Intralink 3.3

I know I'm way behind the rest of you on Intralink, but that could
help me because I know you all have the answer I'm looking for. We
have just in the last week loaded Intralink. We have 4 users on
Wildfire. I still have our old 2000i2 on my Unix box. My Unix station
is the server for PDM. The other three users are making new parts and
assemblies with Wildfire. And all of the new items are still local on
their machines. In the past there has always been a system manager for
all of this but now I have the job of managing Intralink. I did a
search yesterday here, for my answer but could not find one. We have
Intralink up and running but the most important item for me, now is
the importing of everything into the new Intralink. I have read
through all the info that comes on the install disks, and either I am
missing it or it is not there. I know how to check-in and checkout,
but how do I move something into Intralink for the first time? In time
I need to move about 5 gigs of information into the new server of
Intralink. I know training would be the best thing for me but you know
how small companies are. And getting Pro personal to come in is out of
the question. And can we work out side of Intralink and then move our
work into Intralink? WE are thinking about leaving everything on the
old server and bring over the drawings and models, as we need to for
revision. That would help me, but eventually I will need to bring it
all in. I hope I'm clear on my question.
Thanks to all who answer this.
Frank

 

You coul use Object/Import in your Workspace. But the most robust way I have
found is to open a session of ProE in a Workspace, then open the drawings
and assemblies you want to import into Proe, then save them to the
Workspace. Once you have the files in Workspace you need to set the
Commonspace folder for each file, then you can check them into Commonspace.

 

Okay, Frank, there's got to be an automated way!!!!!! Isn't there a Pro/CONVERT?
http://www.ptc.com/appserver/it/icm/cda/template_lib/icm01_text_v.jsp?im_dbkey=16465

David Janes

:I know I'm way behind the rest of you on Intralink, but that could
: help me because I know you all have the answer I'm looking for. We
: have just in the last week loaded Intralink. We have 4 users on
: Wildfire. I still have our old 2000i2 on my Unix box. My Unix station
: is the server for PDM. The other three users are making new parts and
: assemblies with Wildfire. And all of the new items are still local on
: their machines. In the past there has always been a system manager for
: all of this but now I have the job of managing Intralink. I did a
: search yesterday here, for my answer but could not find one. We have
: Intralink up and running but the most important item for me, now is
: the importing of everything into the new Intralink. I have read
: through all the info that comes on the install disks, and either I am
: missing it or it is not there. I know how to check-in and checkout,
: but how do I move something into Intralink for the first time? In time
: I need to move about 5 gigs of information into the new server of
: Intralink. I know training would be the best thing for me but you know
: how small companies are. And getting Pro personal to come in is out of
: the question. And can we work out side of Intralink and then move our
: work into Intralink? WE are thinking about leaving everything on the
: old server and bring over the drawings and models, as we need to for
: revision. That would help me, but eventually I will need to bring it
: all in. I hope I'm clear on my question.
: Thanks to all who answer this.
: Frank

 

I have to agree that there must be a better way.

However, I did it by opening Pro/E while linked to a workspace, opening the
files I wanted to import and saving them to the workspace. Once there they
can be checked in. If you do this with assembly drawings you will find that
it goes quite quickly. There are many reasons to do it this way among them
is that you can make sure you have the right files and you can make repairs
as necessary. You can actually also use the import function in Intralink but
it will open Pro/E in the background anyway.

We tried bringing the files in only as needed but there are problems. For a
small company like yours and mine this is the only practical way to go even
with the problems. What we did in the in-between time was put all the files
on the server (not in Intralink just in a share for the Engineering
department to use for this purpose). This was our way of keeping the files
safe (backed up) and assessable at the same time.

I have to warn that unless the other folks in your office are more
disciplined than average you will probably have both duplicate file names
and duplicate work. You really have to make up some sort of file naming
policy, create a directory structure inside of Intralink and make
appropriate changes to files before they get imported. I am still dealing
with the mess an extremely disorganized engineer that left my company 3
years ago inadvertently created (try working with hundreds of duplicate
parts with names like e_fp_oring_size_006.prt and
a_oring_regulator_piston.prt that are actually the same part created twice
and appearing in half a dozen assemblies each ... there is almost always yet
another part I created which is also the same thing because I couldn't find
a size 6 o-ring anywhere ... ). You might want to start using UDFs or
family tables for common parts like washers and screws during or before the
import. I have found the ones available from PTC to be awful but you might
find them acceptable.

Even worse, because you don't have Wildfire yourself you will not be able to
check the files by opening them. Nor will you be able to perform the import.

Lastly, make absolutely sure that everyone always checks their work into
Intralink commonspace at all times. Go to each workstation at midnight on
Saturday to check everything in yourself if you have to. (It doesn't work if
you don't use it.) To facilitate the inevitable make sure that you have
administrator privileges on each and every workstation. Without fail the one
drawing you will need is either not checked in or is out-of-date compared to
the paper copy you have in your hand while the guy that worked on it last is
on a 2 week vacation in the Australian outback without a phone (this just
happened to me yesterday ... not the first time and probably not the last).

 

Your answers are good and I'm getting the hang of it. On my first
drawing of an assembly I want to put into Intralink I get something
new. I start Pro in the work space where it is to be save, I open the
drawing, I start the save and it says, "The following attribute
definitions are not among Pro/Intralink" and it shows a list of
definitions. Such as Drawn_by, Engineering, Material, Quality, and so
on and so on. I have never use attributes in Pro in the last 12 or 13
years. How do I assign this information to the parts and or Drawing?

Thanks
Frank

 

Frank,

That usually means that the indicated parameters are designated in your
Pro/E model and Pro/INTRALINK doesn't "know" about them. Pro/INTRALINK must
be configured to receive designated parameters from your Pro/E models.
Doing this makes them (the parameters) visible in your Pro/INTRALINK
browsers. I don't know all the details of how to accomplish that, but I
would imagine there is something in the documentation or someone who can
answer in here. This is useful if you want to search Commonspace for files
with a specific parameter value.

Ron

 

Ron is correct. I have added some of these parameters to Intralink in order
to perform an import from an outside vendor. In hindsight I think this was
a mistake. I was mostly just really happy to have figured it out and didn't
think of the consequences. If you want to keep these parameters you will
have to create them in Intralink. I also have forgotten how to do this but
you have to be logged in as the Intralink administrator to do it.

If you don't need these parsameters I suggest you actually spend some time
taking them out of the models. From personal experience I can tell you that
parameters can be both a blessing and a curse. Family tables, for example,
really will become complicated by these parameters because they will have to
be populated if you actually plan on using them.

I only actually found two pramaters useful:
part_number
description
By using these two parameters I can search my entire database by the two
things I can remember independent of the filename (which I mentioned before
can be a real problem). I can think of many others that might prove useful
but, they are better handled by MRP software. (People that create MRP
software spend their entire lives thinking about this type of thing so you
should listen to them.) These might include product type (screw, washer,
wire ...), material (plastic, stainless steel, bronze ...), part type
(assembly, purchased part, part, spare part ...). My small company was,
unfortunately, set up by people that do not understand these things so we
have them built into the part number (assembly drawings start with AD, or
sometimes a 1, unless it is a purchased assembly, but if it is both
purchased and made in-house the in-house one ends in M and the purchased one
ends in P, spares start with a 2 unless they are also used in-house in which
case they might start with a 1 unless they are not assemblies in which case
they start with 0, AAAFF%%%#$$). DO NOT make this mistake if at all
possible.

 

Yes, the attributes and parameters are one and the same as far as Intralink
and Pro/E are concerned when working correctly together. However, apparently
it isn't quite that simple. In the past, if I created a part using the
Intralink command to create an object it seems to use a different start part
than Pro/E. When you are working inside of Pro/E and you want to look at an
attribute in Intralink the ones you create yourself appear as parameters.
Unfortunately, I have never found a reason to even work with start parts
except when setting up Intralink to handle Word files (which I have
forgotten how to do also). Now here is where I have trouble myself.

This hasn't always worked. Now that I try to remember what happened in the
past I might not have been able to unlock the parameters either. Which is
how I ended up with attributes I don't want.

Now, as to moving that part I will have to try to remember this since I am
not at my desk right now. I think you are seeing two different problems.
First, if you delete something from commonspace you have to delete all
versions. Otherwise you are just deleting the version you selected. I
believe this is the first problem you are seeing. When you delete the part
you can use a short-cut by selecting the object and holding the shift key
while pushing the delete key. This deletes all versions.

For moving parts between directories I think (again from memory) you have to
explicitly give yourself permission to do so. I normally do this operation
while logged in as the Intralink system administrator (you know the username
and password for that account don't you? It is TOP SECRET.). While I do my
normal engineering work I am logged in as an ordinary citizen so I have to
log out and back in as the administrator to move parts between directories.

 

this?

Remember to refresh your workspace after commonspace changes.

You will also have to do 'Synch with Commonspace' in your workspace when you
do file moves/renames in commonspace.

Another thing you may try for the deleted object is 'Object/update' in your
workspace. If it updates the workspace object it means you haven't deleted
all versions of that object in commonspace. You will have to do a workspace
undo to get back to the latest version, and then go back into commonspace
and delete all the versions of the part in question.

 

Thanks for all the input, I think I am now checking in everything.
After I figured out how to assign the parameter descriptions as admin
everything is starting to work correctly.

I have another question regarding family tables. When I look at parts
that have family tables, in common space, all the instances are open,
or they are showing every instance name. In PDM you would only see the
generic part name. In intralink, for example, one part has 1900
instances and all of them are showing. If I only want to find or look
at the generic part I have quite a list to look through.

Is there some way to instruct Intralink to show only the generic name?

Thanks again
Frank

 

One additional thing. I see in commonspace there is a tab that shows
just the parts that have family tables. I don't see a tab that shows
just the objects without showing the entire family table.

Frank

 

Frank,

In the Intralink Table Configuration Editor, select the Filter Objects tab.
For the attribute, assign "Generic?". Set the operator to "=". Then set
the the value to "true". Adjust the Column Display and Sort Order tabs as
desired and then save this configuration by selecting the Create button
under the Configuration Name area. Saving this as a named configuration
allows you to switch back and forth between this display and other saved
configurations as desired.

Ron

 

Ron I went through this as you instructed. Just what difference should
I see? The commanspace and workspace looks the same. Except that in
workspace the name I assigned shows up in the tool bar.

Yesterday I loaded a number of items into common space from my work
for the last month. I checked the common space several times to see
that everything was there and they were. Then I went into my old
directories and deleted everything. Today I start Intralink and every
thing I checked in are not there. Very distressing. I'm not sure if
maybe they are just not showing or they really are not there.
Fortunately I'm working in windows and everything I deleted yesterday
is still in the recycle bin.
Today is going to be a long day!

 

Did you delete any files in your C:\Intralinkv??\.proi\ directories in
Windows? Delete these and you delete your workspaces. If you did a search
for all .prt and .asm and .drw files on C: and then deleted them all then
you have deleted the files in your Workspace. If you have deleted these
files/directories, restore them from your recycle bin and you should get
away with it.

Did you check the items into Commonspace or did you just import them into
your Workspace? If you checked them into commonspace you should be able to
check them out again into Workspace.

 

Ron

Thanks for your help I have everything working now. Some times I just
need to talk to some one to get things cleared up. Your help is
appreciated.

Thanks again
Frank