Assess Current System

Recommended Steps

Overview: Streamline Your Windchill PLM Solution

Identify areas in your Windchill PLM solution that must change to streamline your system. Verify that these changes are made to align with PTC’s best practices. Understand your current system and confirm your business goals to plan your next steps.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

01. Identify your customizations in Windchill PLM

Before determining which customizations to streamline, identify what in your system is a customization and what is out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality. Your developer may have documented your customizations when they were implemented.

If you do not know which customizations are currently implemented, the Windchill Performance Advisor (WPA) can help. Regardless of where you are in your streamlining journey, consider installing the Windchill Performance Advisor. The Customization Analysis Page in Windchill Performance Advisor can compare your system files to an OOTB installation setup, informing whether your system has been modified. If WPA was not installed when Windchill was installed, it can still be added at no additional cost. Visit the Help Center for more information on the Windchill Performance Advisor.

Additionally, you can utilize the Windchill+ Readiness Diagnostic Extension (WReadE). The Windchill+ Readiness Diagnostic Extension is a standalone utility that can be used to perform an assessment of your Windchill environment to determine readiness of the environment to move to Windchill+. The extension expands Windchill Performance Advisor and identifies the following details relevant for Windchill+ readiness assessment— Windchill version, modules and configuration, and customizations applied to the out-of-the-box Windchill server. Visit PTC Support for more information on the WReadE tool.

Recommended Resources

Customization Analysis Support
Windchill Performance Advisor
How to use Windchill+ Readiness Diagnostic Extension (WReadE) with Windchill PDMLink
eSupport PTC login required

02. Understand existing customizations

Conduct an assessment to identify existing customizations and how they align with your business needs. Refer to your organization’s design specifications during implementation. PTC’s Windchill Performance Advisor can help with this assessment.

Locate the information below for each customization identified:

The type of customization
What the customization does
What initiates the customization
Whether it is integrated with other customizations
Any workflow templates (XML file), Java code classes, or other detailed files related to each customization
The business need associated and whether there is a comparable OOTB functionality
What type of effort is required to remove, replace, or reduce the customization size and impact

Collect and document this information for all customizations. This information will help you decide what customizations to streamline.

Make sure to follow PTC’s best practices for customizations as you plan how to streamline your Windchill PLM solution. Document if any customization:

Connects to a system or tool that PTC does not support
Performs an action that PTC does not support

This information will help prepare your Windchill PLM solution for the future. For example, there are customizations that will not be supported by Windchill+, the SaaS-based Windchill PLM solution. To be in a better position to eventually upgrade to the cloud, even if your organization is not ready to transition now, you will want to identify, remove, or update those customizations.

For more information about customizations, visit Get Familiar with Customizations.

Windchill+ offers Guidelines and Guardrails about Allowed Customizations and Disallowed Customizations. Additionally, the following best practices are recommended for customization: Windchill Customization Guides.

Recommended Resources

Where to find the Windchill Customization Guides
Help Center PTC login required
Guidelines and Guardrails
Help Center

03. Determine needs early

A thorough assessment of your current system allows your organization to determine needs that will benefit the business and provide the most value. Recognizing and communicating these needs early can save time and money. Thorough and early communication helps prevent:

Unnecessary expansion of the project or its deadlines
Team misalignment
Wasting resources time

The more customized your Windchill PLM solution is, the more risks there may be when removing customizations. Perform a cost-benefit analysis for each customization.

We recommend:

Involving and updating multiple stakeholders across departments, including those on your execution team and decision team
Defining governance
- Framework for making decisions
- Implementation process
- Roles and responsibilities
Document everything—stakeholder names and contact information, unanswered questions, meeting notes, stakeholder interviews, final technical requirements, baseline criteria, etc.
Ensuring the focus is on customer and business needs
Managing change processes in one location with visibility to all parties
Conducting auditable processes that include electronic signatures
Tracking compliance regulations throughout the process

Consider future needs

Also consider future use cases and what may need to change to achieve those goals. For example, if your organization wants to move to a cloud-based solution (like Windchill+), now is the time to analyze how your Windchill PLM solution is set up and what would have to change in your system to be prepared to move to a cloud-based solution. Windchill Performance Advisor can help identify parts in your system that will need to change.

Contact your customer success manager or sales representative to learn more about Windchill+.

04. Confirm business goals

When the assessment of your organization’s current customizations is complete, ensure that every decision aligns with your business goals. Ask stakeholders the following questions:

What has brought us to this point to consider streamlining this customization?
What outcomes do we seek?
How does this align with our goals?
What risks are we willing to take or not take?
What is preventing us from doing these things in our current system?
What is our timeline?
What legal requirements must we meet?
What does value look like for the organization with this system?
How will we measure success to reach our goals?

After you collect their responses to these questions, note how the responses overlap. Prioritize this information to incorporate into how you will design your system later.

Whether your organization wants to increase profit margin, efficiency, improve customer experience, or something else, consider what you need Windchill PLM to do to help you achieve these goals. You must first understand the options available for your situation.

The Windchill+ solution is designed to be as powerful and capable as the Windchill PLM solution, but with a seamless upgrade process and streamlined functionality. It meets business goals in several ways including providing a strategic way to monitor, track, and manage people, information, and processes at every phase in the lifecycle of the product from the planning phase to product retirement. The out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality provides pre-defined options and is available immediately after the installation process is complete.

Emulate these customizations in isolation
Extend the customization based on the Guidelines and Guardrails that are currently supported by PTC
Service owners (for example, Project or Product Managers) should maintain a roadmap to guide the evolution of their PLM implementation based on relevant business objectives.
Changes to your Windchill+ system should be managed under a formal release process that aligns those changes with your PLM roadmap
Validate all customizations using test cases
Use the latest techniques for customizations, such as modelled enumerations or text tailoring

For more information about customizations, visit the Windchill+ Help Center.

Recommended Resources

Guidelines and Guardrails
Help Center
Windchill+ Basic Customization Guides
Help Center
Windchill+ Help Center
Help Center

Previous Step

Assemble Your Team

Next Step

Understand Available Functionality

Streamline Your Windchill PLM Solution

Everything you need to streamline your Windchill PLM solution

This is a PDF version of Streamline Your Windchill PLM Solution - Assess Current System. downloaded on Date : 12/27/2025 11:19:37 AM and may be out of date. For full latest version click here.

Get Familiar With Customizations

Assemble Your Team

Assess Current System

Understand Available Functionality

Understand Impacts to Your Technology and Teams

Understand the Value of Streamlining

Decide What to Streamline

Create a Project Plan

Plan Rollout

Plan Communications

Design Your Environment Needs

Align on Future State

Align Business Functions

Plan Testing and Verification

Develop Options for Future State

Update Documentation

Test and Validate Your System

Communicate Rollout

Prepare to Go Live

Go Live

Provide Go-Live Support

Measure Business Impact and Next Steps

Overview: Streamline Your Windchill PLM Solution

Use this guide to plan, design, develop and deploy these changes to your Windchill PLM solution. This guide provides step-by-step instructions and key objectives as you plan to streamline your customizations and make decisions based on what your organization's needs to succeed with the Windchill PLM solution.

The information in this guide is useful for:

Project managers and other project stakeholders
System administrators
Technical staff
Subject matter experts

The word streamline is used throughout this Success Path. Streamlining means returning your Windchill PLM solution to follow PTC's best practices to work as fast and easy as possible for your organization.

The process to streamline your Windchill PLM solution is not typically something that happens all at once. Start by examining your current Windchill PLM solution setup, comparing your setup to PTC's best practices, reviewing available functionality, and evaluating which customizations to remove over time.

Why consider streamlining?

Streamlining has two main parts:

Standardization: Analyzing and reworking your customizations to make them compliant with PTC's best practices for customizations.
- Please ensure all Windchill+ customizations follow the Guidelines and Guardrails
Optimization: Using OOTB functionality to replace the customizations that do not comply with PTC's best practices.

The Windchill PLM solution is designed to be fast and easy to use. Offering multiple ways to meet business needs the Windchill PLM solution provides a strategic way to monitor, track, and manage people, information, and processes at every phase of your product's lifecycle, from initial planning to retirement. This includes out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality, which provides pre-defined options and is available immediately after installation.

However, you may have customized your Windchill PLM solution in the past to meet your specific business needs. Now, your organization wants to streamline your Windchill PLM solution to achieve new business needs, upgrade the software, reduce overall costs, improve system performance, or meet other business requirements.

You may want to streamline your Windchill PLM solution to:

Upgrade your system
Improve your system performance and the scalability of your solution
Reduce your cost of ownership
Improve your system performance and customer experience
Use new OOTB functionality that is not available with an older, customized solution
Move to the PTC Cloud

Maintenance usually accounts for the highest cost for maintaining a highly customized PLM solution. You may decide that your organization can get more value from Windchill PLM solution without some or all your current customizations. Streamlining your Windchill PLM solution to OOTB functionality may align better with your business needs.

If you want a SaaS option for your Windchill PLM solution, PTC has introduced Windchill+. Windchill+ offers:

Reduced maintenance
Lower cost of ownership
Seamless upgrades
Faster implementation
Secure collaboration with internal and external stakeholders
Faster time to market

You'll get the Windchill PLM experience you've come to trust in a PTC-hosted and cloud-based service.

You are not currently eligible for Windchill+ if your Windchill PLM solution has the following customizations or integrations:

Customizations
- Modified OOTB classes
- Override of validators, data utility, or services for configuring OOTB UIs
- Modeled objects
- Info*Engine
Integrations
- Using a VPN
- Point to point / JDBC adapter
- Info*Engine

If you're unsure if you have any of these customizations in your Windchill PLM solution, PTC's Windchill Performance Advisor can help assess your system.

Begin the process of streamlining your Windchill PLM solution if you're interested in what Windchill+ can offer but may not be eligible yet.

For more details about Windchill+, reach out to your customer success manager or sales representative.

Your Windchill PLM Solution incorporates the needs of people in your organization, the business, and your organization's processes and data. To determine how to streamline your Windchill PLM Solution, identify the gap between the latest available OOTB functionalities and your Windchill PLM's current customizations. Think about your solution needs on a financial and functional level. Ask yourself:

What is the gap between the latest OOTB functionalities and our current customizations?
Are customizations successfully filling this gap?
What does it currently cost us to fill this gap?
Are there OOTB functionalities that can now fill this gap?
What will this OOTB solution cost us?
What value do we gain by reverting to OOTB functionalities?

Deciding how to streamline your Windchill PLM solution is an important decision. Certain factors help determine if this is the right decision for your organization. This process is extensive, and the outcome impacts different teams and other systems. Understanding what happens when you remove customizations is a great place to start.

This Success Path has four phases:

1. Plan

In this phase, your organization should plan how to allocate resources for the project and set an expected timeline for production. This phase includes cross-functional collaboration, requirements gathering, standard system maintenance, quality assurance, a change management plan, and training updates. In this phase, you must know and understand your existing customizations and the business needs they were created to meet. Then, determine if any available OOTB functionalities meet that same business need. Finally, refer to the latest product version for all its OOTB functionalities.

2. Design

In this design phase, you are designing a solution with fewer customizations. You'll need to discuss and confirm details about configuring OOTB functionalities to meet your current customizations' exact business needs. This is the ideal time to plan what you do with your organization's current data, consider how a new design works with configuration limitations, prepare for implementation, begin documenting your use case, and prepare for testing. You will want to consult other stakeholders about how to manage your data.

3. Develop

In this development phase, you should know and understand useful OOTB functionalities that are available and the customizations to remove to access them. It's beneficial to revisit stakeholders to confirm how to manage your current and future data. This is a tactical step, so be sure you take the approved approach to manage your organization's data.

4. Deploy

The deployment phase is where the plan, design and develop phases comes together. Testing and validating the system will occur as well as communication to users regarding the rollout plan. The phase also includes the run-up and execution of the go-live. Prepare for the implementation team to provide support after go-live and begin to measure the impact of the application.

These four phases will help streamline customizations and handle other changes necessary to complete the project successfully.

What is a Success Path?

A Success Path is an online guide to help you implement a specific PTC product at your organization. Each path provides step-by-step instructions from the early planning stages all the way through to deployment. Use a Success Path to help your organization get the most out of a product and achieve your business goals.

See all Success Paths

Get Familiar With Customizations

Learn about customizations and understand how they add to your Windchill PLM solution’s overall cost of ownership.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Understand what a customization is

Understand the cost of customizations

01. Understand what a customization is

Customizations are extra functionality that allow tailoring of your Windchill PLM solution to business needs. Customizations can be made in addition to what is available with out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality. Customizations change:

How the system works
How the end user interacts with the system
How the system looks to the end user
How the system communicates with other systems

OOTB refers to all functionality that is available to use immediately upon installing a product. The Windchill PLM solution has extensive OOTB functionality for customers in different industries and of various sizes. Plus, new OOTB functionality is added with every release which can caused customizations to become obsolete. For many customers, OOTB functionality fits their needs.

Examples of customizations are:

Modelled business objects
Listeners
Services
New user actions
New user interface
Data utilities
Etc.

Windchill+ customizations are limited to ensure a fast and easy design as well as a seamless upgrade process. Please ensure all Windchill+ customizations follow the Guidelines and Guardrails.

Visit our support page to learn more about customizations in your Windchill PLM solution.

Recommended Resources

Guidelines and Guardrails Help Center
Where to find the Windchill Customization Guides Help Center PTC login required

02. Understand the cost of customizations

Your organization is responsible for maintaining and supporting your Windchill PLM solution customizations. Therefore, customizations increase total cost of ownership (the purchasing cost as well as the operational cost) of the Windchill PLM solution.

For example, when an error is found within your Windchill PLM solution customization code, and your in-house developers or IT team cannot figure out how to resolve it. Perhaps the developers who implemented the customization have left the organization, combined with the fact that PTC Technical Support does not support customizations, resulting in no one in your organization able fix the error. You’d have to contact a third-party vendor to address your issue, which will result in lost productivity and the extra cost of fixing the customization.

By customizing your Windchill PLM solution, total cost of ownership increases due to the need for external help. Time was also added between identifying the issue and solving the problem, as well as the productivity cost when your employee cannot utilize the system to the fullest extent.

Total cost of ownership can be reduced by utilizing OOTB functionality. If OOTB functionality produces an error, PTC will resolve it. Additionally, when using OOTB functionality, you’ll have access to all new functionality that is added with each new release at no additional cost. These additions could include OOTB functionality that works similarly or improves existing customizations.

Assemble Your Team

Explore the skill sets and experience you'll need to streamline your customizations in your Windchill PLM solution. The, determine if your organization employs the right talent or hires outside resources to fill any gaps.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Build a project team

Establish a governance board

Determine outside resources needed

01. Build a project team

The size of your team depends on the size of your organization, how many customizations your Windchill PLM solution has, and the complexity of your customizations. To ensure your Windchill PLM solution gets used and delivers value with fewer customizations, involve representatives of important end user groups throughout the project. Their insights will improve experience design, documentation, training, and change management.

We recommend forming two teams to carry out your de-customizations: a decision team and an execution team.

Decision Team

Form your decision team right away. They are your decision-makers and will analyze and plan how to streamline your Windchill PLM solution. Although their titles may differ, you'll need a combination of the following team members for the decision team:

Project Sponsor: Defines the scope, timeline, use case(s), goals, and key performance indicators. Serves as the project champion and is accountable for its success. Is responsible for generating support across the organization and will communicate why and how your Windchill PLM solution will change across the organization.

Project Manager: Ensures alignment across teams and is responsible for meeting deadlines, following strategy, and achieving goals throughout the life of the project.

Application Owner: Owns the application from the business side and is responsible for your Windchill PLM solution's internal roadmap, return on investment, and long-term success. Must be able to align the implementation with your business's key business objectives.

Application Manager: Responsible for the day-to-day execution and improvement of your Windchill PLM solution. Members of your organization's IT and compliance teams who can help implement and maintain the technology needed for your Windchill PLM solution. They also ensure it meets your organization's security, compliance, and license policies.

Organizational Change Manager: Cultivates support across all levels of the organization for streamlining customizations in your Windchill PLM solution. Communicates broadly and consistently about why and how your Windchill PLM solution will be different. Listens to employees' feedback and concerns about removing customizations. Should be passionate about Windchill PLM and all the advantages your organization will gain from streamlining customizations from Windchill PLM. This work may be shared among several individuals or a team.

Customization Expert: Understands or can investigate how and why the organization initially implemented the customizations.

One person may fill more than one of these roles, or several contributors may be assigned to each role. On a regular basis, your application owner, application manager, and organizational change manager should review your application customizations and decide if there are opportunities for standardization and optimization. These roles should work together to achieve streamlining your Windchill PLM solution. This can be accomplished through the synchronization of processes and functionalities of an application. Streamlining reduces complexity and offers benefits such as ease of integration and upgrade, improved performance, and better PTC Technical Support.

Execution Team

You'll also need an execution team to carry out the project. You may not need to fill these roles immediately. Ensure these team members have the time and resources to dedicate to this project. You may need their manager's approval. You'll need this team by the time you start to assess your current system.

Members of the decision team will be involved, and you'll also need:

Testing Team/Users: Creates test scripts and plans for the program. Is aware of the current business processes and will document changes made to business processes.

Users: There are two types of users:

Power Users: Test the Windchill PLM solution and provide feedback. Also provide training and guidance to end users after Windchill PLM goes live. Power users have more experience, training, and advanced skills than typical end users. Their insights will improve experience design, documentation, training, and change management.
End Users: Anyone who uses Windchill PLM for what it was created and deployed to do.

Business Process Consultant: Although not critical, they could help determine how to best use Windchill PLM with your business processes to improve efficiency and achieve your goals. Needs a thorough understanding of your organization and specific business processes as they exist today, experience with process modeling and the creation of future processes, and experience partnering with stakeholders to gather business requirements.

One person may fill more than one of these roles, or you may have several contributors assigned to each role. Depending on the size of your organization and your project, you may include people on your team from various locations across the business or around the world.

As you build your de-customization team, engage any employees who are interested in Windchill PLM and use it in their jobs. This will create early support and excitement, which will help maintain your momentum. Their feedback can be useful to ensure that the procedures are understandable.

02. Establish a governance board

Establish a governance board to set the direction for your de-customizations. The governance board will support the reasons for removing customizations and have the authority to make final decisions. If users propose a change that doesn't align with what customizations you decide to remove, the governance board has the authority to govern the direction of your de-customizations.

Establish a process to communicate, escalate, and resolve problems as they arise. By designating key decision-makers early in the project, you’ll be prepared to address issues quickly. Make sure the team understands everyone’s roles and responsibilities in the project and how decisions are made.

Questions to consider as you build your governance team:

Who has the authority to make decisions?
If an execution team member has an issue, how should they escalate it to someone with more authority?
Who should individual contributors contact to resolve day-to-day issues?
How can contributors get attention from leaders in a timely manner, if needed?
How does work get approved? Who approves it?
If two teams disagree, who makes the final decision?

Establishing a clear structure for managing issues will prevent delays.

Identify project stakeholders

Your project will benefit tremendously from leadership support. Cultivate support at various levels of your organization, from high-level business leaders to frontline workers. Ensure leaders communicate the importance of streamlining your Windchill PLM solution to their teams in regular forums and feedback sessions. Identify and engage various people across your organization to support your project. The right leaders may vary from business to business.

Leadership support also cultivates collaboration among the teams who use Windchill PLM across your organization. The more your teams interact, share best practices, and work together, the more engagement and support you'll generate. You’ll want to identify:

Corporate executives: Your most important stakeholder will be at the executive level. Identify a well-respected, well-connected executive who will advocate for streamlining your Windchill PLM solution on an ongoing basis. Engage executives in parts of the organization that your project will benefit.

Long-term support team: Identify the IT support staff, help desk staff, power users, and business stakeholders who will manage and support your Windchill PLM solution in the long term. This team will fix bugs, perform upgrades, and provide end users with support. The long-term support team is important to the success of the software and your return on investment. Involve them early and plan for training, documentation, and a smooth handoff.

To ensure that your streamlined version gets used and delivers value, involve representatives of important end user groups throughout the project. Their insights will improve experience design, documentation, training, and change management.

03. Determine outside resources needed

PTC and experienced partners can often fill gaps in skill sets and experience that you may not have available internally. Verify that the individuals you hire have the right skills and experience to help you meet your goals.

Assess Current System

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Identify your customizations in Windchill PLM

Understand existing customizations

Determine needs early

Confirm business goals

01. Identify your customizations in Windchill PLM

Recommended Resources

Customization Analysis Support
Windchill Performance Advisor
How to use Windchill+ Readiness Diagnostic Extension (WReadE) with Windchill PDMLink eSupport PTC login required

02. Understand existing customizations

Locate the information below for each customization identified:

The type of customization
What the customization does
What initiates the customization
Whether it is integrated with other customizations
Any workflow templates (XML file), Java code classes, or other detailed files related to each customization
The business need associated and whether there is a comparable OOTB functionality
What type of effort is required to remove, replace, or reduce the customization size and impact

Collect and document this information for all customizations. This information will help you decide what customizations to streamline.

Make sure to follow PTC’s best practices for customizations as you plan how to streamline your Windchill PLM solution. Document if any customization:

Connects to a system or tool that PTC does not support
Performs an action that PTC does not support

For more information about customizations, visit Get Familiar with Customizations.

Recommended Resources

Where to find the Windchill Customization Guides Help Center PTC login required
Guidelines and Guardrails Help Center

03. Determine needs early

Unnecessary expansion of the project or its deadlines
Team misalignment
Wasting resources time

The more customized your Windchill PLM solution is, the more risks there may be when removing customizations. Perform a cost-benefit analysis for each customization.

We recommend:

Involving and updating multiple stakeholders across departments, including those on your execution team and decision team
Defining governance
- Framework for making decisions
- Implementation process
- Roles and responsibilities
Document everything—stakeholder names and contact information, unanswered questions, meeting notes, stakeholder interviews, final technical requirements, baseline criteria, etc.
Ensuring the focus is on customer and business needs
Managing change processes in one location with visibility to all parties
Conducting auditable processes that include electronic signatures
Tracking compliance regulations throughout the process

Consider future needs

Contact your customer success manager or sales representative to learn more about Windchill+.

04. Confirm business goals

When the assessment of your organization’s current customizations is complete, ensure that every decision aligns with your business goals. Ask stakeholders the following questions:

What has brought us to this point to consider streamlining this customization?
What outcomes do we seek?
How does this align with our goals?
What risks are we willing to take or not take?
What is preventing us from doing these things in our current system?
What is our timeline?
What legal requirements must we meet?
What does value look like for the organization with this system?
How will we measure success to reach our goals?

After you collect their responses to these questions, note how the responses overlap. Prioritize this information to incorporate into how you will design your system later.

Emulate these customizations in isolation
Extend the customization based on the Guidelines and Guardrails that are currently supported by PTC
Service owners (for example, Project or Product Managers) should maintain a roadmap to guide the evolution of their PLM implementation based on relevant business objectives.
Changes to your Windchill+ system should be managed under a formal release process that aligns those changes with your PLM roadmap
Validate all customizations using test cases
Use the latest techniques for customizations, such as modelled enumerations or text tailoring

For more information about customizations, visit the Windchill+ Help Center.

Recommended Resources

Guidelines and Guardrails Help Center
Windchill+ Basic Customization Guides Help Center
Windchill+ Help Center Help Center

Understand Available Functionality

Learn about what out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality your Windchill PLM solution offers as you determine how you will remove customizations from your Windchill PLM solution.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Get familiar with the latest version of Windchill PLM solution

Understand license implications

01. Get familiar with the latest version of Windchill PLM solution

Windchill administrators provide services to ensure the effectiveness of your Windchill PLM solution and are responsible for the fast-growing and ever-changing demands of the end-user population. In your continuous service improvement journey, streamlining your Windchill PLM solution should be a continuous driving force to make it faster, more robust/stable, and easier to maintain/operate.

Streamlining (leveraging new OOTB functionality or reworking customizations) should be a recurring process.

Reviewing customizations should be part of recurring discussions (quarterly or annually) to check whether OOTB functionality can replace existing customizations that follows best practices. Find ways to incorporate streamlining in your service strategy, design your services with streamlining in mind, and transition to a more manageable environment which will ultimately lower your service operations costs.

Now that you know what you customized, compare that functionality to what is available in the latest Windchill PLM solution. For example, you may find that your customizations became OOTB functionality, that similar OOTB functionality now exists or that the customized feature is not needed anymore.

Learn more about the latest versions of Windchill PLM solution at the Windchill PLM Help Center and the What’s New with Windchill PLM webpage. If you are a Windchill+ customer, review the Windchill+ Help Center to understand the new Windchill+ features. These pages are updated regularly with the latest information about each release. For every Windchill PLM release, you’ll learn about:

New functionality
What functionality has changed
What functionality is no longer supported
What is required to upgrade to the latest version

Visit the PTC Product Release Calendar to find the estimated release dates for future releases.

Recommended Resources

Windchill PLM Help Center Help Center
Windchill+ Help Center Help Center
What's New with Windchill PLM Webpage
PTC Product Release Calendar eSupport PTC login required

02. Understand license implications

Licenses give customers the right to use the software. To use your Windchill PLM solution, you need a general user’s license. To customize your Windchill PLM solution, you needed a developer’s license. In addition, your organization may have other licenses that include additional windchill capabilities.

When you remove customizations from your Windchill PLM solution, your organization may need different licenses than the ones you had previously. Again, it will depend on which licenses you currently have and what those licenses allow you to do.

For example, if your organization removes all your customizations and your organization won’t customize your Windchill PLM solution again in the future, you won’t need to keep your developer’s license(s). However, if you keep some customizations, you’ll need to retain your developer’s license(s).

When reviewing available functionality, consider:

How many licenses your organization has, and why
How many licenses you would need if you removed some or all customizations
If you would want to retain the ability to customize in the future
If you would need to buy additional licenses to use more Windchill PLM functionality
- For example, would you need more PDMLink licenses if you added customizations to replace the need for a particular type of license?

If you do not know which licenses your organization has, the License Management utility tracks your license usage. Visit the Help Center to learn more about the License Management utility.

Recommended Resources

License Management Utility Help Center
Viewing License Information Help Center

Understand Impacts to Your Technology and Teams

Learn how streamlining customizations will change your Windchill PLM solution, infrastructure, and integrated systems. Also recognize how these changes will affect your teams and how they interact with the Windchill PLM solution. Plan how to accomplish your goals without causing any interruptions to your systems.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Understand what changes to expect to your infrastructure

Understand your options

Understand the benefits

Gather requirements

Consider other teams

Consider other PTC products

Know where to get support

01. Understand what changes to expect to your infrastructure

Streamlining your customizations will cause a major change to your system and architecture. With this change comes a new system code and behaviors. You should expect an impact to your system’s infrastructure (for example, security and system requirements), data transformation, and integration.

Changes made to the system or process will vary by project. Failure to acknowledge every requirement early can lead to technical changes needed later and could add complexity and time to your project. While identifying additional requirements later in the project is common, consult those who can support in making important decisions about your organization’s systems. These include people from:

Business: Design, engineering, product, and customer experience
Information technology: Security, management, help desk, infrastructure (for on-premise customers), and PTC Cloud (for PTC Cloud customers)
Administration: PTC (License Management and Sales), current Windchill PLM administrator, high-level sponsor (possibly the EVP of Engineering), project managers, and third parties

Your PTC representative can get you connected with a Market Lead who will set you up with someone in PTC Field Services. PTC Field Services can also support you in identifying required changes for your Windchill PLM solution.

02. Understand your options

The extent of the customizations currently on your Windchill PLM solution will determine how to approach streamline it. Your organization must know how new functionality will be implemented to replace custom functionality currently on your system. You have two options to meet business needs with your Windchill PLM solution:

Change current customizations
Remove current customizations

There are advantages and disadvantages streamlining customizations. Depending on the complexity of your project and your industry-specific security needs, these could include changes related to security and performance. During planning, your organization will want to consider:

Security vulnerabilities
Hardcoded passwords
Encryption
Regulatory and compliance

03. Understand the benefits

Based on your organization’s goals, streamlining customizations from your Windchill PLM solution can be beneficial.

Benefits may include:

Easier to upgrade
Access to the PTC Cloud
Efficiency in time and cost
Ability to meet new or stricter security and compliance needs
Improved user experience
Access to out-of-the-box features
Self-service options
System performance
Increased employee productivity
Improved scalability of your solution
Risk and error reduction
Lower maintenance requirements

04. Gather requirements

Once you understand how streamlining customizations will impact your Windchill PLM solution, understand how your customizations impact your system’s architecture. You may need to adjust other parts of your system’s architecture to successfully accommodate the changes you’re making to Windchill PLM. Refer to the information gathered during your assessment of your current system to get started.

The impacts to other teams and systems depend on how customized your current system is. Gather requirements to prepare other parts of your architecture. Changes must be made to your:

Infrastructure
- Because your architecture might change after streamlining customizations, you may need to update your infrastructure to accommodate the new architecture. You need to know which version of Windchill PLM you currently have and which version you need to upgrade to.
  - To confirm what version you currently have, in the Windchill Administrator:
    - Select Quick Links
    - In the drop-down menu, select Help
    - Then, select About Windchill
    - The version of your solution will be listed there. It will appear something like Release: 11.1 M020 CPS11.
  - To know your software compatibility impact, refer to Release Advisor. You will manually enter which version you currently have and which version you need to upgrade to. Next, Release Advisor will give you information about what to change in your current infrastructure to complete the update successfully.
- Data transformation or migration (if this applies to your situation)
  - Figure out how you will you maintain your current data with your new setup.
- Integration
  - If your current customizations involve other systems, you need to revisit how the data will work after you streamline those customizations.

We recommend that you map your needs from both a functional view and a requirements modeling view.

05. Consider other teams

You may have other departments or functions who are secondary users and indirectly rely on your Windchill PLM solution to do their jobs. Consider what is required in your updated system in order for other teams to continue doing their jobs successfully.

Examples of secondary users may include:

Information technology
Enterprise resource planning
Cybersecurity
Procurement

The goal is to consider everyone and everything before removing customizations and making drastic changes to your system. Consult every department that will affected by the change.

06. Consider other PTC products

You may have other PTC products (like ThingWorx Navigate, ThingWorx Operator Advisor, Creo Parametric, etc.) that you want or are already integrated with your Windchill PLM solution. This is the time to understand what they require. Release Advisor will show you which PTC products are compatible with the Windchill PLM version you are moving to. You should include these in your integration plan before execution.

Recommended Resources

Release Advisor eSupport

07. Know where to get support

If you have specific questions about how streamlining your customizations that will affect your Windchill PLM solution, reach out to your internal support team or your partners for more information.

Understand the Value of Streamlining

Figure out what value means for your organization. Then determine how to meet your business needs and generate that value.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Define value for your organization

Figure out your total cost of ownership

01. Define value for your organization

While every customer has unique goals for streamlining their Windchill PLM solution, it’s essential to understand how those goals create value in your organization. Discuss and review what value looks like in the context of your organization’s needs. For example, is your goal to increase productivity? Do you need to decrease human error? Is it essential that your organization reduce its cost of ownership while using your Windchill PLM solution? Value could be defined as all these things and more for your organization.

While cost reduction will likely play a significant role, many reasons may affect what value looks like for your organization. To be clear, money does not have to be, and most likely won’t be, the only driver for your decision to streamline your Windchill PLM solution. Depending on your situation and the customizations you currently have, the value for your organization could also include:

The ability to upgrade easier
Moving to the PTC Cloud
Increased efficiency
Better user experience
Improved system performance and the scalability of your solution

02. Figure out your total cost of ownership

To find the value of streamlining, consider your current system’s total cost of ownership. Then, compare it to the total cost of the upgraded system you will build with OOTB functionality. You may decide to remove some customizations when the ongoing costs for upgrades and overall system maintenance are more expensive than an OOTB solution or for a reason that is not primarily monetary. Removing customizations leads to cost savings in some form, either way.

There are two primary levels of cost savings associated with removing customizations from your solution:

IT: The ongoing administrative support of customizations is costly. Having people at your organization and using their time to support something time-consuming uses your human resources, time, and money.
Process: Many customers don’t know why they have customizations in the first place. When you set up a baseline metric around a process, you will notice the cost difference and map this to an improved OOTB process.

To figure out the total cost of ownership of your current system:

Calculate the total your organization spends to support and use your Windchill PLM solution.
Then, compare the total of your current expenses to the cost of upgrading and removing your customizations.
Calculate the difference between the two by subtracting the estimated total expenses you will have after removing your customizations from the cost of your total current expenditures.

Your Total Current Cost of Expenses – Your Estimated Total Cost at Future State = Your Estimated Total Cost Savings

When calculating costs, include things like internal and external labor costs, maintenance costs, time to value, and other indirect costs that affect operations and user experience. Define costs that make sense for how your organization tracks, categorizes and reports expenses. Refer to your financial reports and any other records that can help you gather numbers for your Windchill PLM solution’s current state. You may want to include short-term and long-term cost comparisons.

Recommended Resources

Windchill Performance Advisor
PTC's Performance Advisor tool PTC login required
FAQ - Performance Advisor for Windchill eSupport PTC login required

Decide What to Streamline

Make an informed decision about which customizations to standardize or optimize by replacing with out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality, and identify metrics to support this decision.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Choose which customizations to standardize or optimize

Determine the metrics for customization

01. Choose which customizations to standardize or optimize

Remember: streamlining is a two-part process. It includes:

Standardization: Analyzing and reworking your customizations to make them compliant to PTC’s best practices for customizations.
Optimization: Using OOTB functionality to replace existing customizations.

To streamline your customizations, your Application Owner and Application Manager can help by exploring your current customizations and understanding why you have them. Both roles can help determine which customizations your organization uses that either:

Do not comply with PTC’s best practices
Can be optimized with OOTB functionality to meet that same business need

You can reduce overall costs by standardizing your customizations and optimizing with OOTB functionality.

Start with a list of your customizations and determine what they do and why you have them. This analysis will inform customizations you no longer need. Consider these questions for each customization:

What business needs does the customization meet?
Can I keep doing business without this customization?
What is this currently costing us?
Is this functionality available OOTB?

If not, we may need to keep our customization but standardize it.
If so, what should we do to optimize this OOTB functionality?

What is the difference between our current setup with our customizations and the setup we need to convert to OOTB functionality?

Can we build this setup on our own?
Do we need external support?

What will this OOTB functionality cost us—both short-term and long-term?
What will we save in costs?
What additional features will we gain with this OOTB functionality?

If you’re unsure about what customizations you currently have or your product installations, use the Windchill Performance Advisor. This dashboard will scan your system and provide a report with diagnostic data.

The Windchill Performance Advisor will help you:

Understand your hardware and software performance
Understand your product installations
Identify your current customizations
Determine your options to improve your system and meet business needs
Improve compliance management
Meet privacy and security requirements
Optimize your product performance
Proactively resolve issues

Refer to our recommended resources below to learn more about the Windchill Performance Advisor.

Recommended Resources

Where to find the Windchill Customization Guides eSupport PTC login required
Performance Advisor - System Dashboard eSupport PTC login required
Windchill Performance Advisor
FAQ - Performance Advisor for Windchill eSupport PTC login required

02. Determine the metrics for customization

Decide how streamlining customizations from Windchill PLM will benefit your organization. Refer to how your organization defines value and your total cost of ownership before you streamline your customizations. This will help you decide which metrics to use to demonstrate value for your situation.

Break your business down into four key areas:

Employees
Customers
Processes
Revenue

Use your top key performance indicators to compare your performance in these top four areas. Later, you’ll compare your current data (your baseline) to your future state data.

Common metrics you may use to determine the need to streamline certain customizations include:

Productivity
System performance
Usability
Number of tickets for tech support
Administrative data cleansing
Total cost of ownership

This cost is comprehensive and includes upfront costs and what you spend in time, money, and other resources for:

Maintenance
Bug fixes
Upgrades

Manual data entry
System complexity
System reliability
Accuracy of data (such as build of materials)

Confirm the cost of streamlining customizations and get approval from the right stakeholders before proceeding with next steps.

There may be some customizations that you currently have that do not have comparable OOTB functionality that meets your business needs. In this case, you may decide to keep that customization. Know which metrics support this decision. Remember to include this justification in your documentation later.

Refer to this information every time you upgrade Windchill PLM. An upgrade could mean there is an opportunity to streamline another customization and lower your total cost of ownership.

Recommended Resources

Windchill Performance Advisor
Performance Advisor - System Dashboard eSupport PTC login required
FAQ - Performance Advisor for Windchill eSupport PTC login required

Create a Project Plan

Plan how you will streamline customizations from Windchill PLM at your organization. Create a schedule that fits the complexity of your customizations. Identify who will be impacted, plan for environment testing, and get approval for your budget.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Document your tasks to streamline customizations

Identify affected teams or sites

Plan environments

Get approval on the project plan and final budget

01. Document your tasks to streamline customizations

Document when and how your team will streamline customizations from Windchill PLM. The size and complexity of the plan will depend on the size and complexity of your customizations. If your customizations affect multiple departments, include representatives from those teams.

Your plan should provide a detailed view of everything needed to complete the project and who is involved at each step. When you know the scope of your customizations, build your plan around who needs to be involved and what work they’ll perform.

The plan should include:

Specific tasks
Who will perform each task
When each task should be completed
Phases of testing and activities within those phases
Milestones to help measure progress

No task is too small to include.

Establish a timeline that includes short-term and long-term goals to stay on track with your project. The timeline should also include completion dates, milestones, key deliverables, and a rollout date. You’ll create a rollout plan later.

Ensure that your timelines are realistic to the size of your project. Create extra time in your schedule to troubleshoot problems as they arise or to let different test phases catch up with each other. Customers often want tasks to progress too quickly or focus on a strict timeline. The accuracy of the work is more important than adhering to your schedule.

02. Identify affected teams or sites

In addition to your decision and execution teams, consider who else will be affected by your changes to Windchill PLM. Consider all groups within your organization, as well as any third parties, that use Windchill PLM and how they do their work today. These groups will need to be trained on how Windchill PLM changed and how to perform their daily tasks.

Select people from each group to design and test your Windchill PLM solution without customizations. This group will also become your power users. They will test Windchill PLM and provide feedback. Later, they’ll help train and support end users. If multiple departments are affected, include representatives from each department in your communications. If third parties connect to your Windchill PLM, include them as well. You want a representative from each group that will be affected by the changes that come from streamlining customizations.

If you have not yet done so, assemble a team with stakeholders, executive sponsors, business leads, subject matter experts, or other contributors. This helps identify everyone on the project and encourages them to be accountable.

03. Plan environments

Plan which environments you’ll need to test and execute streamlining your customizations. Involve your system administrator to plan the environments you’ll need.

Their titles may differ, but we recommend a combination of the following environments:

Pre-production: Where developers can experiment with coding in an environment that looks and functions exactly like their instance of Windchill PLM without affecting the live production environment
Development: Where developers move new code to run processes without affecting the live environment
Test/QA: Where developers move changed and approved code so power users can see if the user interface meets their needs
Production: Where end users perform their day-to-day job duties

You may also need environments for integration or migration to execute the project.

The number of environments you need will depend on the size and complexity of your project. For example, you’ll need more environments if your Windchill PLM has third-party connections. You’d want to verify that those connections still work after you’ve changed Windchill PLM.

You’ll need to understand impacts to other teams and systems as you plan your environments. The scope and size of your plan will help your system administrator plan your environments.

04. Get approval on the project plan and final budget

To finalize your project plan, compile all the plans you created in this step. Now consider what these plans will cost. Add up the final costs of:

Internal and external resources
Any potential financial impact this project could have on current operations due to outages, shortages, trainings, etc.

We recommend that you include a contingency in your final budget to support unplanned costs that may come up during the project.

Take your detailed costs and final project plan back to your executive stakeholders for final review and approval.

Plan Rollout

Plan how to introduce streamlining customizations from your Windchill PLM solution to your organization. A thorough rollout plan helps you navigate change and encourage users to adjust to these changes. Consider how to implement the project plan you created in the in the previous step. The rollout of the plan is as important as the creation of the plan.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Create a rollout plan

Plan end user training

Establish your internal support strategy

01. Create a rollout plan

Plan how to support employees as they learn about why Windchill PLM will change and how to use it. The specifics of your rollout plan will vary depending on the size of your project.

Typically, a rollout plan outlines:

Who, specifically, will be using Windchill PLM
What their roles are
How you will communicate with them as they get started and beyond
When and how they should receive training
Who will conduct training
How they will get support

This plan will communicate many of the decisions you made through execution planning. Document your rollout plan and share it accordingly.

Create your organizational change management plan

Your organizational change manager (who you identified in Assemble Your Team) will help create your organizational change management (OCM) plan. An OCM plan’s main goal is to help prepare your employees for change. The key to a successful software deployment is a seamless transition for your end users.

An OCM plan:

Defines a compelling vision and clear objectives
Ensures strong leadership and significant sponsorship
Builds and maintains ownership and accountability
Aligns processes, organization, and culture
Involves employees
Provides adequate enablement, training, and support
Ensures stakeholder-specific communication
Measures and monitor benefits realization continuously

Document your OCM plan and share it accordingly.

We recommend that you start these activities as soon as possible with the appropriate audiences. Announcing changes early and often helps generate support throughout the organization and will make transition easier.

02. Plan end user training

Training is another opportunity to build excitement for Windchill PLM, providing your employees with an opportunity to try the system before the changes go live. Depending on the extent of what changed and how it affects the end user, your training could range from extensive to none at all. Plan how to support employees as they learn how to use your updated version of Windchill PLM.

End user training should cover:

What will be different in Windchill PLM
How the changes affect their job or role
How to get technical support
How to troubleshoot and report errors
How to access user documentation

Consider how you’ll deliver training. You could:

Host a workshop led by an expert
Create “how-to” videos or tutorials
Supply a job aid or cheat sheet
Create an instructional guide

If your end users work across many locations, determine how to coordinate training across sites. Later in the project, you’ll test Windchill PLM before deploying it. Testing is a great opportunity to observe how much training they need to get started. Quick and thorough training will give your users confidence to use Windchill PLM.

Also, ensure your trainers have the time and availability during this critical time.

03. Establish your internal support strategy

Prepare your IT department to support employees during and after this transition. Consider establishing a Windchill PLM “help desk” within your IT department if you don’t already have one.

An important part of your long-term support strategy will rely on having in-house support available for end users. IT personnel should complete Windchill PLM training to be prepared to answer basic questions and troubleshoot issues.

To support your technical support team training, we recommend all members:

Gain access and learn how to use PTC's eSupport Portal & Knowledge Base
Create accounts for admins on the PTC Community
Bookmark PTC's Technical Support Case Logger

Recommended Resources

Getting Started with PTC Knowledge Base eSupport
PLM PTC Community PTC Communities
Open a Support Case eSupport
Create New eSupport Account eSupport
PTC University PTC University

Plan Communications

A crucial step in introducing change to your organization is to inform and educate people. Plan how to communicate about streamlining customizations from Windchill PLM to your organization. Take proactive steps to engage contributors, collect feedback, and ease the transition.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Create a communications plan

Build excitement and address concerns

01. Create a communications plan

Create a communication plan to connect with the appropriate audiences and help manage change.

Use these questions to guide your communications plan:

Who are your audiences?
What does each audience care most about?
What do they need to know to be successful?
When do they need to know it?
What is your schedule for communicating with your audience?
What are the existing or best channels to communicate through?
Who should deliver the message(s) for it to be effective?
How often should you communicate with each audience?
When will you communicate information to different groups?
How can your audiences communicate their concerns with you?

Once these questions are answered, consider how your organizational change management plan is affected. Make any updates as necessary.

02. Build excitement and address concerns

Change can be uncomfortable—but it's inevitable for businesses to stay competitive. There are ways to smooth the transition and build excitement about streamlining customizations in your Windchill PLM solution.

Advocate for streamlining your Windchill PLM solution across your organization, from high-level executives, down to frontline workers. If possible, get support from leadership and ask them to help you spread the news. Consider sharing updates with executive leaders, managers, trainees, and other employees as appropriate.

Whenever you communicate about streamlining customizations in your Windchill PLM solution, clearly articulate why you're going it.

Know how to explain:

Why your organization is making this change (and why it's beneficial to end users)
How it will affect the business and Windchill PLM users
Your end goal and timeline

Prevent inaccurate assumptions by clearly communicating the value your Windchill PLM changes will bring to your organization.

Generate support across the organization

Get support from leadership and ask them to help you spread the news. You will need buy-in from all levels of the organization. Consider sharing updates with executive leaders, managers, trainees, and other end users as appropriate.

Create a mechanism for listening to concerns

Listening to your employees’ concerns should be a top concern. If stakeholder communication is only coming from one direction, you risk overlooking valuable feedback, inventive ideas, or important concerns from people in your organization. Give your employees different methods to express their concerns or ideas to allow people to choose what works best for them.

To help facilitate and elicit feedback, try one or more of the following methods:

An open forum or team website: Provide a forum where stakeholders can ask questions and make comments. Project leaders can help answer common questions across the organization.
Group email: Some employees may be hesitant to post on a public forum. To engage them, consider creating a dedicated project email inbox.
Anonymous survey: Send anonymous surveys throughout the process to gather honest feedback without the fear of repercussions.

Whichever methods you chose, be sure end users, managers, new trainees, project participants, and other stakeholders know how to express concerns, share ideas, and ask questions.

Design Your Environment Needs

Build servers that allow you to run your test cases.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Prepare infrastructure for execution

Verify requirements and validate each environment

01. Prepare infrastructure for execution

Now that you’ve defined your requirements for your Windchill PLM solution, begin planning your design. This is a highly collaborative process. Start by evaluating your current infrastructure to find out what changes you need to make. Consider the impacts these changes will have on your other systems. Involve the execution team who will configure the infrastructure as well as those who designed the application and understand which systems and data you need to connect with.

To create a list of needs for your environments, refer to the system, integration, and data transformation requirements you identified previously. The goal is to set up everything to meet your organization’s needs in the next version of your solution.

When preparing your infrastructure, consider:

What needs to be created
What needs to be updated
How you will deploy the system
How you will address planned and unplanned downtime
The validation processes for all environments (development, pre-production, and production)
The metrics you’ve decided to use to measure business success
Functional requirements and how these relate to any PTC products you have
The number of modules and environments needed

Do you need to add or remove any?

A version control system for your source code
Licensing requirements

We recommend at least three environments. These environments are:

Development: Where code is created and the application is checked to run successfully. This is typically set up on a local machine or server.
Pre-production: Where the application is tested in an environment that looks like the production environment.
Production: Where the application become a part of the server.

Based on your situation, you may want to consider including additional environments, such as:

Quality assurance/testing environments
Sandboxes
Training servers
Migration environments

We recommend following software development lifecycle best practices.

02. Verify requirements and validate each environment

In the verification phase, your organization will make sure each environment has been set up properly to meet specifications.

Validation detects errors that your team may miss during verification. This helps your team discover potential issues early.

Methods used in each process are different. We recommend completing verification and validation.

Align on Future State

Determine what tasks to complete before development to reach the desired state of your Windchill PLM solution.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Update business process

Determine data access needs

Determine software and license needs

Explore other options to meet business needs

01. Update business process

Before designing your out-of-the-box (OOTB) Windchill PLM solution, consider how your end users interact with it currently and how they may interact with it in the future. You’ll need to update your processes and activities related to using Windchill PLM to make sure you use your resources optimally.

Compare the current state of your solution to your desired state. We recommend conducting an analysis to measure time, money, and labor resources. This will help you determine what resources you need and use them effectively. It will be helpful to discuss the results of the analysis in your updated documentation later.

When you update your business process, you should:

Select and engage the right stakeholders
Consider your business goals and how to achieve them
Refer to the details gathered about your environment needs
Establish a plan for change control
Keep the lines of communication open among people across teams and departments
Consider how you will improve efficiency
Set actions and delegate to the right stakeholders
Identify gaps between your current state and future state
Conduct a gap analysis
Create a map from your current state to your OOTB capability

Finally, you want to ensure that you are meeting business needs with this process update. Test your process idea to see if the technology used can support project goals. Once your design meets your expectations and you gain valuable feedback, decide whether the solution meets business needs.

02. Determine data access needs

Before streamlining customizations from your Windchill PLM solution, decide if the access needs to the data have changed and who will need to access this data. Ensure that end users can exchange and reuse data from their applications throughout the product lifecycle.

You should consider:

The system’s information flow to know how information is used
With whom information is shared
What actions result from sharing information
Security and compliance requirements

Best practices include:

Defining permissions that reflect the access needs of each department or specific roles in the organization.
Establishing an access request workflow for end users to request data access when needed.

03. Determine software and license needs

To be successful and get value from your streamlined Windchill PLM solution with fewer customizations, you need to prepare for the solution’s future state.

Your organization should consider:

Changes in business and production processes

What process works for your team and situation?

The target version of your updated Windchill PLM solution

Do you have a product roadmap? If not, it may be helpful to create one.

Software or license needs

Does the software terms and conditions meet your compliance and security requirements?
Does your current license model meet your needs? Do you need additional licenses or fewer? How will this affect your project budget?
Do you need a subscription license?

A subscription license allows continued access until a predetermined expiration date. Data access is terminated until you renew the subscription.

How often do you revise your data to produce physical products, also known as your bill of materials?

Creating and implementing best practices for adding future customizations, if necessary
Where and who to go to for support
Assessing and managing any risk
Assigning a group who will own the Windchill PLM solution

To determine all your license needs, read more about Windchill PLM licensing options.

By knowing how the future state of your Windchill PLM solution should work, as it relates to your business process, you’ll have a clear understanding of everything necessary to create it. This allows your team to plan for changes and updates during and after streamlining your Windchill PLM solution.

04. Explore other options to meet business needs

After planning your project and gathering your requirements, you may notice needs that you did not originally realize or gaps. Figure out how you can meet these needs. Document if you need support from external subject matter experts or need additional technologies to address these. Provide your reasons for these needs in the documentation, too. Update your plan accordingly.

Align Business Functions

The final design of Windchill PLM should meet all stakeholder needs. Streamlining customizations may not affect every department, but it may affect multiple departments. Therefore, ensure that all stakeholders have buy-in to which customizations are being streamlined.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Get stakeholder agreement

Gather feedback

01. Get stakeholder agreement

Streamlining customizations may not affect every department, but it will likely affect multiple departments. Once the decision team aligns on the future state of your Windchill PLM solution, stakeholders and their affected departments will review the future state and give feedback to the decision team.

The director of each affected department may choose someone from within the department with deep knowledge about Windchill PLM to serve as a representative. This person can help evaluate whether the future state transforms their business processes and whether the changes meet their needs. The decision team will collect the feedback and adjust the plan as needed. You can repeat the feedback cycle as many times as needed until you have alignment across all departments.

Your organization could also consider using a bottom-up approach. For example, stakeholders from various departments could submit recommendations for which customizations to remove to the decision team, the decision team can collect feedback from all departments and start to make their decisions from there.

02. Gather feedback

Remember that listening to your employees’ concerns should be a top concern. If communication is only coming from one direction, you risk overlooking valuable feedback, inventive ideas, or important concerns from people in your organization.

Use the mechanisms you created for listening to concerns in your communications plan to collect stakeholders’ feedback.

The decision team will consider and incorporate the feedback into the future state. Depending on the size of your project, the process of the decision team presenting the future state to stakeholders, receiving feedback from stakeholders, and incorporating the feedback can happen numerous times. Having a clear scope, business need, and project plan for streamlining customizations can help focus these discussions.

Plan Testing and Verification

Create a testing plan and document all steps needed for it. Then plan how to verify changes to your Windchill PLM solution meet your needs.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Create a testing plan

Plan for verification

01. Create a testing plan

When you created your project plan, you planned for how many environments you needed for testing. Now, create a plan of what to test in those environments and by whom. Involve decision and execution team members who understand how your Windchill PLM solution currently works and how it will work after streamlining customizations. Identify these resources early and determine how much time they will need to commit.

The size and complexity of your plan depend on the size and complexity of your customizations. However, having a complete understanding of what you’ll streamline from your Windchill PLM solution is essential. You cannot complete your plan if you do not understand what you will streamline and how those changes affect users.

In general, we recommend including a combination of the following types of testing:

Unit testing: Test whether code behaves properly within, without, and at the defined limits.
System (or functional) testing: Test the functionality of a collection of components defined by an acceptance criteria document.
Integration testing: Test existing integrations still work after standardizing customizations from Windchill PLM.
Security and penetration testing: Test for vulnerabilities, risks, and threats. Always test with different scenarios that represent real use cases.
User acceptance testing (UAT): A further test to verify that requirements are being met. Test with power users to make sure the user interface meets their needs.
Deployment testing: Verify that the solution works as expected on a staging server representing production. Customers often overlook this phase.

Also plan to conduct existing functional and non-functional tests to ensure the system works as expected after developers have implemented changes and that changes only exist where expected (or “regression testing”). Regression testing is not a separate testing phase, but it’s included as part of system, integration, or deployment testing. Regression testing verifies that the changed code didn’t interrupt or break the existing code.

Depending on the size and complexity of what customizations are streamlined, you can combine some of these phases. If the customizations you’re standardizing are extensive, more testing phases will be needed. For example, if third parties connect to your Windchill PLM solution, you’ll need to plan to test those connections with integration testing. Identify what testing you need to do in each of your environments.

Document the plan for how you will test your Windchill PLM solution. Be as thorough as possible. Update any changes to your existing test plans as necessary. You will need these details for the next upgrade.

Document your testing plan

Document what tests will happen in each environment and who should be involved. Be as thorough as possible. No task is too small to include.

Make one overall testing plan that includes:

A summary of which customizations will be streamlined from your Windchill PLM solution
Data sources and data flow
Design specification/technical design
Acceptance criteria
Test procedures
Test cases
Environments and who has access to which ones
Security requirements
Results of quality assurance tests

Include within your testing plan the cadence in which testers will report errors, including how or where to report errors. We recommend daily meetings so that developers can start fixing problems as testing continues. Reporting errors quickly can save your developers’ time.

Have your implementation partner review your test plans and give you feedback.

Write test scripts

Having a prepared test script will help your team get the most out of testing. Your test scripts should include:

Clear, concise, and brief steps the tester will execute
Expected result(s) in each step

Make your actions brief to make sure testers don’t skip steps. Having a well-written test script ensures that testers stay focused.

Include the expected result in each step of the test script. Without the expected outcomes, testers may be confused and report false issues. Do not assume that testers will know the expected result on their own. You will get more meaningful results and save time if the testers know the expected outcomes in advance.

When you write test cases, make sure they align with your goals. The goals and metrics that you wrote might also provide requirements that your Windchill PLM solution needs to meet. Write real-world scenarios that people in your company will experience within the use case. Plan to complete these tests in a QA or staging environment that replicates your production environment as closely as possible.

Document your test scripts and include them as part of your overall testing plan.

02. Plan for verification

Plan how you will verify that your Windchill PLM solution still meets your organization’s needs and technical requirements and functions as designed.

UAT is one way to verify that your requirements are being met and can address questions like:

Can users navigate and use the application?
Is the new functionality confusing?
Does the current functionality fit the organization’s needs?
Did the application function correctly during the test?

Document the plan for how you will verify your Windchill PLM solution. Be as thorough as possible. No task is too small to include. Update any changes to your existing test plans as necessary. You will need these details for your next upgrade.

Develop Options for Future State

Execute the design you created previously. Confirm out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality meets your business needs, change your system, and manage your data.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Streamline customizations

Confirm OOTB functionality

Update your system to meet requirements

Manage historical data

Clean the data

01. Streamline customizations

At this point, it’s time to streamline the customizations you have identified. Standardize the customizations you plan to keep by making sure it follows PTC’s customization best practice, or optimize your Windchill PLM solution by removing the customizations you no longer need and leveraging OOTB functionality.

To build your solution, refer to the requirements and plans you established in the previous steps. This step includes:

Modifying existing customization to follow PTC best practices
Implementing configuration changes
Carrying out your plan agreed upon about handling historical data
Ensuring that the OOTB functionality works in a way that satisfies your business needs
Making approved updates
Documenting every execution step

02. Confirm OOTB functionality

Ensure that the OOTB functionality can satisfy your business needs in creating and managing the data moving forward. The development team and the governance team will make changes to the data model and business processes. They will also ensure application programming interfaces or loaders are available to support the new OOTB functionality.

03. Update your system to meet requirements

You will now implement the supported configuration based on the previously created plan. This could involve turning on and off features and updating settings to accommodate users.

Some examples of configurations you will need to create or change include:

Object types
Attributes
Lifecycle
Object initialization rules
Access control
Workflows
Preferences
Properties

Ensure that your configurations are done in a way that provides flexibility in case you need to make changes to your system later. Again, optimizing system usage and enhancing the performance of your system is the goal.

04. Manage historical data

In the process of standardizing customizations from Windchill PLM, you may also need to remove custom data attributes. However, regardless of what custom attributes you remove, you still need to manage your organization’s data in the system before removing customizations.

If you remove custom attributes, you should ask:

Does the data still have all the information the users need?
Does the process to manage that data still meet user needs after removing customizations?
Do the right individuals have the right access to view, create, or modify that data?

The data transformation and maintenance decisions you made earlier in the project will determine what management tactics are applied here. This task will require complex work and is a major activity. Data is extracted from Windchill PLM solution and converted before it is reloaded back into your Windchill PLM solution. This time, the data may appear as a different object type with different attributes. Data transformation is the collective steps taken to convert and extract data from one format to another to send to a new destination.

The data transformation process includes:

Data discovery: Identifying and understanding the data in its original format
Data mapping: Planning the data transformation
Code generation: Creating code to run the transformation
Code execution: Converting data to the desired format
Data review: Checking data to ensure everything is formatted correctly
Data cleaning: Correcting or removing data that is incorrect, mislabeled, duplicated, incorrectly formatted, or incorrect

Tools and technologies used for data transformation will vary based on the complexity of the changes your project requires. Depending on your project, organization, or regulatory requirements, not all data may need to be transformed.

05. Clean the data

Data cleaning techniques will not always be the same every time you perform them. It’s still helpful to create a template to outline your data cleaning process to ensure you are completing the same steps each time. Depending on your situation, some additional steps could include:

Removing duplicate data
Correcting structural errors
Combining data from multiple sources
Figuring out where to put the attributes removed during the transformation in the new data model
Handle missing data

In the end, you will need to validate the data.

In this step, your execution team will proceed with development using their chosen software development methodology.

Update Documentation

Document the details of your streamlining project to serve as a reference. This information will support project stakeholders and users and inform them of design changes and updated business procedures.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Document changes to your Windchill PLM solution

Create end user documentation

Create technical documentation

Create administration documentation

01. Document changes to your Windchill PLM solution

You must document the changes made to your Windchill PLM solution. Documentation will help you make the most of your investment and communicate with others in your organization on the changes to your Windchill PLM solution. When there are employment changes at your organization, people will always have something to refer to that informs them about the current state of the system and what the teams at your organization did to it after streamlining customizations. If changes need to be made later, there will be a record of everything.

In documentation created for users, technical employees, and administrators, you will provide access to important project details.

Include updates related to:

Business process
Business procedures
To-be system changes
Technical migration and any relevant data impacts

02. Create end user documentation

Create instructions that guide end users in using the new system successfully. End user documentation should include:

What changes were made
How these changes will affect or benefit them
How these changes allow your organization to better serve them
How to find information they may need
How to use a new or changed feature or function
How to navigate the new system
How to get help from your support team
How to troubleshoot and report errors

For some organizations, the end user may be a customer. For others, it may be employees or third parties. In all situations, you want to ensure that your new solution provides a seamless, positive experience for everyone who uses it.

03. Create technical documentation

You must document all details of the development phase. This documentation should be thorough enough for future employees and stakeholders to understand.

Technical documentation should cover:

The results of your gap analysis
Deployment approach (on-premises or cloud)
What each component of the code does
All integrated systems, their owners, and how these integrations are made
Any custom features you decided to add, modify, or remove
Configurations

Examples include access controls, user groups, life cycle templates, data model (types and attributes), and workflow templates

User groups
Data migration requirements
Regulatory compliance and security requirements, including authentication

Adapt your technical design document to your team's specific needs.

04. Create administration documentation

To help with managing users and maintaining the application, there should be administration documentation that includes:

How to use the Windchill PLM solution to add, modify, and remove users
Your user groups, such as administrators, developers, and end users
How to ensure each user has the correct permissions
Procedures for granting access to new employees
Procedures for modifying access for employees who change jobs
Procedures for revoking access from employees leaving the organization
How to get help from your organization’s IT team

Ensure your Windchill PLM solution administrator knows how to access the documentation.

When changes are made to the application, update the documentation. Documentation is something many customers forget to do or fail to do well. However, documentation is effective in providing answers to important questions. Update your documentation each step of the way to help your organization answer these questions.

Test and Validate Your System

Confirm that your final solution meets business and technical needs and is ready for rollout.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Execute your testing plan

Promote to a testing environment

Test and validate the solution

Verify user permissions

Train power users for UAT

Conduct UAT

Validate test results

01. Execute your testing plan

Testing is a critical stage of streamlining customizations. Run tests to ensure every aspect of your solution is working as expected.

Refer to the Refer to the testing plan you created earlier. Use the acceptance criteria you defined earlier in the project as a guide to know when it's appropriate to proceed to the next steps. With well-defined acceptance criteria that everyone understands, each test should reveal clear pass/fail results based on what you have already established as "good enough."

To be clear, a good testing approach involves the application programming interface, user interface, and system levels. Testing is costly, but the frequency and timing of tests can help you achieve better results. In addition, automation makes this process more efficient.

02. Promote to a testing environment

Deploy code from your development environment to your test or quality assurance (QA) environment to test your application. Developers should follow the processes they have in place for source control. In addition, follow the testing plan you created earlier.

Check that each environment shows the correct data for your tests. You may need to remove production data from some environments for integration and system testing. Remember, for user acceptance testing (UAT), you should have production or production-like data available.

03. Test and validate the solution

Execute your testing plan once your code is in a test or QA environment. Depending on your testing plan, testing could be done by developers, subject matter experts, or power users.

Follow the processes for source control that you established earlier. Follow roles defined in your rollout plan to ensure you don't override your process.

Share test results with your project team, including the project manager, project sponsor, system administrator, Windchill PLM administrator solution, and IT professionals. Test results will help you determine next steps. Refer to the acceptance criteria you defined earlier.

04. Verify user permissions

This is also a good time to test user permissions. First, create test user accounts and assign them to each one of your user groups. Use a QA environment that closely resembles production. Then, log in as each of the test users.

Verify that the test user accounts can:

Log in as expected
Access the right apps
Access the right data
Take actions in the app as expected

Make any changes to the visibility and permissions of user groups as needed and update your documentation. For example, you may need to change user groups in your Windchill PLM solution and/or other integrated systems, such as Creo or ThingWorx Navigate.

05. Train power users for UAT

After system and integration testing, the adoption team (or people responsible for organizational change management) should train a small group of key users on how to use the system. This training will prepare them for UAT in which they’ll test whether the system meets users’ needs and satisfies the use case.

For UAT, train users who:

Participated in your wireframe design tests and contributed to the use case and requirements definitions
Are power users who are familiar with the data and whose insights will be valuable during UAT
Are project team members, such as the project manager, project sponsor, stakeholders, and admins

Refer to the training plan you created earlier. Provide documentation for these users. By now, you should have training materials to provide your end users with or training methods to offer, such as:

An expert-led workshop
How-to videos or tutorials
A job aid or cheat sheet
An instructional guide

06. Conduct UAT

Depending on where you are in the testing process, UAT is done to make sure the application meets users' needs and satisfies the use case.

UAT test results should answer questions such as:

Can users use the app and complete the test cases easily?
Does the app solve the problem outlined in the use case?
Is there any data or functionality missing?
Did the app function correctly during the test?
Does the app work on supported browsers?

To get the most accurate test results, complete UAT in a QA environment that matches your production environment as much as possible.

Instruct power users to complete the test cases that you wrote earlier. Key users and project team members should participate in UAT. Developers and designers should observe.

07. Validate test results

Document and review your findings from UAT. Compare the test results to the user needs and the use case you documented earlier. The project team should be involved. Include the project manager, sponsor, stakeholders, IT, admins, developers, and designers.

Discuss whether the application needs further development or if you’re ready to go live as-is.

Control the scope of potential changes so that you do not end up in a perpetual development cycle without going live. Determine which changes are enhancements or bugs to avoid confusion. You may identify potential improvements during UAT and choose to act on them after deployment.

Communicate Rollout

Execute the rollout plan to your end users. End users include anyone in your organization who use your Windchill PLM solution. Train your end users and internal support.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Communicate with stakeholders

Train end users

Train internal support

01. Communicate with stakeholders

Now is the time to execute the communications plan that you created when you planned your rollout. The person or group responsible for communicating with end users should notify all users with the schedule of when your new Windchill PLM solution goes live.

Continue organizational change management activities

Refer to your communications plan and follow up on remaining communication and training items. As you write your communications, remember:

Who are your audiences?
What does each audience care most about?
What do they need to know to be successful?
Who should deliver the message(s) for it to be effective?
How can your audiences communicate their concerns with you?

02. Train end users

Training is an opportunity to keep building excitement for Windchill PLM solution, providing your employees with an opportunity to try the system before the changes go live. Depending on the extent of what changed and how it affects the end user, your training could range from extensive to none at all.

Ensure that everyone who will use Windchill PLM solution has the knowledge they need to get started. End users include anyone at your organization who will use Windchill PLM to do their jobs. Follow the training plan you created earlier.

End users need to be trained on how the system will look or operate after going live. Provide updated training to any end users who did not participate in Windchill PLM solution testing. Make sure they’re familiar with documentation and fully understand what changed and how to perform their jobs. Ensure your end users know when training is available and how to access it. Quick and thorough training will give your users confidence to use the Windchill PLM solution.

Gather your trainers and process leads. Ensure your trainers have the time and availability during this critical time. Your end users will need to know:

Why your Windchill PLM solution changed
How the changes affect their job or role
How to use the new Windchill PLM solution functionality
How to get support or training
Where to find documentation
How to troubleshoot and report errors

As you conduct training, monitor whether your approach is practical. For example, you may discover end users need more or less guidance or different formats (for example, computer-based training, written documentation, etc.) to learn how to use their Windchill PLM solution.

Make sure to consider offering training at various times. The goal is to maximize the number of end users that attend training. Providing options will improve attendance. Also, tracking your end users' attendance at training sessions can effectively ensure adoption is met.

Ideally, employees have been notified in advance that the organization is changing your Windchill PLM solution and how that will impact their jobs. They may be more open to training if they understand why these changes are being made. The more training they receive, the fewer problems they will report when the Windchill PLM solution is live.

03. Train internal support

End users need to know where to go for technical support to reduce future downtime and achieve your project goals. Your IT department should complete Windchill PLM training, so they're prepared to answer basic questions and troubleshoot issues. Make sure they're familiar with the updates made to your Windchill PLM solution and its documentation, and that they understand how end users will contact them for support.

PTC recommends establishing a “help desk” within your IT department. Help desk personnel should complete the Windchill PLM solution training so they’re prepared to answer basic questions, troubleshoot problems, and manage issues in-house.

After the new the Windchill PLM solution goes live, end users may report issues that they see as problems, but they often report what they didn’t know changed. Train your “help desk” to be prepared to help end users in these instances. With the right documentation and training, your support team can resolve issues quickly.

To support your technical support team training, we recommend all members:

Participate in PTC University's Windchill PLM Training classes
Gain access and learn how to use PTC's eSupport Portal & Knowledge Base
Create accounts for admins on the PTC Community
Bookmark PTC's Technical Support Case Logger
Review all the training materials provided to end users

In cases when the help desk is unable to resolve the workers’ issue, PTC offers technical support: your organization’s Windchill PLM solution administrator can log a case with PTC eSupport. Once received, a member of the technical support team will assist them.

When opening a case, include:

Which Windchill PLM version you have
Detailed description of the issue
Steps to reproduce the issue
Any related data files or screenshots, if needed
Text of error messages or warnings you've received

Recommended Resources

PTC University's Windchill PLM Training Catalog PTC University
Create your eSupport account eSupport
Open a case with PTC Technical Support eSupport PTC login required
PTC's eSupport Portal & Knowledge Base eSupport
PTC Community PTC Communities

Prepare to Go Live

Make sure the people who will use and support your Windchill PLM solution are ready for go live. Communicate down time to end users and distribute updated documentation.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Establish go or no-go criteria

Communicate with end users

Distribute updated documentation

01. Establish go or no-go criteria

Project stakeholders will prepare criteria to determine when to proceed with (“to go”) or postpone (“no-go”) going live with your Windchill PLM solution.

Consider these questions as you create your go/no-go criteria:

Have testers completed all test scripts?
Have all milestones been met?
Did testers get the results they expected?
Have acceptance criteria been met?
Have critical errors been resolved?
Have you reviewed non-critical bugs?
Have the project stakeholders approved going live?
Is the implementation team prepared to go live?

Stakeholders will conduct a go/no-go meeting to review acceptance criteria and decide whether to proceed.

If the decision is to go, your team can proceed with going live.
If the decision is not to deploy Windchill PLM solution into production, document the reasons why and what work must occur before the next go/no-go meeting.

Finalize rollback plan

Be ready if go-live fails. You may not need to use your rollback plan, but be prepared in case you do.

Create and finalize a rollback plan that outlines how to recover Windchill PLM solution to a previous functioning version (for example, when to make copies of the system, databases, and servers before and during going live). Your plan should include:

Which steps need to be taken
Who will perform each step
When each step should be executed

Rehearse the rollback plan in a test environment. There is no risk in being too prepared with your rollback plan.

02. Communicate with end users

When preparing to go live, end users need to know when to stop using the Windchill PLM solution and how to find support. This information can be sent in emails or in a banner at the top of the user interface.

End users should discuss workload concerns with their managers if the downtime affects their deadlines. Downtime often occurs near to or over the weekend to reduce the number of users needing to use your Windchill PLM solution.

Make sure end users know:

When Windchill PLM will be unavailable
How long Windchill PLM will be unavailable
How to report problems
How to find training, resources, or support

End users will be more open to change if they know what is happening in advance. Refer to your rollout and communications plans, and follow up on any remaining items.

03. Distribute updated documentation

Distribute the updated documentation to end users and technical support. Upload the updated documentation to a central training resources location, if your organization has one (for example, a training library).

This documentation is critical for supporting the Windchill PLM solution on an ongoing basis. It will explain how the previous customizations worked and how end users can achieve the same result(s) with out-of-the-box functionality.

Go Live

When you’re ready to go live, promote your Windchill PLM solution to production. Test your Windchill PLM solution and notify end users that it is available.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Execute go live

Communicate with users

01. Execute go live

The implementation team will take Windchill PLM solution offline, take a backup of the existing system, and move changes into production.

Now is not the time to try something new. Follow the procedures and documentation you created when you go live. When you follow the documentation that you’ve tested numerous times, you’ll have a higher chance of a successful deployment.

During this time, we recommend you:

Back up your data in the Windchill PLM solution
Conduct smoke tests
Communicate the timing and progress of the launch to the project team

Conduct smoke testing

A smoke test verifies that functionality works from a high level to ensure that going live was successful, without focusing on many small details. Focus some of your smoke tests on functionality that replaced your customizations.

To smoke test Windchill PLM solution, you can:

Log into the system
Add an object to the workspace
Remove an object from the workspace
Run a process that was affected by streamlining customizations

If smoke tests fail, there is a larger, fundamental issue with your implementation. Stop further deployment testing and investigate the root cause of the failures.

If your smoke tests pass, you can proceed with further deployment tests.

02. Communicate with users

Notify end users that your Windchill PLM solution is available and encourage them to use it normally. Make sure your end users are ready to use the new functionality.

They’ll need to know:

What changed and how to use out-of-the-box functionality
Where to find documentation or other resources
How to find support or training
How to report issues

Refer to your communication plan and follow up on any remaining communication and training items.

Provide Go-Live Support

The first weeks of go-live support will be provided by your implementation team. Be prepared for the transition from go-live support to long-term support.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Provide go-live support

Transition to long-term support

01. Provide go-live support

For the first few weeks after your new Windchill PLM solution goes live, the implementation team will provide your organization with go-live support. The goal of go-live support is to have the implementation team quickly address any issues that come up when end users begin to use Windchill PLM normally. Go-live support lasts for a limited time, so plan how to get the most value out of it.

Enable power users

Power users have an important role in go-live support. They’ll act as ambassadors to end users and will help determine whether to escalate discovered issues to the support team. Encourage end users to use Windchill PLM as normal and have them report any issues to power users.

End users often report errors for things they didn’t know changed. Ideally, all end users will be trained on the Windchill PLM updates, but that is not always the case. Power users can help determine which issues to escalate to the support team and which issues will result in extra training or instruction for the end users.

Categorize issues

As power users start to triage and escalate problems, conduct daily meetings with the implementation team to prioritize and track new issues. As issues are reported, use a tracking tool to organize and categorize errors (for example, non-critical, user error, business process error, or a technical error). Each type of issue will be solved in a different way, and you can help the implementation team prioritize issues by categorizing them. The implementation team will have more time to focus on and resolve issues if they learn about them early.

Emergencies are less likely if you thoroughly tested the system before deployment. Take advantage of the go-live support period when the team who implemented the solution are still heavily involved in offering support. Once you’re outside of the go-live support period, you won’t have instant access to the same team.

02. Transition to long-term support

Your internal team will be responsible for long-term support after go-live support ends. Typically, there isn’t a formal meeting to transition to long-term support, so be prepared.

Ensure end users know how to contact power users, your organization’s system administrator, and technical support (or help desk) when they have an issue during long-term support. PTC recommends having a Windchill PLM expert in IT or establishing a “help desk” for Windchill PLM within your IT department. Help desk personnel should complete Windchill PLM training so they’re prepared to answer basic questions, troubleshoot problems, and manage product issues.

In cases when the help desk cannot resolve the employee’s issue, PTC offers technical support. Your organization’s Windchill PLM administrator can log a case with PTC eSupport.

When opening a case, include:

Which version of the Windchill PLM solution you have:
Detailed description of the issue
Steps to reproduce the issue
Any related data files or screenshots, if needed
Text of error messages or warnings you’ve received

Recommended Resources

Create your eSupport account eSupport
Open a case with PTC Technical Support eSupport PTC login required
PTC University's Windchill PLM Training Catalog PTC University
PTC Community PTC Communities
Managing Your Technical Support Cases
Customer Support Guide

Measure Business Impact and Next Steps

Revisit the goals and metrics established for your Windchill PLM project. Then, gather the data you need to measure success and share the results with stakeholders.

Before you begin, complete these steps:

Steps on this page

Review metrics and assess value

Share results

01. Review metrics and assess value

Your goals and metrics will vary depending on how your organization defines value for streamlining Windchill PLM. After your end users are using your updated version of Windchill PLM, revisit the goals and metrics you set at the beginning of your project.

While it's likely your organization will see improvements almost immediately, some metrics may require several weeks of data to properly measure, especially if end users are slow to adopt the solution.

Compare the baseline metrics to your current data to determine how much value the more streamlined Windchill PLM has provided so far.

Is your organization in a better position for upgrades?
Is your Windchill PLM less complex?
Have you reduced your total cost of ownership?
What was the return on investment?
Is your organization in a better position to move to the PTC Cloud?
Are your business processes better optimized using OOTB functionality?

If you’re not achieving value, consider if:

Your metrics may not be accurate
There are other factors that affect the current outcome (for example, end users are not consistently using Windchill PLM)

Investigate what the issue might be, reassess, and adjust.

At this point, confirm your goals have not changed from your initial measurement plan. Then, consider if they're still relevant and adjust accordingly. If you adjust your goals, give your stakeholders a clear reason.

02. Share results

Share the results and any adjustments to your goals with stakeholders, including the project executive sponsor, organizational leaders, deployment lead, and end users. In addition, outline the financial impact and any improvements the project has created.

Share these results, so all stakeholders are informed about the value of your project. Reviewing these results can also help you determine what other customizations to streamline in the future or next steps.

You provide a clearer picture of value if you continue to measure and report your findings over time. Plus, continuing to communicate to the end users about the tool's value helps make the value real to them and reinforces the tool's usage.

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Streamline Your Windchill PLM Solution

Assess Current System

01. Identify your customizations in Windchill PLM

02. Understand existing customizations

03. Determine needs early

Consider future needs

04. Confirm business goals

Table of Contents

Overview: Streamline Your Windchill PLM Solution

What is a Success Path?

Get Familiar With Customizations

01. Understand what a customization is

02. Understand the cost of customizations

Assemble Your Team

01. Build a project team

Decision Team

Execution Team

02. Establish a governance board

Identify project stakeholders

03. Determine outside resources needed

Assess Current System

01. Identify your customizations in Windchill PLM

02. Understand existing customizations

03. Determine needs early

Consider future needs

04. Confirm business goals

Understand Available Functionality

01. Get familiar with the latest version of Windchill PLM solution

02. Understand license implications

Understand Impacts to Your Technology and Teams

01. Understand what changes to expect to your infrastructure

02. Understand your options

03. Understand the benefits

04. Gather requirements

05. Consider other teams

06. Consider other PTC products

07. Know where to get support

Understand the Value of Streamlining

01. Define value for your organization

02. Figure out your total cost of ownership

Decide What to Streamline

01. Choose which customizations to standardize or optimize

02. Determine the metrics for customization

Create a Project Plan

01. Document your tasks to streamline customizations

02. Identify affected teams or sites

03. Plan environments

04. Get approval on the project plan and final budget

Plan Rollout

01. Create a rollout plan

Create your organizational change management plan

02. Plan end user training

03. Establish your internal support strategy

Plan Communications

01. Create a communications plan

02. Build excitement and address concerns

Generate support across the organization

Create a mechanism for listening to concerns

Design Your Environment Needs

01. Prepare infrastructure for execution

02. Verify requirements and validate each environment

Align on Future State

01. Update business process

02. Determine data access needs

03. Determine software and license needs

04. Explore other options to meet business needs

Align Business Functions

01. Get stakeholder agreement

02. Gather feedback

Plan Testing and Verification

01. Create a testing plan

Document your testing plan

Write test scripts

02. Plan for verification

Develop Options for Future State

01. Streamline customizations

02. Confirm OOTB functionality

03. Update your system to meet requirements

04. Manage historical data

05. Clean the data