fbpx
1-888-310-4540 (main) / 1-888-707-6150 (support) info@spkaa.com
Select Page

Integrating your PTC Integrity Environment with Windchill

windchill features best plm software
Written by SPK Blog Post
Published on July 6, 2015

PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager and PTC Windchill are two enterprise level applications that many large companies have invested in as part of their product development environment. Often time’s companies will use PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager to handle the software components of their new product development, while using PTC Windchill to manage the hardware aspects of the development process. PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager is good for handling requirements, test artifacts and software modules and PTC Windchill is often used to handle full documents, CAD documents, and other artifacts more closely related to hardware development.

At some point though, if you have both systems in place you want to be able to bring resources from both together. This is what the PTC Integrity to Windchill Integration is all about. In this blog article I will provide a brief overview of the PTC Integrity to Windchill integration, what it does and what it doesn’t do.

The PTC Integrity to Windchill Integration is built upon the PTC Integrity MIIP2 integration platform. The intent of this integration is to pick up documents authored in PTC Integrity Lifecycle manager and move them into Windchill. The following diagram illustrates this process:

ptcwindchill

The process works as follows:

  1. A document, created within one of the supported document domains within PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager is identified as something that should be sent to Windchill.  The user, within PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manger identifies the destination location of the document should be placed within PTC Windchill.
  2. The actual process to move the document is kicked off by saving the Windchill destination and setting the “Send to Windchill” flag.  The Integrity document is then picked up and set to an intervening server process running the Integrity Integration Platform.
  3. The Integration server then maps the Integrity document into a Windchill artifact.
  4. The new Windchill artifact is then written to the Windchill server.
  5. Upon the successful completion of the transaction, the status of the transaction is sent back to PTC Integrity, via the Integration server, along with the final location information.
  6. The PTC Integrity document is updated accordingly.

This integration was built by PTC when PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager was originally brought into the PTC family of products. Currently this is the only officially support integration between the two environments. That being said there are a number of limitations with this integration that should be known about up front. The limitations are:

  1. All documents sent through the integration must be authored in PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager before they can be pushed into Windchill.  There is no provision for authoring a document in Windchill and pushing it to PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager.
  2. Any changes in content to a document must take place within PTC Integrity.  Documents pushed from PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager are locked, and as such changes are not permitted.
  3. The original integration was designed to work with the ALM Solution.  The integration can be re-configured to work with other solutions like the Medical Device Solution.

Basically these limitations will force you to, when it comes to products managed though PTC Integrity, maintain your Integrity system as the “System of Record” for all those documents.

As you can see, despite the limitations, this integration provides a tested and supported method of exchanging documents between PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager and PTC Windchill.

Next Steps:

Latest White Papers

4 Questions Leaders Need to Answer to Accelerate AI Adoption

4 Questions Leaders Need to Answer to Accelerate AI Adoption

The rise of Artificial Intelligence has led many businesses to reevaluate their operations. Can AI create better workflows or more efficient results? Dive into this eBook to explore the questions business leaders are asking about AI adoption. [et_bloom_inline...

Related Resources

The Pitfalls of Outdated Tools in Managing Global Teams

The Pitfalls of Outdated Tools in Managing Global Teams

The dynamics of product development have shifted dramatically in the past 5 years.  Teams are no longer confined to a single location or even a single time zone.  Instead, they span continents, collaborating across borders to bring products to market faster than ever...