Loading Release History

Integration with Other Applications > Introduction to Windchill ESI > Using Windchill Integration for MES > Loading Release History

Release history is a record of the information that is published from Windchill, identifying both the sourceWindchill PDMLink data and the distribution target.

It may sometimes be necessary to load the release history for objects (such as parts and assemblies) that reside in the ERP system, but which were not published by ESI in the first place. Such a loading helps ensure that the two systems (Windchill PDMLink and the ERP system) are in sync with each other, thereby allowing ESI to use those objects in subsequent publications.

Loading release history is a common ERP Connector function. Release history may be loaded from an XML (Extensible Markup Language) or a CSV (comma-separated values) import file, having the following format:

Field

Description

LoadType

Header information that is required to drive theWindchill PDMLink data loader utility. This value should be ESIReleaseActivity.

ObjectClass

TheWindchill ESI class specification for the published object. For parts, this should be com.ptc.windchill.esi.Part.

ObjectNumber

The Windchill object number. For example, part number.

ObjectVersion

The Windchill PDMLinkversion number of the business object.

ObjectIteration

(optional) If unspecified, the most recent iteration of the version is used. Otherwise, this is a specific Windchill iteration number.

ObjectView

(optional) The Windchill view name. The view in which the iteration is defined.

Views only apply to parts.

TargetNumber

The number attribute of the distribution target to use for creating the release history.

PublishDate

The date on which the information was published to ERP. The format should be YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. The time portion is optional. If specified, the time should be represented as GMT. If unspecified, the time will default to midnight in the time zone configured within Windchill PDMLink.

PublishAction

Should be create if the object was created as a result of publishing, or change if the object was changed.

For example:

ESIReleaseActivity,com.ptc.windchill.esi.Part,1000,A,1,,VIS7_00001,2003-04-01,create
ESIReleaseActivity,com.ptc.windchill.esi.Part,1000,A,1,,VIS7_00002,2003-04-01,create
ESIReleaseActivity,com.ptc.windchill.esi.Part,2000,A,2,,VIS7_00001,2003-04-02,change
ESIReleaseActivity,com.ptc.windchill.esi.Part,2000,A,,,VIS7_00002,2003-04-03,change

Each row in the import file represents a publishing event for a specific Windchill business object to a specific ERP organization.

Load Release History

Release Activity is now a typed object.

You can access the Release Activity from Site > Utilities > Type and Attribute Management. For more information on Type and Attribute Management, see Working with the Type and Attribute Management Utility.

You can add local and global attributes for Release Activity, but sub-types can not be created.

The following steps describe how to load ESI ReleaseActivity objects:

1. Create a CSV file for the data to be loaded in the format described before and save it as releaseactivity.csv to any location.

2. For example:

Standalone Parts:

Attributes

#BeginReleaseActivities
BeginReleaseActivities
#CreateReleaseActivity,releaseClass,objectClass,objectNumber,objectVersion,objectIteration,objectView,targetNumber,publishDate,publishAction,containerPath,publishMessage
CreateReleaseActivity,com.ptc.windchill.esi.Part,wt.part.WTPart,0000000072,A,1,Design,00000003,7/22/2021,create,,publish Part_0001
#LoadValue,name,refType,refAtt,value
LoadValue,MyString,,,DATA|java.lang.String|New_myString4
#IBAValue,definition,value1,value2,dependency_id
IBAValue,StringIBA,StringIBA_3,,
#EndReleaseActivity
EndReleaseActivity
#EndReleaseActivities
EndReleaseActivities

Assembly:

Since object GC000031 is an assembly, it has two entries one for the part itself and one for the BOMheader.

3. Ensure sure that the Windchill installation has the csvmapfile.txt file in the following location.

<wt_home>\codebase\com\ptc\windchill\esi\load

4. Run the following command from Windchill shell.

windchill wt.load.LoadFromFile
-m <wt_home>\codebase\com\ptc\windchill\esi\load \csvmapfile.txt
-g create -d <path>\releaseactivity.csv

In the above command, <wt_home> and <path> should be replaced by actual values. The newly created Windchill ESI ReleaseActivity objects will not be associated with an ESITransaction object. Given that there is no transaction, the release history will not be viewable via the Transaction Management GUI.

Migrating from Non-Windchill Systems

If you are migrating toWindchill ESI from a non-Windchill system, there are several steps that you must follow to ensure thatWindchill ESI functions correctly.

1. Install Windchill PDMLink.

2. Follow theWindchill ESI installation instructions.

3. Follow the procedures for migrating to a standardWindchill PDMLink installation.

4. Migrate parts, BOMs, documents, and other business objects to Windchill PDMLink.

5. CreateWindchill ESI targets to represent the physical organizations to which information should be published fromWindchill PDMLink. Refer to the Windchill ESI Examples directory, which contains a task for creating targets. The task can be located at the following location:

<Windchill>/tasks/com/ptc/windchill/esi/examples/CreateESITargets.xml

6. Load release history to represent which objects, their versions, and their iterations have already been published to the distribution target.

7. Assign the Windchill PDMLink business objects to the appropriateWindchill ESI targets created above. The class that represents this assignment is ESITargetAssignmentLink. A load delegate can be created to simplify the process of creating these objects. Refer to the following directory for an example of creating ESITargetAssignmentLink objects:

<Windchill>/loadFiles/esi/esiCust

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