Document Management

[Markh74]

Good day

I am new to Windchill and I would like to describe a scenario for which I need some clarity on.

I create a "New" editable word document in Windchill and get a Windchill number ex: Test001 and Rev A.1

I then check out / Check in this document several times to edit it and end up with a final edition, lets say Rev A.7

Now Everyone is happy and the CEO signs the document, saves it as a PDF and sends it back to me as the Latest approved version.

Now I need to get this signed PDF document into Windchill and associate it somehow to the last Rev of the word document A.7 as they are in essence exactly the same except for file type (word to pdf) and the pdf is signed.

1 month later the CEO decides to change something in the company and the word document needs to be updated so it is checked out, updated and checked back in making it Rev A.8 but the signed pdf is not the same anymore and doesn't reflect the new changes although it was signed.

My question is what happens in this case where I have 1 signed, un-editable pdf that doesn't contain the recent changes of the word document Test001 Rev A.8 which is linked to word document A.7

and after a few more changes the CEO signs and saves as PDF. Now I sit with 2 signed PDF documents associated to different Revisions of the original word document.

I think I am confusing myself here...LOL

[Dobi]

Hi @Markh74 

Lots of ways to go here... 

First, there's a lot of power in Revisions (going from A to B to the rest of the alphabet) and release workflows for exactly this case that you're mentioning. If you have a document that is signed and ready, it may be best to release it through whatever workflow (promotion, change, set state) your Windchill instance is set up to run. Then - in the released state - no edits to the document are allowed. 

Perhaps you a have a "revise only through change" option set so that when you do have to edit the document, you trigger a change request and the result is a new revision of your document - again, signed and on approval moved back to the released state. 

With regard to PDFs you can have an office worker generate these automatically. So in your case, your CEO would sign the word document and on release (via publish rules) Windchill would save that as a PDF and that PDF would be available as secondary content for the particular iteration that was actually released. 

That'd be my go to. 

If you want to stick with what you're doing... you could take advantage of attachments to the document. However, those aren't rev controlled. So when your PDF updates from one version to the next, you'd have to manually remove the older version from the attachments table and add a newer one... or somehow re-add the older version with a name that signifies it's outdated. 

[Fadel]

once the A.7 is released and pdf generated , any change should go to B.1 instead of A.8, to keep the links you may use configurable links  https://support.ptc.com/help/wnc/r12.1.1.0/en/index.html#page/Windchill_Help_Center/typeattr/TypeAttrChp_ConfigurableLinks.html 

[Dobi]

Hi @Markh74 

Lots of ways to go here... 

First, there's a lot of power in Revisions (going from A to B to the rest of the alphabet) and release workflows for exactly this case that you're mentioning. If you have a document that is signed and ready, it may be best to release it through whatever workflow (promotion, change, set state) your Windchill instance is set up to run. Then - in the released state - no edits to the document are allowed. 

Perhaps you a have a "revise only through change" option set so that when you do have to edit the document, you trigger a change request and the result is a new revision of your document - again, signed and on approval moved back to the released state. 

With regard to PDFs you can have an office worker generate these automatically. So in your case, your CEO would sign the word document and on release (via publish rules) Windchill would save that as a PDF and that PDF would be available as secondary content for the particular iteration that was actually released. 

That'd be my go to. 

If you want to stick with what you're doing... you could take advantage of attachments to the document. However, those aren't rev controlled. So when your PDF updates from one version to the next, you'd have to manually remove the older version from the attachments table and add a newer one... or somehow re-add the older version with a name that signifies it's outdated. 

[jbailey]

Not knowing whether or not your CEO wants to bother with Windchill... but Why sign in paper? You could have the CEO be part of the approval process, and sign it off. Windchill can be configured to collect "Electronic Signatures" for certain tasks, and you could just release the Document at A.7 with the signature history in Windchill. When the CEO needs the document revised a month later, a change request (or manual revise) is initiated and B.1 is created and then modified / approved in the same way.

Doc publishing can automatically create the released PDF... and if you get fancy, AEM forms or the Wincom Watermarking/coversheet could be used to get process info into the PDF.