Change Notices
Windchill ESI allows you to publish Change Notices (CNs) created within Windchill ESI to a distribution target such as SAP. Publishing CNs from Windchill ESI also includes the publishing of all part, document, and BOM and option set objects that are listed, and if Windchill MPMLink is installed Process Plans and Resources. The documents that are associated to parts (and to operations and resources if applicable) can also be published. By enabling this capability in Windchill ESI, users can also create and change parts, documents, and BOMs, option sets (and Windchill MPMLink objects, if applicable) when publishing the CN.
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If a document object that is listed in a CN is a CAD document structure, it is published as well, provided the relevant distribution target attributes are set. Although a structure that is released from Windchill PDMLink may be sent with the ESI response, it is only the documents that constitute the structure (but not the relationships that exist between them) that would be published to SAP.
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Windchill ESI creates all CNs in SAP so that they have material master, document, and BOM objects listed on them. When processing a CN in SAP, Windchill ESI first creates the CN in SAP with the status of “Active” and a future effectivity date of “01/01/3001”. Once all of the objects related to the CN have been successfully added to the CN and modified in SAP, Windchill ESI then sets the CN status in SAP to “Inactive” and the date is changed to the current date. This prevents users from adding objects to the CN directly in SAP. If this is required, users in SAP can be granted the appropriate permissions to perform the operation.
Out-of-the-box, Windchill ESI passes various attributes of a Windchill PDMLink ChangeOrder2 object to the EAI software components:
When you associate various attributes to a CN in Windchill PDMLink, Windchill ESI passes the attributes to the EAI software components. The following attributes are passed (the list consists of both attributes of the resulting objects and those of the CN itself):
• Number (Change Number)
• Description (Change Number Description)
• Part Number / Assembly Part Number
• Part Version / Assembly Part Version
• Part Start Effectivity Date / Assembly Part Start Effectivity Date
• Component Part Number
• Component Line Number
• Component Quantity
• Component Operation Sequence Number
• Reference Designator
• Substitute Component
• Distribution Targets
• Serial Number Effectivity Start Number
• Serial Number Effectivity End Number
• Lot Number Effectivity Start Number
• Lot Number Effectivity End Number
• Process plan (Routing) part number
• Operation Label
• Department for the Operation
• Resource Number for the operation
• Scheduled Flag for Resources
• Usage Rate for Resources
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Note the following:
• While all attributes listed are passed, not all of the attributes are CN attributes. The rest are attributes on the objects being changed and are listed in their respective sections. For example, the Part Number attribute will be listed in the Part element section of the response file.
• When using the CN-centric mode of publishing data, with the distribution target attribute Publish Related Documents when Publishing a Change Notice set to Yes, documents associated to objects in the Change Notice are published as well.
• Documents, and CAD document structures, and option sets that reside as resulting objects in the Change Notice are always published.
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Once the CN data has been published by Windchill ESI Services, the EAI software components map the Windchill CN attributes to SAP Change Master attributes. The following table shows the mapping of Windchill CN attributes to SAP Change Master attributes.
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Windchill PDMLink CN Attribute
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SAP Change Master Attribute
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Number
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Change Number
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Name
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Change Number Description
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Description
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Reason for Change
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The attribute Distribution Targets in the elements Destination and Target ID, in the ESI response, identifies the SAP client and plant in which the CN (and its resulting objects) should be created or changed. The EAI software components use this information to communicate with the correct SAP client and pass plant information to it.
The attribute Last Changed By in Windchill PDMLink identifies the Windchill PDMLink user that last updated the CN prior to publishing. The EAI software components do not pass this information to the SAP system due to SAP limitations.
There are some attributes that are required within SAP to create or change CNs that are not provided by Windchill PDMLink. In these instances, Windchill ESI defaults the values in the EAI software components prior to passing the data to SAP. The following table lists the SAP Change Master attributes that are defaulted in Windchill ESI and their defaulted values.
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SAP Change Master Attribute
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Default Value
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Change Master Status
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Active (01). Upon successful creation or updating of all the objects associated with the ECN the status is updated to inactive.
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Valid-From Date
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(current date)
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