Assing in WM 13 (2005)

[PM Arnaiz]

Hi all

I´m an actual user of OSDM 12 and WM 11.6. We want to change to OSDM 13, but our reseller here in Spain tell us that the only way to make this is to also change our WM to v13 too. So we have to change our Oracle server to v9, etc, etc.

We have instaled a test server with all of this (OSDM13 and WM13) for me to make some test on it. The first impression is that aparently nothing has changed from v11.6 to v13 (3 years of suscription contract). But my surprise comes when I try to use it the way I used with v11.6. If I try to manually Assign a part to a document, the instruction from the database menu from inside OSDM does not work. I do all the proccess but when Itry to save the model, I can not overwrite it and I can only make a new document.

The proccess I do with WM 11.6 is to use the Assign instruction inside OSDM, select the part I want to assign to the document, attach that info to the model and then overwrite it. It actually works for me.

When I do this with v13, I can do all the proccess but when I try to overwrite the model I´m only allowed to create a new document.

My reseller has told me that what I have to do is to relate the part and document, and then save it twice, but alone. That means that if I have an assembly with 200 parts, and I get 5 errors during a scan, I then have to find the documents, load them one by one, relate them, save them twice and pray to do it right this time. Is it this way?

I knew that CoCreate aim is to make us change from WM to MM not maintaining WM, but I couldn´t imagine that some instructions wouldn´t work in the new versions. I´ve seen two or three demos of MM, but just that, only demos. It seems more integrated than WM, what about us?? We have WM instaled, working, and we are charged with maintenance costs, and what do we get? No improvements, but a closed way.

CoCreate´s tactic is good for them, if you want to change to OSDM 13 you have to change to WM13, so you have to change your server´s soft, and some instructions won´t work properly. Lots of time and money, so, why don´t you change to MM? Question to my reseller: Will my customization work with MM? Answer: We don´t know. How long will it take to change and make it work properly?? We don´t know, it´s a new programming language, etc.
In a few words: a lot of time and money, and the cost to change my WM licenses to MM, without any compensation. My inversion in WM has lasted for 3-4 years.

Have any of you changed from a customized WM to MM?? Is this what has happened to you? What are you using? What are your experiences with WM and MM?

All your comments will be wellcomed.

Pedro

[May Kung]

We went from using SD9 with WM 5.1 (highly-customized), to OSD 12 with Model Manager last year. Aside from the schema change, which was a big project on its own, we only had to fine-tune our use model for saving files into the system.

In WM:

1. To save an assembly, we had to save bottom-up. We'd save the child before saving the parent, and we couldn't save multiple parts in one step. This was rather tedious with large assemblies.
2. It wasn't easy to see multiple versions of the same part at the same time. We could either have it default to automatically share parts upon load, or create a copy, but you couldn't choose at the time of load.
3. If a user wasn't careful about Relating a 2D document to the appropriate Part Folder, we had to hope the user at least named the document properly so we could find it later.

In MM:

1. Saving assemblies goes top-down. We can save all parts in an assembly at the same time. Much faster than the old way.
2. We can do Load as Assy/Version now from Model Manager, with no limit (aside from memory usage, I think) to how many versions of the same part we can load. Very useful. Plus, we can Replace a version in the loaded assembly with the new one loaded.
3. MM remembers which 2D document goes with a 3D part, regardless what the user named it. It also makes it much easier to see if 2D documents are linked properly and up-to-date with the 3D model w/o having to actually load the documents in question.

Overall, going to MM was a great decision. It's much easier to use, has a lot more features, and I have not met one user here that wishes we hadn't made the switch. Mind you, we had to do a lot of internal testing because our processes were so convoluted, but that wasn't CoCreate's fault.