PDM Standard Question
OK, so I think I may be doing something wrong with permissions or in the workflow definition. I have an Approved state in my workflow, where files sit after approval. For example a file comes out of development and is "released" to Rev A (at say version 4) so its state is Approved. Along comes a User 1 and they check out the file. Edit it and checks it back in so it is now at version 5. User 2 comes along finds Rev A of the file, checks out the file and gets latest version 5 (doesn't know to check history, why would they?) with the edits (unbeknownst to them) and is now referring to an incorrect file.
Vault view reflects the version correctly (at 5), but the Revision variable on the data card reflects revision A. (in the old world or Workgroups this would be A+, meaning it was a modified A)
So, both of these users have "Admin" privileges (profiles copied from Admin when created. Is that the issue? Is there a specific permission that needs to be limited so the files have to transition out of Approved to be able to be modified and checked back in within the Approved state?
Or is this a workflow definition thing. In our workflow, there is a defined state for changes for Approved files (an ECR state if you will). Is there a way to define a state to not allow check ins?
Thanks!
Hi David,
The 'norm' would be to block edits on an Approved file, with the process being instead to transition them to an editable state (e.g your 'Under Change' State) for modification and subsequent 'releasing' back to Approved (which would stamp the new Revision on the file). There are obviously nuances that would affect how you choose to do this that with depend on your existing business practices. For example, what happens to the Revision 'label' when it goes back to WIP? Does it get incremented (A -> B) at that stage (this is the norm for most of our customers, along with updating a 'watermark' variable displayed on the drawing to show it's under change)), or does it get a minor revision applied such as A.1 (which would increment each time the changes are NOT approved and further edits required)) or do you use some other WIP indicator added to the existing Revision label (as per WPDM) until it is approved again?
In essence however, it sounds like you will first need to disable "Check Out" on those Approved files.
Whilst you think it through, if you do need to do something straight away to prevent Read Only Users (Viewers) seeing Approved files that are no longer as they were 'Released' you could disable the 'Show Working Versions' permission for that group. A 'version' that is not also a Revision (i.e. the red tick in the History) is called a Working Version and these can be hidden easily away from 'consumers' of data. You obviously wouldn't apply this to your engineering 'group'.
Hope that helps?
Wayne Marshall
Solid Solutions Management (UK)