Design Contexts Work Flows in Windchill
To leverage top-down design methodology Windchill supports several user work flows designed to streamline the creation and updating of design contexts from a configuration context.
Opening a New Configuration Context in the CAD Application
1. You select a top level end-item and invoke the action to create a configuration context.
2. The system creates a new configuration context, checks it out, and displays it to you in the configuration context builder
◦ The part originally selected by you is the context part for the new configuration context.
◦ The child parts of the context part are member parts of the new configuration context.
◦ The filter criteria for the new configuration context is set to
▪ The filter criteria values of the Product Structure Browser – if the action to create a new configuration context was launched from the Product Structure Browser toolbar.
▪ Their default values - if the action to create a new configuration context was not launched from the Product Structure Browser toolbar.
◦ You then can refine the definition of the configuration context by:
▪ Updating the filter criteria
▪ Specifying include/exclude rules
◦ You validate the configuration context definition by examining the resulting content displayed in the tree structure panel and the Visualization tab.
3. You check in the configuration context, which causes the system to generate resulting rules
4. You can then invoke the action to open the configuration context in the CAD application (embedded browser only)
5. The system generates a design context from the configuration context. The new design context is created in your workspace
6. The system opens the design context in the CAD application.
Opening a Modified Configuration Context in the CAD Application
1. Select the original configuration context and check it out.
2. You can make changes to the definition of the configuration context by:
◦ Changing the filter criteria
◦ Changing the include/exclude rules
◦ Adding or removing member parts
3. Validate the configuration context definition by examining the resulting content displayed in the tree structure panel and the Visualization tab.
4. Check in the configuration context, which causes the system to generate resulting rules.
5. Invoke the action to open the configuration context in the CAD application (embedded browser only)
6. The system updates the related design context in your workspace
7. The system informs the CAD application to refresh itself.
Only One Design Context per Configuration Context
To simplify the actions required to create or update a design context from a configuration context, a configuration context can have only one directly-related design context.
• The first time such an action is performed, the system creates a new design context and relates it to the configuration context.
• For subsequent times that these actions are performed, the system updates the existing design context related to the configuration context.
The Details tab for the configuration context information page includes a hyperlink to the related design context.
The Attribute tab of the configuration context builder includes a hyperlink to the related design context when you have selected the configuration context root node in the tree panel.
The Open in CATIA V5 Action
The Open in CATIA V5 action is accessible from the ribbon toolbar of the configuration context builder for a checked-in configuration context:
• The Open in CATIA V5 action is only available when the Show New Design Context Action preference is set to yes. The default value is no.
• The Open in CATIA V5 action is only available from the Windchill browser embedded in Windchill Workgroup Manager when an active/primary workspace has been defined. The action is greyed out in a stand aloneWindchill browser.
• The behavior of the Open in CATIA V5 action is also dependent on the preference Hide wizard when creating a Design Context from a Configuration Context. When this preference is set to no, users must enter the required information in the New Design Context or Update Design Context window before the new or updated design context is opened in the CAD tool.
The Open in CATIA V5 action is enabled only if the given configuration context is checked in.
Use Case 1: The configuration context does not have a related design context:
• The system creates a related design context in the workspace for the configuration context.
For the embedded browser, the workspace is the registered workspace.
Use Case 2: The configuration context has a related design context:
• The system issues an error message in the following conditions:
◦ You cannot perform this action because you do not have a workspace. Please create a workspace and try again
◦ You cannot perform this action because the user who created the design context for this configuration context has not checked it in to the commonspace.
◦ You cannot perform this action because the design context for this configuration context is checked out to another user.
◦ You cannot perform this action because the design context for this configuration context is not in your active workspace. (if using the embedded browser).
◦ You cannot perform this action because no active workspace is set. Please set an active workspace and try again
• If the related design context is checked in to the common space, the system checks it out to the registered workspace (if using the embedded browser).
• The system updates the related design context in your workspace.
• The system launches the CAD application for the modified design context.
The New/Update Design Context Action
The New/Update Design Context action has nearly the same behavior as the Open in CATIA V5 action described earlier. The main difference between the Open in CATIA V5 action and the New/Update Design Context action is that the Open in CATIA V5 action opens the resulting design context in the CAD application, while the New/Update Design Context action opens it in the design context builder window.
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The New/Update Design Context action is only available when the Show New Design Context Action preference is set to Yes. The default value is set to No.
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To simplify the workflow, Windchill by design reduces or eliminates the need to show the New Design Context page with each update in the following ways:
• A Set as Default action for the Template field on the New Design Context page lets you set a default template for subsequent creations of new design contexts directly from configuration contexts.
• The object initialization rule (OIR) provides values for the name and file name attributes of the new design context.
◦ The out-of-the box OIR sets the name attribute for the new design context to the same value as the name attribute for the related configuration context.
◦ The out-of-the box OIR sets file name to same as number
A name for the CAD data file that references the design context members, the File Name can be entered using the text entry field or set equal to the value of the Number attribute by selecting Same As Number. Same As Number is checked by default.
• In the embedded browser, the value for the workspace is set to the registered workspace.
• If the preference Hide wizard when creating a Design Context from a Configuration Context is set to yes, administrator can specify that the system should not display the New Design Context page to the users when they perform the Open in CATIA V5 and New/Update Design Context actions. Setting this preference means that the administrator must perform the configuration activities via OIRs and preferences to ensure that all the required attributes displayed in the design context create wizard get set programmatically.