Automatic Distribution Target Assignment
When publishing an object, distribution targets that reside in the same context as the object, and whose defaultForContext attribute is set to true will be automatically assigned to the object. For parts, this is further restricted by the Windchill ESI preference named View To Distribution Target Mappings that figures under the category Multiple BOM Publication in the Preference Management utility. In other words, a distribution target will be automatically assigned to a part provided the following conditions are met:
The target resides in the same context as the part.
The target has its defaultForContext attribute set to true.
The value of the Windchill ESI preference View To Distribution Target Mappings is such that the target is considered valid by Windchill ESI services for automatic association to the part.
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1. The preference View To Distribution Target Mappings takes a value of the form <View1>:<Number1>,<View2>:<Number2>,...<View n><Number n> where View1, View2, etc. are names of Windchill views and Number1, Number2, etc. are values of the number attribute of distribution targets. For example, the value can be Design:001,Manufacturing:002,Plant1:003. With such a setting in place, a distribution target with number 001 will be automatically assigned to a part created in the Design view, provided the target resides in the same context as the part and has its defaultForContext attribute set to true. See section Distribution Target Assignment Validation for more information on when a target will be considered a candidate for auto-assignment.
2. The automatic assignment of distribution targets happens at the time of publishing the part (this is true for other object types as well).
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