AutoCAD Electrical can be used with Windchill for managing electrical-related data such as project files, along with related drawings and configuration files.

To begin working with AutoCAD Electrical, you first must set the preference Enable working with AutoCAD Electrical to Yes. This preference is found in the Preference Management utility at Workgroup Manager Client > AutoCAD Electrical. The default value of this preference is No.

The AutoCAD Electrical-specific actions Save Project and Check In Project become available on the Windchill toolbar after launching a registered version of AutoCAD Electrical.

AutoCAD Electrical Project files created outside Windchill can be saved to a Windchill Workspace using the Save to Workspace or Import to Workspace action from an active AutoCAD Electrical session, or from the Windchill Workspace, respectively.

When you perform the Tools > Import to Workspace action, and hover over the AutoCAD Electrical Files filter, a tooltip listing all the supported file types appears as shown below.

The Import folder should contain the project file, along with all of its related configuration files, and also with those drawing files that need to be imported to the Workspace. Performing Import to Workspace on AutoCAD Electrical data will result in the following related files being saved to the Workspace:

From the AutoCAD Electrical Project manager, select the project to be saved to Workspace and make it active. Activate a Drawing of this active project and then perform Save to Workspace.

This action will import the Project file to the Windchill Workspace, along with its related drawings and those configuration files that are in the same directory as the Project file, and that adhere to the naming conventions recognized by AutoCAD Electrical (must contain either the project name or the “default” in the file name).

AutoCAD Electrical Project files are stored in a subfolder in the Windchill File System, and are managed in this subfolder regardless of whether the configuration files are stored as a CAD Documents or as Attachments. This subfolder has the same name as the project (in line with AutoCAD Electrical naming). Associated drawings are stored directly in the Windchill File System and not in the project subfolder.

As shown below, the drawings as well as the Configuration Files are referenced to their Project File as “Design Reference” types in Windchill.

The following table lists the AutoCAD Electrical file types managed by Windchill.

The wgmclient.ini file contains the settings that control the way in which AutoCAD Electrical configuration files are handled in Windchill.

Each Configuration file has the option to be managed as a separate document, as secondary content, or to not be managed at all, per the above settings. For instance, possible values for managing the .wdt file could be:

These preferences are entered in the wgmclient.ini file under the section for AutoCAD.

Project Files can be modified in many ways, such as Editing Project properties, addition of a new drawing or deletion of an existing drawing, and modification of existing drawings/configuration files. Since it is not possible to detect modification of the Project, you must perform Save Project from AutoCAD, which saves the modified Drawings/Configuration Files/Project Files. After performing Check In Project, these modification will be updated.

Modifying Drawing files — Modifying an existing drawing does not modify the project, and no checkout on the fly occurs for the Project file. The drawing file can simply be checked out, modified, and checked in, in the same way as a standard AutoCAD file. However, if Save Project is performed, it will checkout on the fly the modified drawings as well as the Project file.

Configuration files can be modified as follows:

You can create some of the configuration files after the project has been created or imported to the Workspace. These configuration files can be then added to the project file as follows:

If the files are to be stored as separate documents, the only way to add a new config file to an existing project in the Workspace is to import that file using Import to Workspace, in which case it will be attached to a project based on the AutoCAD Electrical Project naming convention. You should designate the project as Active and perform Save Project once to attach these imported configuration files to the project.

If the files are to be stored as attachments, simply attach the config file like any other attachment using Edit Attachments.

AutoCAD Electrical relies on the naming convention of files in order to find configuration files related to a project. Some project files have the option of being identified by either incorporating the Project Name into the file name, or by being called “default”.

Incorporating the Project Name in the file name provides a unique file name for storage in Windchill, since there would be only one project of a given name; however, “default” could lead to duplicate file names in different projects, thus prohibiting storage as separate documents. Therefore:

The following files can have either a “default” or “project” naming convention:

The default directory for AutoCAD Add New Drawing from Project is usually the Project directory. Since the drawing file must be stored directly in the WFS Workspace rather than the Project directory, you must browse up one directory, or create a drawing using the New command (which will default to the WFS Workspace) and then add this drawing to the Project.

Any AutoCAD Electrical Project file can be opened in AutoCAD using Open from Windchill or Open in AutoCAD. The Dependency should be set to All when opening the Project file in order to download all the drawings and the Configuration files to the Workspace.

New Electrical Projects can be created by selecting an existing AutoCAD Electrical Project document (*.wdp) in Windchill and using Save As, which collects all references – both drawings and configuration files – and allows you to save this as a new set of Project files.

A WTPart can be created only for the Project, Drawings or for both Project and Drawing files. WTParts are not created for Configuration files. The Create WTParts for AutoCAD Electrical Files preference controls WTPart creation for AutoCAD electrical-related files. The default value of this preference is ProjectOnly.

If you need to use the ProjectOnly or DwgsOnly option, you must set another preference for AutoCAD Application, Part Structure Override Attribute Name, to a Boolean attribute created in Type and Attribute Management, and add it to CAD document soft type. This will ignore the AutoCAD files, and WTParts will be created only for the Project file or Drawing files based on preference value.

Project drawings modifications and sub-sequent save action carried out by Project Task List update process or by component retagging, saves all modified drawings to WFS Workspace irrespective of whether modified project drawings are opened in AutoCAD session or not.