Parts
Windchill ESI allows you to publish parts created and changed within Windchill PDMLink to a distribution target such as SAP or Oracle. You can configure the Windchill PDMLink system to publish particular attributes of a part, as well as documents that are associated to the part. The Windchill PDMLink part information is used to create a part in the distribution target.
ERP Connector passes the following part-associated attributes from Windchill PDMLink to a distribution target:
• Number
• Whether the part is a phantom part or not
• Default Unit
• Control Characteristics
• Type
• Name
• Source
• Version
• Iteration
• Date Effectivity
• Last Changed By
• Distribution Targets
• Serial Effectivity
• Lot Effectivity
• Lifecycle State
• View
• Storage Location
• Previously Published Part Version
• Extended Data
• Department Data
Publishing an Enterprise Version of a Manufacturing Part
Every downstream part is manufactured based on the specification of the upstream part. For a particular part, the Enterprise Version attribute displays the linked upstream part version. For more information, see Enterprise Version.
When publishing a manufacturing part, the ESI response contains the information of the Enterprise version (upstream version) along with the manufacturing part information.
For example, when you publish the manufacturing part (version A.1), the ESI response includes the upstream design part (version B.1) information, along with the manufacturing part (version A.1) information. Refer to the image below.
This feature is useful when you want to track the part revision using the engineering revision (in this case, the design part) in the downstream ERP system.
Follow these steps to enable this preference:
1. Navigate to the Preference Management utility under Site. For more information, see Preference Management.
2. Select > >
3. Set the preference Publish Enterprise Version of manufacturing part as Yes.
The Enterprise Version is consumed in the SAP ERP system for material through a change notice, and in the Oracle ERP system, it is consumed for material and BOM.
Plant Specific Attributes for Parts
Plant-specific attributes for a part can be published using the view-specific capabilities of Windchill MPMLink. To publish plant-specific attributes:
• Ensure that the Publish Plant Data Information preference from the > > category is set to Yes.
• Define a specific view corresponding to each of your plants in Windchill MPMLink.
• Define your plant-specific attributes in the corresponding view attributes tab.
• Use Windchill ESI to publish your part.
Windchill ESI then retrieves the plant-specific attributes for the part from Windchill MPMLink and sends that information to the relevant plant in the distribution target.
 | • These attributes must have their mapping defined in the ESI response meta information file. Also, the EAI software components should be extended to map these attributes to SAP as appropriate. • While publishing department data or plant data for parts or resources using Send to Distribution Target action, Send Material to Distribution Target action, Change Notice, Promotion Request, Set State, or Saved Filter is used from: ◦ BOM Settings on distribution target when publishing part or BOM. ◦ Resource Settings on distribution target when publishing resource or resource structure. ◦ Process Plan Settings on distribution target when publishing process plan structure. ◦ Change Notice Settings on distribution target when publishing using change notice. |
Configuring Data to Publish Automatically with Life Cycle State Change
The extended data or department data can be configured to get published automatically in the ESI response if the life cycle state of the plant data is changed. You can configure this by enabling the preference Extended Data Life Cycle States To Trigger Part Publication Automatically from > > . You can specify multiple life cycle states in a comma-separated list. The default value of the preference is empty.
After enabling this preference, when enterprise data or plant data life cycle state is changed as specified in the preference, ESI will render the relevant part iteration and the department data as per the configuration specification or filter associated with the distribution target to publish the part in the ESI response.
| | • The publishing of a part is enabled only if the preference Launch ESI Workflow Automatically is set to Yes. • If the plant data is released, the plant data and the enterprise data will get published. Whereas, if the enterprise data is released, then the relevant plant data is published. |
The extended data and department data can be published in separate buckets in the ESI response. This can be done by customizing the ESI response. Refer to the applicable ERP Connector Customizer's Guide on Document Reference Site to know more about customizing the buckets in the ESI response.