Estabilishing and Managing Digital Product Traceability > Windchill PDMLink > Establishing Digital Product Traceability between Windchill PDMLink and Windchill RV&S > Managing Trace Links
Managing Trace Links
You can manage trace links using the actions available in the Traced To table on the Traces tab of the information page of an object. The information about the traced external items appears in the remote columns.
For more information about the actions and columns, see Traces Tab.
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• ThingWorx server authentication credentials are required to fetch the external resource data to be traced to the Windchill traceable object.
• You need the required permissions in Windchill to view and manage trace links.
Viewing Trace Links
You can view the trace links information for Windchill objects in the Traced To table. The data is fetched at runtime in Windchill. You need Windchill RV&S authentication credentials to view the small preview in Windchill. When you hover the mouse pointer on the Number of the trace link, the small preview appears.
Creating a Trace Link
The action Add Traces is available in the toolbar of the Traced To table. It creates a trace link, Satisfy or Allocate, between an external item and Windchill traceable object.
1. Select an object to add a trace link. Click Add Traces.
2. Select the values for Server, Resource and Type.
3. In the Selection Dialog Context tree, select the desired node and click Open. You can select only one node at a time.
4. To connect to the external system, enter the Windchill RV&S authentication details in the external selection dialog box. Select the item of the appropriate resource type and click Proceed.
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You can create only one type of link, such as Satisfy or Allocate, between an external item and Windchill object. For example, if a satisfy link between a requirement XYZ and Windchill part ABC already exists, you cannot create another satisfy link for the same requirement and Windchill part.
5. In the Traced To table, the trace link between the Windchill traceable object and the external resource with the selected link type is created. The data related to the external item appears in the remote columns of the table.
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When a trace link is added to an object with link type Satisfy, a new iteration of the part is created.
The trace links are copy forward or backward when a Windchill object is iterated. See Copy Forward Functionality in Working with Traces.
Updating Trace Links
You can mark the trace links as Suspect or clear Suspect flag in Windchill. For more information, see Suspect Links in Working with Traces.
Deleting Trace Links
The Remove Traces action is available on the toolbar of the Traced To table. To delete trace links, select an object with a trace link and click Remove Traces.
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• If an Allocate link is deleted, it is removed from all the versions of a revision.
• If a Satisfy link is deleted from a version of an object, a new version of the object is created. The trace link is removed from the new version of the object. However, the link is present in earlier versions.
• The Remove Traces action is available only on the latest version of a revision. Also, it is not available if the object is checked out by another user.