this release will boast a lot of new features, there’s one feature in particular we think – no, we know – you’re going to love. In fact, it is the number one most requested enhancement we’ve received from our user community.

The feature? Windchill 11.1 will enable cascading attributes in parts, documents, and change objects. Cascading attributes allows an attribute value to be driven as a result of another attribute (or several attributes).  A typical example of this is seen with the three attributes Continent/Countries/Town … when selecting “Continent North America”, the options for “Countries” become “Canada/USA/Mexico”, if the “Continent” selection is changed to “Europe”, then the option for “Countries” are “France/Germany/Italy/etc.

The Windchill type manager now includes a set of tools to view and manage the definition of these cascading attributes. The cascading attributes are specific to each type in the type manager, allowing different cascading needs for different types.

 DISCOVER THE RIGHT DEPLOYMENT OPTION OF WINDCHILL 11.1 FOR YOU

Introducing AR in Windchill 11.1

Cascading attributes are not the only new features users will find. Windchill 11.1 will feature an augmented reality (AR) design sharing experience. Similar to the capabilities of Creo 4, this experience will make it possible for users to quickly and easily view, interact with, and share design ideas in AR. Windchill 11.1 users will be able to publish default viewable information from Parts and CAD documents to a PTC-hosted cloud environment. This information will then be optimized to be served as an AR experience via the ThingWorx View mobile application. With this AR Design Sharing experience, Windchill customers will finally be able to begin exploring the possibilities of using AR in the product development process.  

Robust Change Descriptions

Key to understanding changes that have been made is having a robust description of why a change was made. Descriptions should clearly define both the technical and business justifications of a change as well as make it possible for stakeholders to easily understand the work involved with the change. Windchill 11.1’s Change Management capability now supports defining the description field using the Rich Text Format. Users can now enter any length of text to define their change. Furthermore, they can use Rich Text features such as bold, italic, underline, bulleted, and numbered lists to help give clarity to the information.

Windchill License Management and Compliance

Windchill 11.1 introduces license management and compliance capabilities – making it easier to better manage your Windchill license investment. It provides administrators a clear view into license usage and consumption by user, as well as offers license entitlement capabilities to ensure that the right set of users are entitled to the appropriate set of product features for their respective role. 

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Windchill 11.1 makes it easier than ever for users to keep track of their product data. With cascading attributes, robust descriptions of changes, and innovative capabilities such as AR design sharing, users will be able to quickly make the best decisions for their business.