PTC Windchill 11 was launched 15th of November, the top highlights – Top down support of Find Numbers (Positions) and Line Numbers, Flexible Change Process, PDS Compare, Workspace performance and more. Here in part 2 I will go through the remaining six improvements, which I think will be very appreciated by the common Windchill PDMLink user.
Top down support of Find Numbers (Positions) and Line Numbers.
Already in previous releases, positions shown as balloons on the drawing could be published to Windchill PDMLink CAD structures and part structures as link attributes (Find Number, Line Number or custom attributes). With release 11, we can now edit positions on the part structure in Windchill PDMLink and publish back to CAD.
What’s the benefit?
This enables a process where positioning can be added or changed on the complete part structure that also includes non-CAD related parts. Supported for Creo and NX.
Flexible Change Processes
The relationship between change objects is now flexible and configurable. You can create any number of Problem Report, Change Request, Change Notice (etc.) types and describe how they relate to and affect each other in a closed loop process.
What’s the benefit?
The change process can now be tailored to specific customer demands: You may want to create a Change Notice directly from a Problem Report or your company may have a situation where additional Change Notices are required to implement the change in a production facility.
PDF Compare
Creo View now let’s you open and compare different drawings or different revisions of a drawing with overlay functionality, highlighting differences. This works for both PDF and HPGL formats supporting multi sheet drawings.
What’s the benefit?
Faster and automated and more reliable than doing a manual drawing comparison.
Enhanced Desktop Integration
Usability of Desktop Integration (DTI) has vastly increased with the latest releases of Windchill PDMLink. In the new release, the installer has been rewritten to make installation more flexible and simple and you can now select what Microsoft Office applications to support. Enhancements include; common file cache location for all local copies, enhanced table views and enhanced Windchill PDMLink menu in Microsoft Office. Enhanced support for drag and drop: When you drag an updated copy of a document into a Windchill folder in Explorer, the document will automatically get updated in Windchill with a new iteration. User feedback during copy/move, multi-delete and Save as PDF directly as a Windchill document.
What’s the benefit?
Easier to get the work done without leaving the office application.
Workspace performance
We hope you already use the Featured Objects filters in workspace to minimize the number of objects to handle and increase your workspace performance. In Windchill PDMLink 11 you can add a featured object icon as a separate column that can be sorted. In addition to the automatic setting you can now add or remove items manually to the featured objects list. In addition a 30-60 percent improvement for single object actions can be gained by setting a preference for updating the workspace in the background.
What’s the benefit?
Optimize performance and personal productivity.
New Report Manager
The Report Manager, also known as Query Builder, has a completely new graphical HTML5 based user interface that makes object relationships easier to understand and use. Information in the new interface is filtered to show only actual relationships between objects. Help links and hover-over descriptions are available to make editing easier.
What’s the benefit?
Report Manager is an extremely powerful tool for creating reusable reports in Windchill PDMLink. Now more available to the common user
These updates summarize what I believe are eleven great new enhancements for you to discover and use. Please also note that PTC released loads of new great stuff in the 10.2 M030 release in the beginning of 2016 that are not covered here. Hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and look out for coming posts …
Take care!
Nicklas Miller
