The basic architecture integrating Windchill PDMLink and external systems includes:

This integration supports basic authentication.

For compatible release versions of these applications, see the Windchill PDMLink Software Matrix on Reference Documents.

Windchill PDMLink and external systems communicate with each other as shown in the illustration below.

ThingWorx acts as an API Gateway, where the Windchill PDMLink interface requests to fetch resource data from the external OSLC server. ThingWorx then receives the request and fetches the data from the external OSLC server. The OSLC server then uses the external system Odata REST to fetch data.

The resource data from the external system then appears in Windchill PDMLink. You can browse the external system to look for specific items and add a trace link to the Windchill PDMLink traceable objects. For more information about trace links, see Working with Traces.