The Promotion process in Windchill PDMLink is used to accomplish two objectives:
1. It advances the lifecycle state of an object.
2. It allows the objects to go through an approval or review process prior to the lifecycle change.
To accomplish these tasks, Windchill PDMLink uses a workflow. The system comes with two workflows pre-defined for use with promotions, but can be changed using the Promotion Preference Manager. In Windchill PDMLink 9.1 the Promotion Preference Manager allows companies to select a user specified workflow to drive their promotion process. Additionally a different workflow may be used depending on what lifecycle state you are transitioning to. A simple review workflow may be used early in the design process, while a more complex release authorization workflow may be used to move to production.
The Promotion Preference Manager is accessed from the Site Utilities Page:
By default, the Promotion Request Approval Process is the only defined workflow in the preference manager and is used for all lifecycle states. To add new promotion workflows, select the New Promotion Preference Icon from the Promotion Preference Manager.
This will open the New Promotion Preference window where you can name the new preference, select the workflow to be used, and choose which lifecycle transitions it applies to.
Repeat the process of creating New Promotion Preferences for each lifecycle state where you wish to use a different workflow. In the Example below, the Review Process workflow will be used to promote objects to Prototype, but the Change Request workflow will be used to promote objects to Released.
Once complete, these workflows will be available within the Promotion Wizard.
Using a company specific workflow to promote objects in Windchill PDMLink allows companies to tailor the system to meet your specific approval requirements and allows the information being stored in Windchill PDMLink to be viewed and leveraged company wide.
Selecting Promotion Task Participants from User Defined Roles in Windchill PDMLink 9.1
By default, the Promotion Wizard allows you to select individuals to approve or review the request. The list of available participants is generated from the Product or Library team.
The image below shows the screen for selecting participants in the promotion approval process
The columns for Reviewer and Approver allow you to select who to route the approval requests to. These specific columns appear because the “Reviewer” and “Approver” roles were defined within the Promotion Request Approval workflow.
In Windchill PDMLink 9.1 you may change the promotion workflow to any user specified workflow. When this is done, the Promotion Wizard reads the new workflow, and displays a column for every role used in the workflow. This allows you to develop a company-specific approval workflow and still leverage the standard promotion wizard.
For example, a drawing approval process may require you to select one Checker, one Designer, and one Engineer to be part of an approval workflow. When the role of Designer, Engineer, and Checker are added to the task participant list in the workflow, the Promotion Wizard displays a column for each role:
This occurs automatically without requiring a change to the user interface.
Let’s look at what’s involved in adding participant roles to a workflow. For this example, let’s modify the default Promotion Request Approval workflow to include the Role of Designer, Engineer, and Checker.
From the Site Utilities page, open the Workflow Administrator.
From The Workflow Administrator, Highlight the Promotion Request Approval Process and select Edit.
This will open the workflow editor.
Within the workflow editor double click on the Approve Promotion Request Task to open the task:
Add the needed Roles to the Assignee List and select OK
Save the Workflow changes.
Exit the Workflow editor and check in the modified Workflow
Once the workflow changes have been checked in, these roles will now be visible from the Promotion Wizard.
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