drawing version number unchanged even though part was modified

[Spikaart]

Guru's,

Is there way to make sure that, if a model belonging to a drawing has changed since the drawing was last checked in, then the drawing can't be opened and printed, without getting a new version number first?

We recently had a situation where a user opened a drawing, printed a PDF of it, then later noticed that the part shown in the drawing was different than before. We had 2 PDF files of the drawing with the same revision on them, but the shape of the part shown in the drawing was different. Can that be prevented somehow? I can imagine lots of problems that could be caused by this. I'm sure an auditor would love to see 2 PDF files of a drawing with the same revision but obviously different geometry in the views.

All of our drawing formats show the PTC_WM_VERSION:D parameter in them. But the version doesn't change even if the parts/assemblies have been modified. Back in the I'link 3.4 days I think I remember getting a little + symbol if anything inside the drawing was different then when it had been saved but now the little + symbol does not show up with PTC_WM_VERSION:D.

Any advice you can offer is appreciated!


Steve Pikaart
Pratt & Whitney AutoAir, Inc.

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[TomU]

The "+" symbol refers to the object in session being different than what is on disk (or in the workspace). If you open an object, regenerate it, and then hit save, you will get the "+". As you correctly noticed, the "+" symbol at the end of the version does not show up in parameter display.

If your system is configured to automatically download the latest version of each object, you will have no guarantee that what the drawing looks like now is what it actually looked like when it was originally created. The drawing is simply a reflection of the underlying model. This is one of the major arguments for only doing business from the data created by the publisher. You can configure the publisher to create PDFs (and many other file types) automatically during publishing on the data as stored, and then train the users to give these files out instead of making new ones. Granted, they would have been giving out a drawing of an old version of the part, but that is a different issue.

You also may want to look at your "revise" process. Maybe you need to implement a policy (or possibly modify a workflow) to force users to collect and revise related drawings when a model is revised. Fundamentally though the drawing and the part are separate objects. There is nothing to prevent access to related objects just because one of them has been revised.

Tom U.

[MikeLockwood]

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