In all supported CAD applications, an engineering drawing and the 3D CAD model that the drawing represents may be distinct CAD documents stored or awaiting storage in Windchill. Windchill Workgroup Manager supports a “Drawing” reference link from the CAD application-derived engineering drawing to the 3D model(s), from which the drawing gets its geometric and parametric information. This link can be used in two ways: to collect drawings related to 3D models (that is, all 3D CAD documents can gather their derived engineering drawings in the collector), and to automatically relate the drawing to the same Windchill part as the 3D model.

Creating owner (formerly, active) associations between derived drawings and Windchill parts is not permitted. Legacy associations are retained, but are not shown in any reports or tables that list associations.