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PDMWorks Ownership

PDMWorks Ownership

PDMWorks Ownership

(OP)
I'm testing PDMWorks for a company wide installtion and I have an ownership question.  It appears (from my testing) that once a person "owns" a document another person can't take ownership until the original "owner" has manually released ownership. Is this true?

If it is true, is there a setting that automaically releases ownership of a document once it has been checked in and closed by original owner?

It seems that users will have to remember to release ownership of their documents every time they check the documents back into the vault.  I know this is going to be an issue for our users (they will not remeber to do this). I guess I don't fully understand this thinking on SW part.  I was under the mindset PDMWorks would be running transparently in the background keeping control of files based on a set of rules defined by the PDM administrator.  After playing with the software for a few days it feels like PDM is a totally manual process (other than revision and file referance control).  I'm not sure PDM is making my file management chanllenges any easier, in fact it seems more confusing.

Rob Rodriguez CSWP
President: Northern
Vermont SolidWorks User Group
www.robrodriguez.com
SW 2006 SP 2.0

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

It is true. It's not fully auto, because you have to tell it what you want to do. Once you start with the manual stuff, you get used to it. From my experience in training, the lazy users are the ones that either don't want to use it, or they don't want to grab the concept.
Rob, you will like it after a couple months full time using it ... and will becaome second nature.

Chris
Systems Analyst
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 05
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

I believe there is a way around this - when you log into PDMWorks, click on the options button. under the "Command Defaults" list, turn off the "Retain Ownership" option (under Check In) - you will need to do this for each user.

Let me know if this works for you.

Regards

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

One thing to be aware of when doing this:

After your users release ownership, either during check-in or manually after the fact, they will need to reload the document from the vault.  This will make the local copy read-only.  Otherwise, the user will still be able to modify the local copy even though they don't have ownership.  You could potentially end up with a local document which is newer than the vault document even though you don't have ownership.  Confusing to say the least, particularly if more than one user does this to the same part.  Picture heads spinning while trying to sort out who did what and when.....

This may depend on how you have your options set within PDMWorks.  I know there's something about binding ownership to read-only file system status, but I don't believe that's how our vault is configured.

I'll check it when I have a chance.  In any case, you need to make sure your users know how the vault works and how to take/release ownership as needed.

Dave Gowans

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

(OP)
Thanks guys.

BandH, I see it and have tried it.  It is what I'm looking for.

Dgowans, maybe the setting "delete local copy on check in" would help solve this issue.

Ctopher, I hope so.  At the moment I'm questioning weather we need PDM at all.  We have been surviving for 3 years without it.  We keep gaining more users however and this makes file management more difficult.  More users is the real reason we started looking at PDM at all.  No doubt I have found some plus sides of using the software in my testing but I'm not sure the pluses are larger than the minuses I'm seeing?

Rob Rodriguez CSWP
President: Northern
Vermont SolidWorks User Group
www.robrodriguez.com
SW 2006 SP 2.0

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

I'm a little paranoid about the "delete local copy on check-in" setting.  In a past life I used I-DEAS, which had PDM built-in.  There was a setting called "Check-in do not keep" which essentially deleted your local copy after check-in.  I was emphatically told not to use this option because of the possibility that the check-in could fail (network issues, disk space on the server, etc.) but the local copy would still be deleted, thereby causing you to lose any changes made since the check-out.

I don't know whether a similar issue exists with SWX/PDMWorks, but I'd rather not find out the hard way.......

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

Rob,
I know with my designs, I worked with aerospace & imlitary designs. They had to be configuration controlled and history saved. With PDMW, all history is saved (unless you check in with same rev which will over-write it) and you can roll-back/open old revs. The files are also smaller on the server because PDMW does not save the whole file each time, only what was changed. I liked working with PDMW very much, but it is sometimes a headache working with large assy's checking in/out. But in the long run, it is worth it IMO.
Chris

Chris
Systems Analyst
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 05
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

I have a couple of other opionions to throw in the mix.

1.  The fact that people are keeping ownership after checking in can be a very good thing.  It is a great signal to others that you are working on a section of the design.  So many times it has happened that I went to ask someone to release ownership only to find they never checked in their latest anyway.

2.  All work is done locally.  Your working directory should be on your local hard drive.  Then once you pull down a copy from the vault you are working locally.  If you try and work in a multi-user environment on the network it is really going to slow you down.  

We have been using PDMworks at our office for at least 3 years and PDMworks is the only way to go.  It may seem complicated at first but you are dealing with a complex system in your design and this program will really help.

Good luck.

Boggs

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

Rob,
       I know this is not what you asked for, but I would like to share it with new PDM users.

These are the rules I came up with for our company.
PDM Rules to Live by:

1.    Get latest parts from PDM.
2.    Work only within your working directory.
3.    Keep your working directory clean.
4.    Take ownership as soon as you know you are going to change, if an ECN is required keep ownership until you give it to Documentation.
5.    Do not check out or take ownership unless you are going to change it.
6.    Do not take ownership of an assembly and all children.
7.    Upon check-in, add short note as to what you did.
8.    Release Ownership (if applicable) during check-in not afterwards.
9.    Do not add suffices and prefixes to part numbers being checked-in to PDM.
10.    Do not check-in junk names; get a part number if it needs to be in PDM.
11.    If you are working on projects that are not ready for PDM, create a sub-directory within your working directory for those models.  Remember rule number 2.
12.    Do not delete relationships and external references.
13.    Clean swSolidWorksBackups directory; defrag your C:\ drive as often as needed.

Bradley

RE: PDMWorks Ownership

I have fashioned a way to do this by creating a special user called "Document_Control".  This user has ownership of everything in the vault.  When an engineer needs to work over a set of SW files he or she must alter the life cycle status from "Released" to "WIP" (work in process).  When this is done the owner is set to "none".  Then the engineer can take ownership and or check out the files needed.  When the work is completed.  The owner needs to change the life cycle status back to "Released" which automatically reinstates the owner as 'Document_Control".  The best part in setting things up like this is that Document_Control has administrative access to the vault data.  Therefore when and administrator logs in as Document_Control, file renaming and other associated higher level data manipulation can be accomplished as needed.  Additionally, if the files are left still as WIP then the rest of the company can't get to the files as they are set to not be viewable by an applications engineering group defined in the administration interface.  What is more this action triggers a very nice history of who is doing what so if something gets mucked up the file in question can be rolled back or done over if an error is made during the check in process.

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