Versions and Revisions

[Former Member]

Hi Friends,

I have a scenario. Assume a product based company. Products keep changing often and many times undergoes ECM. Say now there is a product with Rev" B" which is in mfg and mfg engineer will say a change is required for the product. It undergoes ECM process. Design Engineer (DE) will modify it as per mfg engineer and check in. Now it will become B.1. Again the reviewer will reject with some correction and DE will modify it and check in and it will become B.2. Likewise after many rejections, It will end up in say B.15 before it gets released to Rev"C". Meaning, 15 times it has been checked in into the PDM system before getting finalized for Next revision. This is how normally engineering/Change implementation team works for the change and how PDM will help us. The case what I explained is for Wind chill PDMLink for one particular industry.

Let us try to match the same with SAP DMS. Here we donu2019t have separate revision and version but have only version say AA is the initial version. When undergoes change through ECM, it will become AB and further AC, AD etc. This is equivalent to Rev u201CA/B/C" etc in my above case. But how to track the version numbers here in SAP DMS? I can see all versions when I click on original tab but I cannot see the version numbers like that of PDMLink.

Do you have any idea like how to get the same feel like that of Wind-chill PDMLink in SAP PLM ?

Rgds,

SM

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

SAP DMS can & has functionality to make use of both Versions & Revisions.

Revisions need to be activated on the ECM (Engineering Chnage Management) side. Once this has been done a document can for example be Version B Revsion 15.

You will see in the configuration of document types (tx:DC10), there is a checkbox for 'Rev Level'

This is over & above content versioning.

Hope this helps.

Neil

[Former Member]

Hello Sudarshan,

The above requested scenario is a very valid scenario. I have dealt with this kind of requests myself in several implementations especially those involved with Pro E and windchill. Engineers are very much used to the versioning i.e. the B.1, B.2....B.15. For lack of better terminology let us call this is as "Check in Check out versioning.

The same "feel" can be achieved in SAP DMS by using the Content versioning. If you enable the content versions for a document in a particular status (other than type S) you will be able to achieve the same objective. Coming to tracking the Content versions currently using their time stamp is a good way!

Try explaining the above to your clients. I hope they will be content with it.

regards

N K

[Former Member]

Agree with you Chandu!! This is a perennial problem for such classic scenarios.An extension of this handicap is that even the file name is maintained at the header level,hence version numbers can't be maintained as part of individual filenames of each version separately. Wonder if there is any S-note for maintaining separate version column for content versions.

Regards,

Pradeepkumar Haragoldavar

[Former Member]

Hello, unfortunately this is the only solution for this problem!

Also I see the solution i.e. using content versions the way to go! I will have to agree there will be a Change management involved but in terms of best practice its not recommended to structure your versions around file naming conventions for several reasons, a file should have a single name through out its life cycle and every thing else should be tracked as attributes or meta data within DIR, it is a very old way of maintaining and tracking versions and revisions, a new file name at check in and check out will fumble the very activity of check in and check out in SAP DMS, you will be building intelligence and relying on the end user to name the file (remember there is no windchill PDM any longer to control this) resulting in manual errors, also you will have to provide the enhancement for numbering.

I don't see SAP coming up with a automatic way or out of box solution for this as Content versions addresses it.

Sudharshan, please close the thread

regards

N K

Edited by: N K on May 16, 2011 6:51 AM