Hello,
I am building our Product Change Request process into PDM, and I am running into some problems where the excel file's preview does not update unless the file is checked out, saved, and checked back in.
Right now, I have everyone set to use Web2 and instead of checking out the excel file to sign-off, their name is updated on the document once they change the state of the file.
My problem is that since they are not checking out the file or opening the file in Excel, the preview is not triggering to update. Is there a task that can open the excel file, check out, save, and check back in that can be triggered through the workflow? Or is there a better way to trigger PDM to recreate the preview?
Thank You,
Chris
Hi Chris,
I have seen examples where Change Documents have been created as XML files - which dynamically update in the Preview as attributes are changed. However as that approach requires a bit of knowledge in XML and style sheet creation... the vast majority of our Customers manage Office (Word / Excel) documents in their vaults and our 'default' Change Note workflow is based on a Word Document. To support the requirement to have the 'preview' up to date after approval (in this case) we developed a DocUpdate 'add-in' that for simplicity we trigger via a separate Workflow accessed via a Workflow Link. The Add-in will refresh the Document Fields (silent Checkout, open, rebuild and save / check-in) but also supports the addition of 'wet' signatures to a document. There is a video on our website and contact details if you are interested in taking it further.
Document Update Tool
All the best
Wayne Marshall
Solid Solutions Management (UK)