Adding Linked Items
Today during another PLM 360 adventure, I started trying to tie a Change Order process to one of my BOM style workspaces. I realised the way the Revisioning Workspace Items (Change Order) take control of Revision Controlled Items (e.g: BOM Item) is by adding the Item to be Revisioned to the Linked Items tab of the Revisioning Change Order. However, I couldn’t add any of my BOM Items from my custom BOM WS. In the default instance, which new users receive from Autodesk, the Change Order Items are linked to the Items & BOM’s workspace and not to my custom BOM workspace, I was struggling to figure out where this relationship was established. I read through a tonne of the Wiki help but I couldn’t find the information I needed to establish the relationship. Intuitively you expect it to be a Workspace Relationship, just like it is for the BOM, Workflow Items, Relationships and Project Management tabs.
Change Order Linked Items Tab
So I started to think about the differences between this tab and the others, the key here was its purpose, based on my interpretation of the help file its primary reason for existing was for the Revisioning Items to take control of Revisioned Items via the links established in this tab.
I suddenly had a hunch, I compared the Lifecycle states of the Items I was trying to add to those I could add, it was obvious at this point the relationships were being established by the Lifecycle definition. All I had to do was add this particular Lifecycle loop definition to the Change Order workspace and suddenly I could add my custom BOM Items to the Change Orders.
Other users may have come across this ‘quirk’ naturally if they have followed the process of creating their own Revisioning Workspace. I only came across it through the use of the new Autodesk Vault Professional PLM 360 sync tool. In which case you have to set up a new Lifecycle in the definition. Subsequently all of my custom BOM Items had this Lifecycle state which wasn’t defined within the default Change Order Lifecycle, as a result they didn’t appear in the Linked Items tab filtered list.
How to do it?
The odds are if you have created your own lifecycle workflows then you will know how to create them and assign them to a workspace. Well this is no different, just remember you may not have added it to a subsequent Revisioning Workspace, hence why you may not be able to add them. Here are a few images describing what you need to do:
You can see here that the 'Eng Release' State's Transitions are greyed out for the Change Order Workspace
Now you can see all the Transitions are active and available
In light of this discovery I’m going to go and add a note to the Wiki help file under the entry relating to the Linked Items tab clarifying this requirement for other users.
