DraftSight Windchill
Connector User
Guide
VERSION 1.2.2
29-JAN-2025
Levitek LLC
COPYRIGHT © 2025 | 5915 S Regal, Ste 007, Spokane, WA 99223
DraftSight Windchill Connector User Guide
Table of Contents
1 DraftSight Windchill Connector ................................................................................................. 2
2 PTC Windchill Ribbon Menu ...................................................................................................... 2
3 Server Management.................................................................................................................. 3
3.1 Register Server.................................................................................................................. 3
3.2 Unregister Server .............................................................................................................. 5
3.3 Add Workspace ................................................................................................................. 5
3.4 Activate Workspace .......................................................................................................... 6
3.5 Delete Workspace ............................................................................................................. 6
4 Workspace Browser .................................................................................................................. 7
4.1 Synchronize Workspace .................................................................................................... 8
4.2 Remove From Workspace ................................................................................................. 8
5 Search Windchill Commonspace................................................................................................ 9
5.1 Adding Latest Version of Drawing When Old Version Exists in Workspace ........................ 10
6 Creating New Document ......................................................................................................... 11
6.1 Mandatory CAD Properties ............................................................................................. 12
7 Active Document Operations ................................................................................................... 12
7.1 Save to Local Disk............................................................................................................ 12
7.2 Save to Server Workspace ............................................................................................... 13
7.3 Save As to Server Workspace .......................................................................................... 13
7.4 Save Existing Document .................................................................................................. 14
7.5 Check-In/Checkout/Undo Checkout Active Drawing ........................................................ 14
7.6 Sync with Server WS ....................................................................................................... 14
8 Revising and Releasing Drawing............................................................................................... 14
9 DraftSight Windchill Integration Help ...................................................................................... 14
10 About DSWCConnector Version ............................................................................................... 15
11 Troubleshooting ...................................................................................................................... 15
11.1 Troubleshooting Using Log File ........................................................................................ 15
11.2 Error in Server Management ........................................................................................... 16
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DraftSight Windchill Connector User Guide
1 DraftSight Windchill Connector
This document gives information about DraftSight Windchill Connector. The DraftSight supported
version is DraftSight Mechanical 2023. The Windchill supported version is [Link]. DSWCConnector
supports following operations on DraftSight as well as AutoCAD Drawings –
• Display Workspaces accessible to User for registered Active server.
• Activate workspace for document operations.
• Add new Workspace to Active Server
• Delete workspace from Active Server
• Workspace Browsing for selecting required drawings.
• Synchronize Local Workspace with Server Workspace
• Save to Local Cache and Upload to Server Workspace
• Save As to Local Cache and Upload to Server Workspace
• Search Windchill common space
• Search Drawings from Windchill Commonspace
• Add Drawings to Active Workspace
• Remove Drawings from Active Workspace
• Check-In/Checkout/ Undo Check-Out Drawings
The following sections explain the above features in detail.
2 PTC Windchill Ribbon Menu
The “PTC Windchill” menu has following buttons in DraftSight –
The quick access toolbar has “Save Upload” button as shown below –
Following Ribbon Menu buttons only work on Active document opened in DraftSight –
- Save Upload
- Save As Upload
- Check In
- Check Out
- Undo Check Out
- Sync with Server WS
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3 Server Management
When DraftSight is launched for the first time after installation of DSWCConnector, the first
step is to register Windchill Server. Clicking on the “Server Management” button from
Ribbon menu will launch following dialog -
This dialog allows you to register/Unregister Server information. It also allows users to add
new workspace to Windchill Server and delete existing Workspace from Windchill server.
3.1 Register Server
Enter Name of Server, Server URL as shown below for registering Production Server –
Enter User Credentials and click on “Register” button. This will authenticate server and fetch
the workspaces for logged in user.
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“Active” column shows Which server/Workspace is active. The New Server when registered
is by default Activated. Upon successful server registration, the accessible workspaces will be
displayed to the user.
In case authentication fails, then the following message is shown. To understand details about
the error, check the log file to get detailed error message. Check the separate section on Log
files in User Guide to understand about log file location.
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3.2 Unregister Server
Clicking on “Unregister” button will launch following confirmation dialog.
Note: This will delete local cache for the server once user confirms by clicking Yes button.
3.3 Add Workspace
Clicking on “Add Workspace” button will launch following dialog:
Enter Workspace Name and select the container for workspace from the drop-down menu.
Clicking Add will create a new workspace in Windchill. Users can confirm created workspace
by checking it in Windchill using Web Browser.
The Container drop down will show Library as well as Product Containers.
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3.4 Activate Workspace
Double click on any workspace row to activate the workspace. Once activated, all the
documents will be saved to the active workspace.
3.5 Delete Workspace
Clicking on “Delete workspace” button will delete the workspace from Windchill Server. At
the same time, it will delete the local cache for that workspace. The following confirmation
dialog is displayed to get confirmation from the user.
In case Windchill does not allow deletion of workspace, DSWCConnector will display error
message that Workspace cannot be deleted. Check the log file for details about the error
message.
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4 Workspace Browser
Workspace Browser allows user to do different operations on drawings. When launched it shows a list
of all drawings from Active Workspace on server.
Location Field in the Workspace Browser shows current container and Active Workspace Name. There
are different columns showing information about the drawing.
Following table explains about Status column:
Status Status Description
EQ Document in local workspace is same as Server Workspace i.e. Equal
OLD Document in local workspace is old as compared to Server Workspace
NEW Document in local workspace is newer as compared to Server Workspace
ABST Document does not exist in local workspace i.e. Document is absent
The “CheckOut State” Column shows the current Checkout state of drawing. The “select” column
allows selection of drawings for different operations. If the user selects some drawings and clicks on
any of the buttons for operation, then after the operation is completed, the latest state of drawing is
updated, and the selection is cleared. Open / CheckOut/Check-In/ Undo CheckOut buttons allow user
to select multiple drawings and operate on multiple drawings.
Note: If User clicks on “Synchronize” without selecting any drawing, then all drawings will be
synchronized.
Note: For any changes made outside of DSWC Connector, the user must go to the workspace browser
and sync the workspace. E.g. If a user updates the workspace i.e. adds/removes documents from
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workspace using Windchill Web Browser based interface, then local workspace will become out of
sync. After this, User must Synchronize local workspace with Server Workspace. If not synchronized,
then there could be unknown results.
Following diagram shows Local Workspace, Server Workspace and Commonspace:
New drawing will be available in Windchill common space only after it is checked in.
4.1 Synchronize Workspace
“Synchronize” option will download selected drawings from Server Workspace and overwrite drawings
in local Workspace cache. If any drawing is checked out by logged in User, then that will be Undo
Checked Out. If the drawing is Undo Checked out by another user, then the CheckOut state will not
change.
Note: Before using Synchronize, make sure to check-in your local changes to Windchill Commonspace.
If a User clicks on “Synchronize” without selecting any drawing, then all drawings will be synchronized.
4.2 Remove From Workspace
Users can select multiple drawings and remove them from Active Workspace on Server. If the drawing
is open, then it will be closed, and the document will be removed from workspace. There will be a
confirmation dialog asking the user to confirm removal of drawings from workspace.
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5 Search Windchill Commonspace
Search Windchill Tab allows users to search drawings based on Name / Number / File Name.
The Search results are based on fields containing the search string. E.g. In following snapshot, both File
Name and number have “8845”.
Column “Added to Workspace” shows current state of drawing. In case drawing is already added to
workspace, then it will show as “Yes”.
Users can select multiple drawings by clicking checkboxes from “Select” column and click on “Add to
Workspace” to add the drawings to workspace. If Users click on “Open” button, then documents are
added to workspace and then opened in DraftSight.
There will be a check made to validate whether the drawings are already added to the workspace. If
Drawing is already present in workspace, then add operation is skipped for that drawing.
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Following dialog shows sample message for “Add to Workspace” operation –
If user confirms by clicking on “Yes”, then column “Added to workspace” is updated with latest status
–
5.1 Adding Latest Version of Drawing When Old Version Exists in Workspace
Following snapshot shows old version of a document present in workspace –
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If User tries to add newer version of same drawing from Search Tab, then following message will be
displayed –
Clicking “Yes” will remove the old version of the drawing and add the selected newer version to
workspace.
6 Creating New Document
Use the existing DraftSight menu to create the new document.
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6.1 Mandatory CAD Properties
Please make sure that the mandatory CAD properties are updated using DPE utility. In case the CAD
properties are missing then the following error message will be displayed.
PTC_WM_NAME is used as “Name” in Windchill. Hence it is mandatory to have this attribute. If this
attribute is not set, then the following error message will be displayed.
7 Active Document Operations
Following highlighted Ribbon menu buttons are for Active document operation –
7.1 Save to Local Disk
DraftSight “Save” button will save the drawing to local disk. It will not upload the drawing to Server
Workspace. This is an inbuilt feature provided by DraftSight.
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7.2 Save to Server Workspace
The “Save Upload” button available in Ribbon menu will save the drawing to local workspace as well
as upload to Server Workspace.
The same button is also available in quick access toolbar –
For a new drawing, a new F Number will be generated, and the Checkout status will be shown as “New”
in Workspace Browser.
For Existing Drawing, document is saved with same F number. Users need to ensure that the document
is available in the local workspace for saving with the same F Number.
7.3 Save As to Server Workspace
The “Save As Upload” button available in Ribbon menu will launch a dialog and allow user to enter
new File Name. This will work only on the drawings which are already saved in Server Workspace.
Following dialog will be launched after clicking Ribbon Menu button –
By default, new File Name will be set to “<existing F Number>_.dwg”. Users can edit new F Number
and save the drawing. This text box does not allow invalid file name characters. In case a user enters
invalid file name characters, it will give error. Once a valid name is provided and user clicks on “Save
As”, this will save drawing to local workspace as well as upload to Server Workspace. This feature will
work only in the case of drawings which are already in the user’s workspace. If the drawing is new,
then use “Save Upload” first to save the drawing.
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7.4 Save Existing Document
By Default, the drawing outside the local workspace is considered as outside document by
DSWCConnector. Hence if user opens drawing from desktop and tries to save it to Windchill a new F
Number is generated, and document is saved to Windchill Server Workspace.
Users may open an existing drawing and save it outside the local workspace folder. This might be
required to make modifications in Drawing using tools other than DraftSight. For saving such drawing
back to Server Workspace without creating new F Number, user needs to ensure following –
• The drawing should be opened locally in DraftSight at least once before saving outside
workspace. This will create a drawing entry in the local cache.
• Alternatively, the User can Select the drawing in Workspace Browser and click on Synchronize
to download latest version of drawing from Server Workspace to local workspace.
• The file name of the drawing saved outside the local workspace e.g. desktop should be the
same. The User should not modify the file name.
• Once the file is externally modified, the user can open the file from the same external location
and try to “Save Upload” changes to Server Workspace. This will not create a new F Number,
and it will save the file under the same F Number.
7.5 Check-In/Checkout/Undo Checkout Active Drawing
Ribbon menu buttons allow users to Check-In/Check-Out/Undo Check-Out Active Drawing. Note that
the new drawing will be available in Windchill common space only after it is checked in.
7.6 Sync with Server WS
If the user has modified the document in local workspace and saved using DraftSight “Save” button,
then the document in local workspace becomes out of sync. Using this button, the user can discard
local changes and get the drawing from the server workspace.
8 Revising and Releasing Drawing
Revising and Releasing of the Drawing must be done through Windchill Web Browser and not through
WGM. After doing any operation in Windchill Web Browser, make sure that you are syncing your
changes in your local workspace.
9 DraftSight Windchill Integration Help
Clicking on this ribbon menu button launches this User Guide.
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10 About DSWCConnector Version
The About DSWCConnector button launches “About” dialog showing current version of application.
Following is About Dialog –
Please note that Application Version and Date will vary based on the released version of the
Software.
11 Troubleshooting
11.1 Troubleshooting Using Log File
DraftSight Windchill Connector will create a new log file every day. All the log files are stored inside
folder “C:\Program Files\Dassault Systemes\DraftSight\bin\addins\DSWCConnector\logs”. Refer
to following snapshot for sample log file names.
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Following snapshot shows sample messages from the log file –
In case of error while processing user request, error details are stored in the log file. Following snapshot
shows sample error log –
The above error log shows that the operation failed because the user did not have the necessary
permission on the object.
Check “Response Message” from log file to see details about the error.
11.2 Error in Server Management
If there is any error while launching Server Management or during any actions from Server
Management Dialog, then check the log file for details about the error. Following are possible reasons
for failure in Server Management –
• Check if the server is accessible and running fine.
• Check if Server URL is valid.
• Check if User Credentials are valid.
• If User’s password is expired, then user needs to un-register server and register it back.
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