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Revision Controlled Workspaces, Linking Pick Lists & Managed Items

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Message 1 of 8
BiggePLM
742 Views, 7 Replies

Revision Controlled Workspaces, Linking Pick Lists & Managed Items

I have been working with the new scripting functions for Managed Items (item.workflowItems) as well as the various forms of linking pick lists for creating reference hyperlinks to revision controlled workspace items and have the following obersvations (see below) and am posting this to open up discussions as I can see need for enhanced changes to the managed items and linking picklists.

 

Observations:

 

Currently, when you add items either through scripting or manually to the managed items tab it only creates a link to the working version. This is understood as the basic purpose of the managed Item tab from its intent to force revisioning of the target item.

 

But as use of scripting for automating adding items to this tab increases, I can see good business cases for just linking to a specific revision (lastest usually) to link workspaces for the purpose of maintaining workflow processes to a project workspace for instance. These links could be direct or through just adding a grid row with a linking picklist field to the latest revision. If using the pick list field option we need to be able to match dmsID's therefore currently the picklist needs to be set-up to be All Revisions including Working. Which is fine if all you are ever going to do is auto generate the linked records, if manually then the picklist field is difficult to work with as it shows all versions of the record.

 

This is just some thoughts and I am working toward a specific business case that I will submit in an Ideastation, but wanted to get feedback from the community to see if I am understanding the current workspace structures and functionality.

 

Bob Donovan

7 REPLIES 7
Message 2 of 8
jpiggee
in reply to: BiggePLM

Bob,

 

I can see your point but I do not see a reason why someone would want a link to the current and past version of an object. Isn’t the reason to have objects managed in a lifecycle state to always have someone only to be working on the current object only, unless a team / committee decide to revert to an older object?

 

And only after "they" agree to go backwards would the older version be available. Unfortunately I can only see some slight chaos happening when you know give access to different versions of an object to different people. How would you be able to keep them all on the same page let alone which one is being worked on?

Joseph Piggee
Fusion 360 Administrator
TPI Composites
jpiggee@tpicomposites.com
Message 3 of 8
BiggePLM
in reply to: jpiggee

Good Point, Joe.

 

And that is the current use case of the "Managed Items" in that your "Managing Workspace" will be updating the linked record.

 

In thinking this through some more, my use case would work more like a related item, but curently we can only have custom fields in the managed items or grid tabs. The grid tab would work but is limited when you start having alot of workspaces with related information for the item. Jumping through related workspaces using hyperlinks is ok for researching or following a trail of actvitiy. But if you need to see all "Task" or "Related" Activity workspaces, using the relationship viewer is far superior. (also, they need to fix the hyperlink bug for filtered, multiselect picklist fields!!!)

 

I can live with using managed items tab as a "related activity tab" and the workspace does not manage the linked items information. For that matter it really is just a basic workspace, since the tasks that are linked to the item do not have a life-cycle only a workflow. A lot of my issues go away, as you say, if we are only working on the "Active/Working" version of the item, I may be looking into managing the information Revision information differently.

 

How does PLM treat items added to the managed items tab from basic workspaces?

 

Thanks again for nudging me, as I have been struggling with possible incorrect path for my workspaces.

 

BD

Message 4 of 8
jpiggee
in reply to: BiggePLM

Bob,
 
Let me make sure I have a full understanding of what your trying to accomplish.
 
Use case:
Managing multiple revisions or activates of an  item on a single page that would allow someone to see each time the item has changed? So in other words revision controlled items without using the revision controlled built in mechanics? This is doable but would require some heavy scripting and leg work. Also one would have to choose one path or the other for the item.
 
Lets break it down:
Three workspaces are required minimally.

Items and BOMS - Basic workspace
Change order - Basic workspace with a workflow
Management workspace Basic workspace (workflow optional)
 
What's required in each workspace?
Items and BOMS

Items tab

i.      Item Number field
ii.      Revision field
iii.      Basic Item description

 

Change order
Items tab

i.      Order number field
ii.      Description of change
iii.      Version number of change order
Workflow
i.      Must have a loopback to the beginning

 

Management workspace

Items tab

i.      Numbering system
Grid

i.      Item number
ii.      Item version
iii.      Basic description
 
How it all works together:
Make an Version 1 Item in Item and BOMS
Script is ran:                                                              

i.      Create a new Management Item to track said Item. (all other versions will write to said Management item
ii.      Create a Change Item that will oversee all change request for said item

 

Change order is made (for primary Item)
Script is ran:

i.      Find and locate Item and make a new item and increase version based on the current stored version and update current stored version
ii.      Tell Management Item to make add a new item in its grid based on the new item created.
 
Rinse and repeat
 
This would allow you to track everything by the Project Workspace for long term while still having the other two workspaces circulate around it.
 
I know its not a perfect example but it should steer you in the right direction 🙂

Joseph Piggee
Fusion 360 Administrator
TPI Composites
jpiggee@tpicomposites.com
Message 5 of 8
BiggePLM
in reply to: jpiggee

Joe,

 

That is very interesting and has given me alot to think about. Although per se the use for linking workspaces in my case is not for managing the item but performing activities. So with that in mind we have decided that we will control information on the "ITEM" workspace records through section access security & user permisions. May take some tweeking but we don't have that many Item workspaces.

 

The questions I have now:

 

1. "Since" PLM currently only has Grid & Managed Items to add custom fields, and we will typically use the Managed Items tab to create the relationship link to the activities being processed (I.E Issuing a Purchase Order workflow to buy an Item), usually through a project management workspace. the workflow for the workspace where I am adding the item to the managed Item tab, will not have a managed state and therefore not create a lifecycle change (Revision) in the linked Item workspace. Do you see any issues with contining down this path with developments in PLM? Looking forward to having this capability still in the future.

 

2. Since I will be using basic workspaces instead of Revision controlled workspaces, my Picklists could get cluttered with InActive items where a Picklist from a Rev Controlled (Latest Rev only) would not. I would like to have a picklist that the records included could be limited either by workflow state or field values within the workspace?

 

Thanks very much for your input, and I like your proposal for if I do want to maintain a version history or control for basic workspaces. That was the gist of my first question in that I am basically looking to not use a basic function of PLM and therefore would have greater risk of my use getting lost over time as the product is "Improved"

 

BD

Message 6 of 8
BiggePLM
in reply to: BiggePLM

I have a sample flow chart showing my use case to help follow my example. forgot to attached it so here it is.

 

BD

Message 7 of 8
jpiggee
in reply to: BiggePLM

Bob,

 

Thank you for the workflow, I will take a look at it soon.

 

But to answer your questions..

 

1. No at all, and I would not foresee any adverse long term effects on this type of a setup.

 

2. You could maintain this list a couple of different was, one option would be to have a Reference workspace that would only house your active projects (scripting to add or remove items from this workspace.

Or

You could utilize the ‘rules’ of picklist to your advantage (All items stare with A for Active, D for Deactivated. This will cause a natural separation between items and all them to float up or down in the list.

Joseph Piggee
Fusion 360 Administrator
TPI Composites
jpiggee@tpicomposites.com
Message 8 of 8
BiggePLM
in reply to: jpiggee

Joe,

 

I like your option 2 and expect I will be using version of both that and worksflow state (Active/InActive) to controll processing.

 

Now have a question spawned from testing some of these ideas.

 

Currently you can Add rows to the Managed Item Tab via scripting which includes storing values in the custom fields. Can you update the custom fields on an already existing row in a record. I.E. the Spawned record Reference.

 

I tried this and got the following Error: "java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to save script results"

 

Script was a simple one liner, Set to execute on a dummy wf Transistion

 

item.workflowItems[0].CUSTOMER_PO = "Entered by Script";

 

BD

 

 

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