Once you have identified the legacy systems and subject matter experts with whom you will be working, it is important to extract a sample data set for review.

For example, a data file of parts can be examined to produce a unique list of part types. This list should then be compared against the PartTypeRB.rbInfo file. Similarly, a unique list of part quantities can be compared to the QuantityUnitRB.rbInfo file.

The rbInfo files that ship with Windchill are located in the <Windchill>\src directory structure. These files contain out-of-the-box default values for various selections and are useful in determining whether additional values must be added.

A sample data set should be a single file that is representative of the entire data. You must identify the data types (for example, parts, documents, and so on) that will be included in the data set, as well as the size of the data set. In the case of multiple legacy systems, you should also determine whether the data on the systems will load independently or if they need to be combined, cleansed, and loaded together.

How the sample data set is extracted from the legacy system depends on the legacy system. It is preferable that the data set be in CSV format, since CSV is easily converted to XML that can be validated against the Windchill standardX20.dtd.