So, I'm working toward implementing a XML-based EC process with two parallel workflows in PDM Professional 2016
We're using a template to generate an EC cover sheet that contains the approval signature variables and any verification activities for the changes. This gets a serialized ECO number on creation.
The user submits all the relevant files to a CAD files workflow, with a dispatch on submission to tag them with the associated ECO number. This gets us an "implicit" link rather than a paste-as-reference.
The user submits the EC cover sheet to it's own workflow, the approvers get notified, and they then use a search card to return all documents with that ECO Number.
Approvers sign EC cover sheet, Doc Control is notified. If everything is A-OK, Doc Control transitions all the CAD files in their workflow.
My question is: Is there a way with vanilla PDM (without writing an API Add-In) to populate a value on the EC cover sheet with variable values from all records matching the ECO number? I'm not looking for interaction (the search card gets us this), but just a record of what files had that ECO number when submitting to the EC workflow.
You could write a query for the report generator with an ECO number prompt that gets the file list. Then copy and paste it to that variable field on the ECO data card. Someone has to stay on top of this when files get added or removed.
Via the API you could do a lot more such as automatically updating the "Affected files" field on each transition of the EC. There are certainly individuals here that do this kind of work and could probably turn around add-in like this very quickly. I'm sure the cost to do this manually for each EC would quickly eclipse the cost of the add-in.