About Designating Annotations as Control Characteristics
Annotations created in Creo applications contain valuable information such as geometric tolerances, drawing notes, dimensions, surface finishing notes, and welding symbols. This information is particularly useful in the planning of downstream manufacturing processes. Therefore, you can designate annotations as control characteristics.
Control characteristics, like model items, capture and communicate the design intent and critical product information required by manufacturing. Not only can you use these control characteristics to find and reuse model data, the control characteristics are also useful in the planning stage. You can access information for the manufacturing decisions without having to open the models in the Creo application or other CAD systems to verify the model data. After you check in the models with the annotations designated as control characteristics to Windchill, MPMLink in Windchill accesses the designated annotations. Therefore, you can designate annotations as control characteristics according to manufacturing and machining requirements.
You can designate selected standalone annotations, annotations of annotation features, or as a combination of both. To designate multiple annotations, select one or more annotations, right-click, and select the Designation command on the shortcut menu. The command includes the following check boxes:
• Designate
• Control Characteristics
The designation is synchronized between the shortcut menu, ribbon, and Annotation Feature dialog box.
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The legacy unconverted annotations are converted when you designate the annotations
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To designate a single annotation of annotation feature, do the following:
Click > 
Annotation Feature or right-click an annotation of annotation feature on the Model Tree and click Edit Definition and use the Annotation Feature dialog box to designate annotations as control characteristics. To designate an annotation of annotation feature as a control characteristic, you must select an annotation of annotation feature in the Element Name column and select the Designate and Control Characteristic check boxes on the Annotation Feature dialog box. You can click Columns on the Annotation Feature dialog box to open the Annotation Columns dialog box and select the Designate and the Control Characteristics column names and add them as columns next to the Element Name column in the Annotation Feature dialog box. You can change the designation state of the annotations based on the information displayed by the Designate and Control Characteristics columns.
Annotation Feature or right-click an annotation of annotation feature on the Model Tree and click Edit Definition and use the Annotation Feature dialog box to designate annotations as control characteristics. To designate an annotation of annotation feature as a control characteristic, you must select an annotation of annotation feature in the Element Name column and select the Designate and Control Characteristic check boxes on the Annotation Feature dialog box. You can click Columns on the Annotation Feature dialog box to open the Annotation Columns dialog box and select the Designate and the Control Characteristics column names and add them as columns next to the Element Name column in the Annotation Feature dialog box. You can change the designation state of the annotations based on the information displayed by the Designate and Control Characteristics columns.After you designate an annotation of annotation feature in the Designate dialog box, you can select the designated annotations of annotation feature in the Object Name list and select the adjacent check box in the Control Characteristics column.
When you designate annotations of annotation feature as control characteristics, you can set the designate_model_item_params configuration option to yes to automatically designate all the associated parameters, including the user-defined parameters, with their units and names, and store the designated parameters as IBAs on the server. You can click > and undesignate some of the parameters in the Parameters dialog box.
| | If you add a parameter to a designated model object or annotations of annotation feature, you must also designate the newly added parameter to view the parameter as a new attribute in Windchill. |
When you check in the models to the server, the CAD Documents and the corresponding WTParts list the designated annotations of annotation feature. While you can search features by their IDs, you can search and retrieve annotations of annotation feature by their IDs and names, including unique user-defined names. Like model items, control characteristics are associated with the CAD Documents and WTParts checked in to the server. You cannot independently check out the designated annotations of annotation feature, edit, and check-in the annotations.
Checking for Annotation Designation State
You can check the designation state of each annotation using the Annotation Designation column in Model Tree Columns dialog box.
1. On the Model Tree, click 
and then click Tree Columns. The Model Tree Columns dialog box opens.
and then click Tree Columns. The Model Tree Columns dialog box opens.2. In the Type list, select Info. Select Annotation Designation.
3. Click 
to add Annotation Designation to the Displayed list. The dialog box closes, and the new Annotation Designation column is added to the Model Tree.
to add Annotation Designation to the Displayed list. The dialog box closes, and the new Annotation Designation column is added to the Model Tree.Searching for Annotation According to Designation State
You can search for the annotations according to their designation state using the Search Tool dialog box.
1. Click > . The Search Tool dialog box opens.
2. Click the Attributes tab. Under Rule, click the Property radio button.
3. Under Criteria, you can search for the annotations by selecting the following designation status:
◦ Designated
◦ Control Characteristics
◦ Not Designated