PDF Quick Access - User Documentation
Details
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Wex ID | com.wincomplm.wex-quickaccess |
| Name | PDF Quick Access |
| Version | 1.15 |
Overview
PDF Quick Access hastens user access to PDF documents from within Windchill, reducing clicks from about 8 to 1. It does this by making a new column available, containing an icon that gives a 1-click access to the published PDFs. The Office worker publisher and the CAD worker both can produce PDF representations. Typically, a Part may have an associated CAD Part, which in turn may have an associated CAD drawing that contains PDF representations. However, it takes a number of clicks to get from the business object to the content, and high-level objects such as Parts do not have a direct path to the PDF. This extension reduces the number of clicks required to access the file from around 8 to 1. The published content is immediately available to view or download depending on the configuration setup. The icon is configurable by the administrator to only be visible on selected objects.
Features
- New “Quick Access” icon can be added to all applicable tables
- Gives immediate access to published PDF’s
- Can be configured to be available by the user or admin
- Added as a standard configurable column
- Designed to be fast and reactive
- Supports on demand watermarking
- Direct access via URL
User Guide
Quick Access Column
A new column is available for any table view containing Parts (WTPart) or CAD (EPMDocument) objects. The column can be added by customizing the table.
A new column of Watermark Access is also available
The program transverses the links from Part to CAD and furthermore from CAD to drawing in order to fetch the representation. If a single business object (such as a part) has multiple PDFs (e.g. drawings) associated to it, then the latest is available via the “Quick Access” icon.
The icon can be configured by the administrator to only be visible on selected objects.
Administrator Guide
Configuration
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Show rep. icon for Part | set whether the icon should be shown for Part objects |
| Valid Part States | choose for which Part states the icon should be shown |
| Show rep. icon for CAD | set whether the icon should be shown for CAD objects |
| Show rep. icon for Drawing | set whether the icon should be shown for Drawing objects |
| Download PDF | set whether the PDF file should be downloaded or opened in a new tab |
| Set max duration for collecting files in ms | set the max amount of time the extension will be allowed to search for a pdf before it times out |
Configuring watermarking
A new column is available for all tables including the search results
It can be configure to watermark with a specific template associated to a state
Requires watermark or watermark plus to be installed
Quick Access via URL
To assist in external applications being able to access either the PDF of a watermarked PDF the following URL is available
/Windchill/netmarkets/jsp/com/wincomplm/wex/quickaccess/getDocument.jsp?number=[number]&watermark=[true|false]
e.g
/Windchill/netmarkets/jsp/com/wincomplm/wex/quickaccess/getDocument.jsp?number=0000000043&watermark=true
This URL requires the user to authenticate and will respect access control
Database access and performance safeguard
For each icon to retrieve the PDF, the extension makes a single query. However, to ensure high performance, the result is cached in file-based data store. In addition, the query is limited, and if performance falls under a predefined limit, the following queries are restricted. This ensures that this PDF Quick Access extension cannot have detrimental effects on under performing databases.
If the following message appears in the MS
WARN com.wincomplm.wex-quickaccess.QADataUtility - getRepresentationIcon timed-out, took = XXms, max = 150ms
The system will prevent the query from repeating for 30 seconds if this limit is reached.
This limit may be adjusted in the extension configuration but is not advised to put this limit above 150ms.
Diagnostics
The following diagnostics execute the query to show or not show the icon; the result is cached however a good performance is advisable.
The execution does queries in a loop for an single object or using the contents of a folder
Understanding the results
Databases perform in a non-linear way. This tool has 2 limits to ensure that poorly performing databases can be monitored
- Limit for a number of sequencial calls
- One off limit and cannot be exceeded
Looking at some example results it can be seen the spikes that occcur in live databases showing the performance of a single query on the database that requires us to monitor two levels
Profile of a normal database
Profile of a poorly performing database
