Configuring Part and Document

Relationships

The relationships between a part and a document, two parts, or two documents vary depending upon how the two objects are linked. This section briefly describes the different types of links that form these relationships and then describes the configuration options that are available.

Part to Document Relationships

Note

Part to document relationships apply to projects only; parts are not used within programs.

The association between a part and a document is created from the part information page or document information page. Associations can be viewed from the Related Objects tab on the part information page. These same relationships can be viewed from the Related Objects tab of the document information page.

There are two types of links that can be established:

•AWTPartReferenceLink – Using this type of link always links the part to the master document. Regardless of the version of the document the user selects, the part will always link to the master document when this link type is used. This is true even when the system has been configured to allow the user to select the link type and the document type.

Reference links always display a document version of the master based on life cycle state rules. For example, when a user clicks the reference link for Part 100 version A.1, Windchill searches for the latest released version of Doc 100 to display. If no version of the document has been released, it displays the latest working version (in this case, Doc 100 version A.2).

How to configure the life cycle state rules is described later in this section.

•AWTPartDescribeLink – Using this type of link links the part to the latest iteration of a document and vice versa.

For example, when the user clicks a describe link for Part 100 version A.2, Windchill searches for the latest iteration of Doc 100 to display (in this case, Doc 100 version A.2).

You can configure the link types for part to document relationships in the following ways:

•From the Related Objects tab on the part information page, the user creates the

link using the actions from the References Documents or Described By Documents tables.

•From the Related Objects tab on the document information page, the user creates the link using the actions from the Describes Parts or Referenced By Parts tables.

•From the Structure tab on the part information page, the user creates the link using the Add Related Information Add Described By Document or Add

Related Information Add References Document actions from the right-click action menu for a part.

To allow the user to select the link type regardless of the document subtype, set the Part to Document Association Logic preference to Yes from the Preference

Management utility on Site Utilities or Organizations Utilities.

For more information on using the Preference Management utility, see the help available from the Preference Management utility.

Additional configuration options are described in the following sections.

Revised or Saved Part to Related Document

When a user revises a part using the Revise action or saves the part using the Save As action, the new version of the part carries forward the link to the document by default. While the Revise action always carries the link forward, you can choose to prevent the link from being carried forward during a Save As action by removing the Relationship copy rules related to this operation from wt.properties.

For example, assume the following properties are set in wt.properties:

wt.enterprise.copyRuleDelimiter=,

wt.enterprise.copyRulesN=wt.part.WTPart,Relationship,

wt.part.WTPartReferenceLink-references

The first property sets the delimiter for the copy rules to the comma (,).

The wt.enterprise.copyRulesN property is the Relationship copy rule for wt.part. WTPart. This rule copies the references forward when the type of link is WTPartReferenceLink.

If you remove the wt.enterprise.copyRulesN property, then reference links are not carried forward.

Note

There can be no gaps in the sequence of copy rules. If you remove a copy rule, you must renumber those rules that follow. For example if there are six copy rules and you remove copyRules5, then you must renumber copyRules6 so that it is copyRules5.

Use the xconfmanager utility when modifying the wt.properties file. For more information on using this utility, see the PTC Windchill Specialized Administration Guide. For more information about the properties used for copy rules, see the description of wt.enterprise.copyRules in the properties.html file.

Caution

PTC recommends that you do not change the value of the wt.enterprise. copyServiceRules property. The property is used by internal services.

Document Version Used with Reference Link

As described earlier, reference links (WTPartReferenceLink) link to a document master, but display a document version of the master based on the life cycle state rules for the document.

The default behavior is that Windchill searches for the latest released version of the document to display. If no version of the document has been released, it displays the latest working version of the document.

To change the default behavior, change the value set for the List of comma separated life cycle states of documents used to display associated Reference documents to part. preference in the Preference Management utility.