Windchill 12.0: Supported CAD Application, PTC Windchill Workgroup Manager and PTC Creo View Adapter Release Combinations for File and Content Synchronization

Introduction:

• CAD Application, PTC Windchill Workgroup Manager and PTC Creo View Adapter release combinations and platforms that are tested and supported at Windchill 12.0 for:
  • File Synchronization
  • Content Synchronization (CAD Packages)
• In some cases this information may be more restrictive than what the PTC Creo View Adapter Software Support Matrices show, because they document standalone adapter support

Background:

• After the initial upload or check-in is completed using PTC Creo Parametric, PTC Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire or the PTC Windchill Workgroup Managers (WWGM), it is possible for the CAD Document metadata to change, without the CAD Document content that resides in database BLOBs or Windchill File Vaults from being updated
• For example:
  • A CAD Document's LifeCycle State may change
  • Drawing or Assembly dependencies may change (e.g. 'Save As' and 'Rename')
  • Others mapped Windchill attributes may be altered
• At PTC Windchill 12.0:
  • Due to the additional configuration of the WWGM that is required in order to enable File Sync and Content Sync, some customers have found it difficult to implement, even though they potentially have no requirement for it to be configured
  • Therefore, File and Content Sync is disabled out-of-the-box for all PTC Windchill WGM Clients, so that customers will only need to go through the process of configuring the WWGM and enabling File Sync for it when it is actually required
  • For PTC Creo Parametric, PTC Pro/ENGINEER or PTC Arbortext, however, it is enabled out-of-the-box

An Explanation of File and Content Synchronization:

File Sync: What is File Sync?

• The ability to synchronize CAD Document content with PTC Windchill metadata, e.g. attributes/parameters in the CAD files mapped to properties within PTC Windchill
• A physical file that is stored in PTC Windchill may be "out-of-date" because it does not incorporate PTC Windchill meta-data changes that have happened since the file was last uploaded/checked in by the WWGM or PTC Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire integration with PTC Windchill
• For example:
  • The PTC Windchill CAD Document Life-cycle State attribute has been exposed in a text field on a CAD drawing
  • The Life-cycle State has been changed in PTC Windchill (set state, promote, etc.) after check-in
  • But the CAD document content will still contain the old Life-cycle State value
• In this case, it is imperative that when the CAD Document is published via the PTC Windchill Visualization Service (WVS), that the CAD drawing content file is "synchronized" with the PTC Windchill meta-data changes during the publishing process
• Ensuring that the resultant drawing Representation reflects any updates that have occurred to the file
• In the example above, it will then show the updated Life-cycle State value
• WVS does not modify the CAD files stored on the CAD Documents

Content Sync: What is Content Sync?

• This refers to the synchronization of CAD Document content for the purpose of providing Packages (Zip file) of CAD data, also referred to as Package Sync
• These Packages can then be sent to users disconnected from PTC Windchill
• This process employs the Windchill Import/Export Framework, WVS Publishing, PTC Creo View Adapters and WGM Client product capabilities to retrieve, Merge and add the resulting synchronized content to the Package zip archive as part of a WVS Job
• This functionality enables the user to save synchronized model data to disk for each supported CAD Authoring Application