Who uses Intralink? Do you recommend it?

Intralink is useful:

1. A common database that can be maintained like document control--check in check out privileges. You can lock files so that they are read only. prevents accidental changes.
2. Renaming is a cinch. you can do it on the spreadsheet like format to individual objects and Intralink will maintain relationships. Otherwise it is a proverbial pain in the ass, though not impossible to do for small assembly/relationships.

3.You can save a baseline of a drawing (or any object). This is a snapshot of all the associate objects that make up the assy drawing/assy Useful to know what the project looked like on a certain date --say when you sent it to a vendor and you continue to do further development.

1. The common database can be backed up regularly since it will be a server type machine, hopefully maintained by the sys admins.

I think it is quite useful. But you do need a person to act as an Intralink admin, which will take away some time from regular activities. We have about 20 users and one CAD admin (full time).

We are a manufacturing shop with 10 seats of Pro-Engineer and Pro-Manufacturing, using Pro-E since v9 or so, currently in WF II. We do not use Interlink for two reasons (of several).

1) Cost and administration We were given a similar cost of US$22K as you were for this software. A sharp Intrlink admin is desirable because there are instances when 'commonspace' (the public files), and 'workspace' (the files you have checked out in your personal directory) get confused and can be very difficult to reconcile. There were instances of Interlink creating 'phantom' parts that really screw up Interlink not allowing you to checkin a project.

2) Longevity Despite reassurances to the contrary, we are concerned that Windchill PDMlink will soon replace Interlink. PTC did something similar when they launched Interlink over ProPDM. If they would grandfather you into the new system, this would be a non-issue, but they don't give any credit for using the outgoing system. PDMlink has a lot going for it, and my opinion is that it will replace Interlink very soon.

3) Until recently, you could not properly reconcile family table parts in Interlink. The latest version (I think) updates the revisions of the family table parts OK, but all of the family table instances must regenerate for you to check the part back into commonspace.

There are other systems out there besides Interlink that deserve a look.

Just my $0.02

So, how do we control our files? We usually use 'backup' or 'save a copy...' to create an assembly with all of the individual parts to our local directory for creating derivative assemblies. When you do a 'save a copy...' if the drawing has the same file name as the part/assembly, the system will carry the drawing over also. The makes the idea of one detail/one drawing more desirable.

Next, when manufacturing saves a manufacturing file that references an assembly, the parts in the assembly are updated also (why??). This means that we make sure that the NC programmers close their assemblies if we are working on tooling to keep from get our files 'stepped on'.

Make sure that all of your common tooling (fasteners, rest buttons,pillow blocks, etc...) are family tabled to keep from reinventing the wheel. This creates problems when downloading parts from the net because those parts are not family tabled. Create parameters in the parts and assemblies that will auto-populate the drawing title block and BOMs.

Lastly the use of copy geometry, skeleton models, and pro notebook would really help design continuity, but are only included in Advanced assembly extension.

PS, in MS Windows, use speken purge to manage the file version numbering and general directory house cleaning necessary. Learn how to implement Modelcheck for standards compliance and continuity.

crew wrote:

All of the points that Chris raises are true. However I feel the benefits far outweigh the negatives for the reasons I stated.

We've been using ProE/ProI since 1999, and now are on WF 2 and ProI

3.3. We have a dozen users in a mix of ProE and ProNC, all using Intralink since Day One.

I cannot imagine what it is like to use ProE without Intralink. The workspace's Frame Manager and its ability to step back and forth through a design process is in itself worth the price of admission. If you mess up a design on Tuesday morning but don't realize it until Thursday night you can 'unwind' the changes you made in the interim and get back to a point where the design was 'good'.

You never have to worry about search paths or where files are.

Designers cannot design the same part twice.

You have complete version/revision control.

All your data resides in one place.

Multiple users can work on the same assemblies and keep their work in sync. For example, our fixture designers work closely with the NC programmers. When the programmer determines that a fixture needs a change so a tool can reach, for example, the fixture designer can quickly change the design, check it in to the database, and the programmer can update his in-session models on the fly, validate the change, and keep working. Do that with Windows Explorer!

Engineers work on copies of the original parts, and the initial data is preserved even after check in. The adminstrator sets the purge policy.

Users can be forbidden from deleting parts. The admin can then make a thorough investigation (a Where-Used Report) of where a part goes and determine the impact of a file deletion before doing it.

And on and on and on......................

Regards Peter Brown Jarvis Products Corp

Quick question on purging, How many versions do you keep of an existing part ?? Our release procedure is INWORK, COMPLETE and RELEASED, we retain the last 3 versions of each release level and this is done using scripts. Apparently Intralink cannot do this automatically, would you agree ??

You can afford to lose 3 days effort like that?

I only keep the latest version of the latest revision. It is critical that you keep pushing your users to bump the revision level up when making a major change to a part BEFORE THEY CHECK IN. Otherswise, you then have to sift through the versions and try to make sense of what is what. There is no better reminder than telling a user that, no, you can't get that part back because you didn't up the Revision level before you checked it in. After he gets burned a couple of times, he will start to be a bit more conscientious.

While it is nice to keep all the multiple versions of different release levels, in 5 years I have never been asked to retrieve anything in that manner.

Regards

Dakeb,

If the user screwed the pooch three days ago, all his effort has ALREADY been lost. He might as well 'fess up and get back to being productive. Saying that you are losing the work by acknowledging the error is like holding on to a stock whose price has collapsed and hoping it will go back up.

My point is that you have the ability to do that. If anyone is half on-the-ball he would know he screwed something up within 20 minutes of doing it.

That's what I was getting at.

But we all know how the goalposts may move, so it's not uncommon to lose time.