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APPLICATION - PRODUCT ENGINEERING - Easiest way to advance through states?

BobG - Thursday, April 21, 2016 10:39 AM:

Hello

We're a startup company and I'm the only user of Innovator. 

I've created the database of parts, assemblies, manufacturers, documents etc and that all does what I need it to - basically just to record reference numbers and links between them.

Everything is in state 'preliminary'. 

I'd like to be able to advance through the states to 'released' and 'superseded' or 'obsolete', but I don't want to have to use a complex ECO/ECN/MCO... etc system.

We have a change management process - printed, signed documents - outside of Innovator and that's not going to change any time soon.

So, my question is this - what's the very simplest way of being able to change state? (for parts & documents)

(note when I select 'promote' on a part right now I get an error 'no promotions available' and don't know why)

Cheers

Bob



CycleOp - Thursday, April 21, 2016 11:02 AM:

Hey Bob,

 

What you need to do is go to Administration --> Life cycle maps, and locate the relevant life cycle map (let's assume part). Then you could change the role of the identity that is allowed to move a part from preliminary to released from 'Aras PLM' to your own identity or anything you prefer. You could use 'all employees' for example. Alternatively you can just create another connection between 'preliminary' to 'Released' and add your desired identity.

Do this for all relevant ItemTypes and life-cycle maps and you could then use 'Promote' instead of using an ECO.

note: Aras PLM identity is the identity used by Aras change processes to promote an object from one state to another.

 

Cheers,

Sagi Tikotski

[email protected]



BobG - Thursday, April 21, 2016 12:07 PM:

That's great, thank you. I've added connections to allow my admin identity to promote between the various states - not best practice I know, but it lets me do things quickly until we have more people!

A different question if you're able to help - what is the 'manual release' option when right-clicking on a part? (I get error saying I need to be member of owner identity, which I haven't tried to change yet)

I now have a list of 100 parts to advance to Released status, and individually promoting vs a multiple-select and manual release sounds appealing!

Many thanks 

Bob



stevestojanovski - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 9:41 PM:

On the Part and Document items, there are two properties named Assigned Creator and Designated User.  I can't recall off the top of my head, but if one or the other property is populated with an Identity, then this allows you to use the Manual Release action.  Also, I believe it will allow you to use the Create New Revision action.  Those actions may provide you an alternative mechanism for perform revision and life cycle state changes for Parts and Documents.  Check the Ask Innovator online help for those actions and they may provide you a little more context.  The intent is to provide simple revision and state management without a workflow to do change management. 

Another option for promoting hundreds of Parts to Released status is to use an ECO to do it.  An Express ECO can be easily started, add all the Parts to the ECO and then just progress the ECO to completion.  The result is that all the Parts should be released.

 



stevestojanovski - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 9:41 PM:

On the Part and Document items, there are two properties named Assigned Creator and Designated User.  I can't recall off the top of my head, but if one or the other property is populated with an Identity, then this allows you to use the Manual Release action.  Also, I believe it will allow you to use the Create New Revision action.  Those actions may provide you an alternative mechanism for perform revision and life cycle state changes for Parts and Documents.  Check the Ask Innovator online help for those actions and they may provide you a little more context.  The intent is to provide simple revision and state management without a workflow to do change management. 

Another option for promoting hundreds of Parts to Released status is to use an ECO to do it.  An Express ECO can be easily started, add all the Parts to the ECO and then just progress the ECO to completion.  The result is that all the Parts should be released.

 



BobG - Thursday, June 23, 2016 7:36 AM:

Thanks, that's helpful.

I have only just discovered the 'ask innovator' help - this is really useful.