CADminBlog: CAD Admin + Pro/E Help

Crash and Cache - ProE's secret settings

2009-07-23T12:14:00.003+01:00

This week we had a couple of instances of ProE crashing immediately on open...
Looking at the PTC/USER exploders it seemed it may be related to PTC.com being down... not so, our config.pro has included this setting for the past 3 years:
web_enable_subscription no
(It turns off the facility to connect with PTC.com on startup)

After some time with a couple of Tech support operatives, we eventually discovered that deleting the ProE "cache" folder allowed it to start properly. This mysterious folder is located on Windows systems @

C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\PTC\ProENGINEER
And it seems to have quite an impact on ProE... we have an inkling that one workstation perhaps got a corrupt file here during a recent power outage.

So, there's something to stick in your memory-bank for any future strange ProE crashes...

PTC/USER 2009

2009-06-09T12:28:00.005+01:00

PTC/USER 2009 is underway in Orlando - to stay up-to-date see this site: http://www.ptc.com/events/ptcuser09/

During my previous trips, I blogged each day (PTC/USER 2006 + PTC/USER 2004) - and it's good to see many more folks spreading the word now... keep it up guys!! My favourites so far are:

I can't make it this year due to house renovations, but it's good to hear the news via fellow Pro/E users... Let me know if you find any others....

Happy New Year

2009-01-21T06:46:00.004Z

Wishing you all a belated Happy New Year!! 2009 promises to be another busy one in my wee world, though I plan to post some more on this blog when time permits...

Intralink saga continues
After the relative "happy face" of my last post about Intralink 3.4 - PTC released the bombshell that 3.4 M060 is not very stable after all... They posted a low-key customer bulletin (quoted below) announcing that they'd withdrawn it. I was grateful to guys on the PTC/USER exploder for pointing this out before Christmas, otherwise I'd never have seen it - and gone ahead with more upgrades unwittingly...

As it happened, I decided to cancel 4 further M060 upgrades (hoping the 8 dataservers I'd done so far would be OK - so far no bad news :-) ).

Last week I heard about a patch developed by PTC Tech support, and after some emails + prompting I've finally got hold of it... so it'll be available to users to combat workspace corruption, etc...

The whole episode demolishes my previously growing confidence in PTC's ability to provide good quality software, let's hope they can make a better impression in future.

Quote from PTC.com:
Several customers have reported an issue with Pro/INTRALINK 3.4 M060 to PTC Technical Support where some user’s Pro/INTRALINK workspaces become corrupt and not recoverable. Instances that have occurred are sporadic and not reproducible through a given set of steps. Nevertheless, due to the potential severity of this issue, Pro/INTRALINK 3.4 M060 has been removed from distribution.

PTC continues to work towards resolving this issue and a fix is currently under development. Customers who are using Pro/INTRALINK 3.4 M060 in production are encouraged to contact Technical Support to request a M060 patch that has been developed to address this issue. Customers who are not yet in production with 3.4 M060 are encouraged to wait for Pro/INTRALINK 3.4 M061, which contains a fix for this issue and is scheduled to be available in February. Upon release, Pro/INTRALINK 3.4 M061 will be available to all active maintenance paying customers.

Please note that extended support is not required to receive either the M060 patch or the Pro/INTRALINK 3.4 M061 download. Please see TAN 143517 for additional details.

Intralink 3.4 - the next chapter... M060

2008-10-17T10:19:00.005+01:00

You may have seen my posts last year about struggles with Intralink 3.4 installation and more notes on Intralink 3.4 M040 - well, I'm pleased to report the next step in that process is much simpler!

Upgrading M040 to M060 is a stroll in the park... I've had 100% success on 3 runs, though Windows 2000 Server isn't supported with this version (something I found out the hard way on our old test server, yet to be upgraded to Win2003).

I followed my previous method - and created a batch file to put all the steps together - makes it much easier to repeat the process for many servers. Here are some notes:

1 - Get a secure backup of your existing Intralink database - including dump file and "cold backup" of all the dbs files (as security)
2 - Uninstall the current versions using Add/Remove Programs:
- a) Fileserver
- b) Dataserver
- c) OSA
3 - Remove traces of Oracle (there's usually something left behind) - including program files, registry, path, etc.
4 - Reboot

5 - Install Fileserver + start with port parameter
6 - Install OSA, including:
- a) Oracle 10g DVD
- b) Oracle 10.2.0.3 patch
7 - Install Dataserver

8 - Then import your dump file:
- a) Set some things

set PROI_SYS_PWD=dschangeme
set ORA_SYS_PWD=manager
set FS_SYS_PWD=fschangeme
set DATASRV=dataserver_loadpoint
set DUMP=dump file location

- b) Autoextend on (see below)

- c) Import

cd %DATASRV%\intralink\export\
call ilink_import manager %DUMP%

- d) Run Patches...

cd %DATASRV%\intralink\
copy example_intralink.new intralink.new /y
cd %DATASRV%\intralink\dbs\ilink_patches\tools
call ilink_patches all ilnk INTRALINK

- e) Autoextend off (see below)
- f) Run proimgr (DSMU) - and check/set your database tables & server read/write status

Autoextend... run these SQL lines against the database - with "ON" at start, and "OFF" when you're done:

alter database datafile 'dataserver\INTRALINK\DBS\ILNK_DEVELOPMENT_1.DBF' autoextend on;
alter database datafile 'dataserver\INTRALINK\DBS\ILNK_PDM_INDEX_1.DBF' autoextend on;
alter database datafile 'dataserver\INTRALINK\DBS\ILNK_PDM_TABLE_1.DBF' autoextend on;
alter database datafile 'dataserver\INTRALINK\DBS\SYSTEM_01.DBF' autoextend on;
alter database tempfile 'dataserver\INTRALINK\DBS\TEMP_01.DBF' autoextend on;
alter database datafile 'dataserver\INTRALINK\DBS\UNDOTBS1_01.DBF' autoextend on;

Slow news month ;-)

2008-07-18T21:44:00.001+01:00

Now we have a new baby daughter and I've joined a band, there will be even less posting going on here...

However if anyone has suggestions, let me know.

Edwin

Managing Pro/E systems (part 2)

2008-05-14T22:55:00.000+01:00

Continuing from my previous post on the subject, here's a little more...

Once you've got folks starting up the same way, you'll want to look after their standard files. I believe you can build standards (or best practices) into the software and make it easier for people to do things the "right" way. You can do more work behind the scenes to make things simpler for your CAD users.

Here I'll explain a method that's had widespread success so far (100s of users, 30+ combinations of "standards"), and I'm keen to improve further...

Custom multi-level configs

Put some thought into organising your CAD user locations, servers, groups
Define standards that apply at each level: global / server / group / individual
Build particular "flavour" of config.pro for each CAD session... ensure people get the standards they need
I was inspired during a PTC/USER presentation from Cummins several years ago where they mentioned using the copy command to append config.pro files

File organisation / distribution

Store standard files (*.pro/*.pcf etc) on servers across network
Keep "main" version up-to-date on server nearest design group
Allow access + control by local "CAD Contact"
Copy around other servers as required by remote groups

Compared to others I've spoken to, I'm not that draconian. :-) But you have to make your own decisions for your particular system.

On the same topic I hear via PTC/USER exploder there's to be a special-interest meeting about managing CAD standards + best practices at Long Beach. I can't make it this year, but it's sure to be another bigger + better event for Pro/E + loads more...

If anyone reading this is going along and fancies "reporting" back, let me know.

CADminTools 4.0: Quick Install

2008-05-09T20:51:00.002+01:00

4.0 is live to the world...

I was going to make a nice instructional video, but made this instead... it's a Friday after all

:-)

CADminTools 4.0, Pro/E Tips

2008-05-09T13:48:00.005+01:00

CADminTools 4.0 is available for you to download: all open-source and free-to-use... enjoy. We had a fairly quiet pre-release download/testing time: and a couple of minor things fixed. I thought it was time to release "officially". New for 4.0 there's a CADminTools Wiki on the sourceforge pages: with pictures, explanations, etc, and users can help build the documentation.

If you download + use, please let me know about it: there's a register feature in the software (and I won't provide tech support unless you've registered ;-)

We've had thousands of downloads in the past and hopefully you'll all enjoy the new version: several rough edges are tidied up, plus there's a heap of new stuff in there that I've been using for ages now...

Over 200 subscribers to CADminBlog - woohoo!! :-)

Intralink Backup

2008-04-05T18:28:00.002+01:00

Recently I've heard questions about Intralink backup scripts, so here's an example of one I use, built over the years with info from various sources... Please add comments, suggestions, improvements below.

These are the CORE (minimal) commands: Set Read-only, Run Export, Set Read-write

set PDM_ORA_APPL=intralink
cd ???\dataserver\intralink\obj
PDMTransactionSetRO %ILUSER% %ILPASS%

cd ???\dataserver\intralink\export
call ilink_export manager ???\dump.dmp

cd ???\dataserver\intralink\obj
PDMTransactionSetRW %ILUSER% %ILPASS%

Summary for "complete" backup script:

Set variables based on script location (disk, folder, computername)
Set default Intralink passwords, etc
Run ilink_vars.bat file if it exists (allow to set non-default variables for server/location)
Set path, make copy of backup log
Put Database in Read-only mode (avoids any conflict from checkins during backup)
Specify Dump sub-folder + keep 3 previous dump files
Call the export command
Record date/time to log
Put Database back in Read-Write mode

:: Intralink backup file
:: E Muirhead Nov 2007

::Find active disk
set DISK=%~d0
set BAK=%~dp0
set LOG=il_bak_%COMPUTERNAME%.txt
set PDM_ORA_APPL=intralink
set DS=%DISK%\ptc\ilink\dataserver\
set ILUSER=INTRALINK
set ILPASS=INTRALINK

if exist %BAK%ilink_vars.bat call %BAK%ilink_vars.bat

set PATH=%PATH%;%DS%intralink\ilink_lib

%DISK%
cd %BAK%
copy /Y %LOG% %LOG%.bak

cd %DS%intralink\obj
PDMTransactionSetRO %ILUSER% %ILPASS%

set DUMP=%BAK%dump_files
if not exist %DUMP% md %DUMP%

if not exist %DUMP%\dump.dmp goto nodump

del %DUMP%\dump3.dmp*
ren %DUMP%\dump2.dmp* dump3.dmp*
ren %DUMP%\dump1.dmp* dump2.dmp*
ren %DUMP%\dump.dmp* dump1.dmp*

:nodump

cd %DS%intralink\export
call ilink_export manager %DUMP%\dump.dmp

echo Intralink Dump - %DATE% %TIME% > %BAK%%LOG%

cd %DS%intralink\obj
PDMTransactionSetRW %ILUSER% %ILPASS%

cd %BAK%
copy /b %LOG%+%LOG%.bak %LOG%

I just work with hot backups in read-only mode, and they've served well for recoveries over the years. You can also do full cold backups with the database off, see PTC KDB for more info.

CADminTools 4.0 pre-release

2008-04-04T00:10:00.007+01:00

I've just made the latest CADminTools available - version 4.0 pre-release - if you've some time, please take a look...
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=128350

There's the usual asp files + database in the CADminTools package - plus a short movie showing installation in the CADminToolsMovies package.

For v4.0 I've made a few major changes and many minor ones... here's what I can think of (in no particular order, more detailed docs to come later):

License logging is now in /log/ subfolder, so install is more compact...
Installer includes sample database (CADdB4.mdb) - to migrate 3.x dBs you can copy + rename the mdb file and run the upgrade page.
Ilink Intelligence is a major new set of tools... there's a host of useful scripts + pages to help you track your multi-server installation. At some point I'll go more in-depth on it... meantime you can explore yourself: get instant access to your Intralink vital statistics via SQL reports + scripted queries, etc...
Tasks dB is dropped - I wasn't using it, so it's gone
User dB has many improvements, including custom fields, bulk-updates, exporting, etc

A few people have expressed an interest in testing the new version (the tagline should be "about time too!") - so here's your chance.

I've been working a fair bit with Pro/E templates lately, plus via email I've been discussing a method of using Excel >> Trail files >> Templates... I foresee a post on these topics soon.

(below: old bunch of screenshots showing some improvements, back when I was planning v3.4)

Useful new blog

2008-04-02T20:48:00.002+01:00

Take a look at this new blog by Marc Mettes, regular contributor on PTC/USER exploders on topics such as SQL, Intralink UI scripting, etc... it's worthwhile reading for anyone delving behind the scenes of Intralink. Years ago I encouraged him to organise all his tips on a website after gaining a lot of benefit myself from his programming knowledge, and here it is finally!!

Another useful read for Pro/E users: Wildfire 4 review by MCAD online, plus I recommend (once again) subscribing to the PTC/USER exploders - recently there was a great summary of Wildfire 4 from a user's perspective.

Also: I notice from our recent wee blog poll that Pro/E is the most sought-after flavour of tips, so I'll try and put out a few more of those... hope you liked the Pro/E sleight-of-hand?

Pro/E Sleight of hand : switch drawing models

2008-03-26T07:41:00.001Z

Joe Slow has duplicated a complex assembly, made changes, replaced parts, etc... but when they come to edit the drawing they realise they forgot to include it in the duplication process! (Or they somehow duplicated the drawing, but left it pointing to the old assembly.) How can they have a copy of the "donor" drawing referring to their new assembly?? They consider re-drawing from scratch, but there's got to be an easier way, right?

Right indeed. I tend to use a little sleight of hand to swap the drawing models when Pro/E is not looking (I'll assume Joe is using Intralink, since that's the hardest case):

Open the "donor" drawing (or wrong-pointing drawing) + assembly from workspace
Unhook Pro/E from Intralink for a moment (Tools > Server Registry > Set NO SERVER, Don't erase)

Rename the donor assembly to the new assembly while the drawing is in session.
File > Backup the Drawing to disk
Erase everything from memory
Hook-up with Intralink again (reverse previous process)
Open New assembly from workspace
Open Backup drawing from disk
Save drawing to Workspace (overwrite warning)

Image tries to explain process visually...

(If you're not using Intralink, ignore the unhook + hook-up steps.)

So now Joe Slow has a nice new drawing relating to the new assembly, and you get a pat on the back! This trick depends on duplication between the old + new (I don't think you could replace any old assembly this way), plus Pro/E can only deal with one file of a particular name... so when you open the backup drawing from disk, it sees the new assembly already in session and uses that instead of retrieving the old assembly from disk.

Pro/E with Mathcad (part 2)

2008-03-22T08:32:00.006Z

Following the last post on this topic and more testing, I'm moving towards a particular method of working with Mathcad >> Pro/E. You'll notice the arrow goes just one way now: and I reckon that's the most robust way to work. I was hopeful the Mathcad Analysis Feature would be suitable, but it's just not good enough yet. It's buggy and slow, and I've decided to use a neutral file for transfer of design parameters...

See the pen diagrams for details (easier to draw than explain!) - but basically the Analysis feature often falls over when changes are made to the Pro/E model and/or Mathcad worksheet. In development this is no use, as things change frequently till you get what you want. I demonstrated the falling-over to PTC staff, so they can communicate back to base + hopefully improve in future.

So, the plan is to have users work direct in Mathcad (it's a nicer interface anyway) - then push the numbers to a text file - then read into Pro/E. The text > Pro/E bit is familiar territory, since we already run a web generator with this transfer method. When you do a Pro/E regen > read file, it takes up any sizes recognised and ignores the rest... so you can easily resize a properly-set-up template file to suit your new design.

It also feels better keeping Mathcad and Pro/E apart at this stage... you get the benefits of each without any complication between them. They are each excellent tools in their own right, but getting the official integration to a stage that will do them justice is probably years off... so meantime the text file transfer will do me. More details will probably follow in a Part 3 post.

2008-03-22T08:27:00.003Z

CADminTools 4.0 will release soon, once I get stuff together... Meantime, I'll be looking for beta-testers to join the crew and take a look at the initial attempt! Let me know if you're interested. Preferably, you'll have some knowledge of scripting, ASP, html or javascript.

Also, looking for requests for inclusion... already picked are:

Ilink Intelligence
license kicker
license usage mapping

Thoughts on managing Pro/E systems (part 1)

2008-02-29T21:37:00.006Z

I've recently had a couple of requests for help from folks who are new to managing Pro/E installations and standards... I'm happy to help, but tend to be too busy during the week to think about anything other than my day job. So I'll use this blog to look at related subjects when I get the chance. I'll write whatever comes to mind - and you can add comments + questions right here, maybe spark more discussion + thinking.

Any system of working requires some degree of management - whether detailed procedures or informal guidelines or ideas carried around in your head. CAD systems (particularly 3D) come with their own baggage - a host of related files, configs, settings, etc... that you can learn, use, tweak and manage. My particular area of expertise is gearing up Pro/E + Intralink for large groups of users, so that's what I'll stick to here... hopefully the principles apply elsewhere too.

Start Me Up

Get people starting up the same way. It seems obvious, but often I stumble across users launching Pro/E or Intralink different from the "norm". Choose a standard method of launching - whether that's a desktop shortcut, menu pick, etc? And have everyone use the same file if/when it's updated. These startup files change over time - and it's useful to have them automatically filter to your users. Build in a check + copy when your clients start. I cover the technical aspects of this on the site... look there for more (and I'll make a note now to update it soon!).

More to come on this topic soon - including configs, start parts, plotting, etc.

Pro/E with Mathcad (part 1)

2008-02-14T06:36:00.004Z

Finally I get round to posting some knowledge gained from my struggles with Mathcad <-> Pro/E integration... It has been a struggle, since there's still no smooth join between the 2 applications (even though I envisioned it in April 2006!). The information here is a mix of what you find in the user manuals + what you pick up as you go along... suggestions included in [square brackets]. Please add your own input in the comments.

To begin with, let's look at adding calculations to geometry:

Mathcad sheet prep: variables to inherit Pro/E values should be tagged proe2mc - and variables to feedback to Pro/E tagged mc2proe (right-click - properties - tag). This is the neatest part of the integration - the simplest and least intrusive...
Pro/E model prep: add your Mathcad Analysis feature, load your worksheet (or create one on the fly, though I always tend to have the worksheet ready + waiting) - and begin joining Pro/E dimensions/parameters with Mathcad variables. [I have an Enh Req on this one: tolerance values cannot be passed between apps, you need to go via parameters, more in a later post]
From initial testing, I'd recommend you minimise the number of mathcad files used by each Pro/E model - since Mathcad gets opened in the background each time a feature is regenerated. I started with a lot of little sheets for individual calcs, but now have just a few sheets, each combining a logical series of calcs. [It would be useful to somehow group all the mathcad features requiring regen together - and just open Mathcad once to cover them all]
Bringing the outputs back to Pro/E: I recommend clicking the Info button to get a list, noting the feature ID, then editing for notes, etc... eg:
```
Variable      Value    Units (feature ID:2184)
Area_WINDOW   1.556    in^2

becomes:

Area of Window : &MC_Area_WINDOW:FID_2184 in^2
```
The prefix MC_ is added to all variables, and the suffix :FID_??? is also required.

Here are some things to look out for (I found them out the hard way!):

Don't use decimals in your Mathcad variable subscript - Pro/E doesn't recognise these (eg: instead of OD.BODY.NOM type OD.BODY_NOM)
Watch length of variables - Pro/E will truncate Mathcad variable names above 31 characters
Don't remove or rename variables in the Mathcad sheet that are used by Pro/E - it won't open the file...
Sometimes Mathcad features will fail during regen - and sometimes if you suppress and resume them, they're OK! (Failing that, close + re-open often does the trick, but it still feels pretty unstable...)

I think that'll do for now... I have a few other topics, but this is looking long enough for one post, and I've got to drive to work now!

Tail - Software to make life easier

2008-01-24T13:06:00.000Z

Continuing the series on useful software (see previous post) - Tail is a mighty little utility that makes sense of log files and brings them to life...

The flavour I've settled on is Tail for Win32 - another free open-source project, that ports the Unix tail command for Windows. There are a couple of really powerful features that make your CADmin job easier....:

Monitor log files real-time
Do you sometimes find yourself opening a log file to trace an error? Or check up on a license server? Or monitor database activity? Previously I'd open a file and have to keep re-loading to see the latest changes... but tail will automatically add new lines onscreen as they appear - and it's very fast. For example: monitoring a flexlm license file - the "OUT" message line appears a split second after a user checks out a license. Or if you re-read the license file, you see all the information appear right away. Or you can monitor a database log file (eg: Intralink - network\log\listener.log) - and see users connect to the database realtime. Great for health-checking or trouble-shooting.

Highlight keywords - and Tally them
There's a cool feature that lets you embolden particular words in different colours (eg: in a flexlm file I highlight "DENIED" "INACTIVE" "IN:" "OUT:" "shake it all about"). As well as drawing your eye to them, this will count them too... so you can check the Tally window for counts of licenses out, returned, denied, inactive. I've used this to work out license server "percentages" for each of our servers... eg: you divide the number of denied messages by the number of OUT: messages - and you have a figure that suggests how capable the server is... hopefully you have a low number here. Or, you could divide the inactive by the OUT: - and see how many of your issued licenses are abandoned by users (or by timeout value).

Tail has been a great benefit in everyday work, eg: one facility complained of losing licenses during the day... by using Tail Tally, I found a high percentage of inactive licenses, and looking into the details I realised folks were away from their machines for just long enough to get kicked out by our timeout value (20mins) - but back again soon after, having to re-acquire a license (and sometimes getting denied, depending how busy it was). They were away from the software because they often visited the shop floor, or worked CAM or other CAD packages. So my solution was to increase timeout for that particular license server, giving them 60 mins to keep licenses alive. Since them we've had no complaints...

If you use something similar, or have more tips in this vein - please let us know in the comments...

Boston in the snow... PTC/USER TCs + Wildfire 4.0

2008-01-16T12:58:00.000Z

PTC/USER
This week I'm privileged to attend the PTC/USER Tech Committee meetings in Boston again. The weather is a little more seasonal than last year - low temperatures let the snow hang around all day long!

I find these meetings a great place to talk to people who have similar jobs + challenges as me - it's rare to see so many power users, system admins, movers & shakers in one place at the same time! The group continues to grow year by year: PTC additions of Arbortext, Mathcad, IsoDraw, etc have brought in many people + companies beyond the "traditional" Pro/E users.

The meetings and labs give you valuable insight and input into the direction of software development - and they prove their worth when you return to your day job to manage the software.

I'll echo my encouragement from last time, if you're a PTC customer, get involved with PTC/USER - because you're worth it...

Wildfire 4.0
I also notice that PTC has media folks in the building - no doubt they'll be talking about Wildfire 4.0 among other topics... PTC.com today has a press release detailing some up-coming features, including these:

A cut-down version of CETOL - aimed at 1-dimensional "stack-ups" - that's good news, and will hopefully bring Tolerance Analysis within reach of typical CAD users
Rights Management Extension - protect your intellectual property in your CAD
Many usability improvements + time-reductions

Wildfire 4 is scheduled for release later this month - in the summer it's supported with Intralink 3.4.

Happy New Year! Intralink, PTC/USER, CADminTools 4

2008-01-09T12:25:00.000Z

Happy New Year readers - hope you had a nice break over the festive period... I was fortunate to spend a few days with friends on the Isle of Skye - enough time in the wilderness to re-charge + unwind, etc :)

A couple of things:

The Intralink server I mentioned in the last post is still up and running - seems like the re-install did the trick.
And I see from our blog poll that Intralink 3.4 is the majority version used by readers - so I'll continue posts about that version even when 9.0+ seems to be flavour of the month.
Next week I travel to Boston for PTC/USER meetings (see last year's post)
CADminTools will probably make version 4.0 on the next release... it will be sufficiently different to warrant the new number (and long enough coming!!)

Intralink + Oracle woes... service_died

2007-12-20T12:03:00.000Z

Just when things were going great (12 Intralink 3.4 production server upgrades neatly under my belt) up crept an Oracle issue... a recurring service failure on our French server - with only this kind of message in the \network\log\listener.log file:

17-DEC-2007 12:44:42 * service_died * ilnk * 12537

I discovered that the service was often dying at roughly 20 minute intervals, and could be restarted with dbstart_ilink - so I scheduled this to help keep things afloat. However, clients would still lose connection whenever the service died. Via a tech support call, PTC had various suggestions over 10 days of repeated failures:

Virus Scan? - nothing found
Redolog files corrupt? - method to recreate
Interference from other software? - disable anti-virus / backups

After all this, "service_died" continued to appear. I suggested re-installing Intralink - PTC thought it wouldn't help, but I've gone with it anyway - despite a show-stopping error at 3.4 M040 about "Attempting invalid upgrade" (I had to use a workaround to get past it) and finally import the dump file.

After an hour up, the service is still running, though I won't celebrate too much yet... 24 hours will be enough for that.

Regardless of the outcome, it'll soon be Christmas wind-down time...

Use SQL to get Intralink stats direct

2007-12-05T07:34:00.000Z

I had prepared a detailed article about using SQL to remove unwanted servers from Intralink - but I've decided not to publish it since the commands could cause severe database problems if used incorrectly. For instance, you could inadvertently remove your primary fileserver without warning (I'm surprised there's no safeguard against this, like there is for attempting to remove used clusters).

Anyway - here's a less dangerous way to use SQL - get database statistics from Intralink at the command line... There was a question about it on PTC/USER, and I've recently formulated some scripts for server stats, so here goes...

select count(*) from PDM.PDM_PRODUCTITEM;
select count(*) from PDM.PDM_PRODUCTITEMVERSION;
select count(*) from PDM.PDM_USER;

They'll return totals for your Product Items (PIs), Product Item Versions (PIVs) and Users. You can count folders and storage clusters like this:

select count(*) from PDM.PDM_FOLDER;
select count(*) from PDM.PDM_POOL;

So far, they're all simple totals, here's a query to list all your users, complete with date created, created by and notification of Admin rights.

select USERNAME||' | '||CREATEDBY||' | '||CREATEDON||' | '||
decode (USERTYPE, 0, '', 1, 'Admin')
from PDM.PDM_USER
order by USERNAME;

Some time back, I came across some SQL reports written by someone more familiar with the Intralink-SQL structure, and picked up a lot of tips from the way queries can be written. These led me to create a short report that I've scheduled weekly against 13 dataservers, giving the latest stats and information, including lists of items, folders, users, attributes. These are presented in a web format and it's usually quicker to search the web page than go into the particular database to look for items, etc...

The plan was to incorporate these in a future version of CADminTools (under Intralink 3.x tools) - but that's all on hold for the time being...

Hopefully this has given you a flavour of what's possible? I certainly find the command line approach better for some types of information gathering.

Intralink SQL Hacks : get your armour ready...

2007-11-21T08:00:00.000Z

'SQL Hacks' is a suitable term for the commands we will discuss here - they are not generally supported by PTC, and may sometimes produce undesirable results. Remember they're powerful, and work directly on the database. I recommend you always work on a test server, and ALWAYS take a backup before applying to a production server. Also - I will not be held responsible for any ill effects of anything you try - though I'd be happy to take the credit for any good things that turn out...

'SQL' here is shorthand for SQL*Plus, the language of Intralink + Oracle at this level. You'll find great resources elsewhere on the web (eg: orafaq), but here I'll specifically aim at Intralink 3.x. Most Intralink admin can be accomplished by the standard interface, though Pro/Admin and DSMU are pretty clumsy. I continue to stick with these as much as possible, but in cases of automation, repetition and downright unavailability I'll delve into command lines and text files.

I've worked with several dataservers with 'checkered history', eg: clusters on dead servers, out-of-date replication, non-standard attribute names, and other issues... SQL is useful for tweaking storage and attributes. Following posts will look at these 2 topics in more detail, but these few tips will get you started:

First, type this in a Command Prompt on the Dataserver:

sqlplus system/manager

Next, take a quick look at the fileservers and clusters (copy+paste these at SQL> prompt):

set linesize 1000
set pagesize 1000
col FSVHOST format a30
col FSNAME format a30
col POOLNAME format a20
col POOLPATH format a40
col POOLHOST format a20
select FSVHOST,FSVID,CREATEDON from pdm.pdm_fileserver;
select FSNAME,FSID,CREATEDON,MODIFIEDON from pdm.pdm_filespace;
select POOLNAME,POOLPATH,POOLHOST from pdm.pdm_pool ORDER BY POOLID;

You should see your servers and clusters displayed with their relevant codes and dates...

And here's some SQL to get specific attribute codes (put in your own attribute names):

set pagesize 1000
column CLANAME format a20
column DBAATTRCOL format a30
select c.CLANAME,DBAATTRCOL from pdm.pdm_dbattrdef d, pdm.pdm_classattr c
where d.claid = c.claid and (
c.CLANAME = 'Title_1'
or c.CLANAME = 'Description1'
or c.CLANAME = 'Matl'
or c.CLANAME = 'Material'
) order by CLANAME;

Next time we'll look at using this information to wreak havoc...

Danger: Thin Ice (The value of backups)

2007-11-14T07:39:00.000Z

Two days ago my laptop hard disk failed - there was no warning, everything just froze up and suddenly the primary disk was unavailable. Many thoughts flashed past, thankfully they included memories of recent backups to a network server and an external hard disk. In spite of these backups, I've still lost some work (including some notes for another article here ;)

Anyway - it brought the backup thing into focus, and linked with another experience I've had recently: discovering two Intralink servers with no active backup system in place! I've put scripts in place, but previously had no knowledge of them - one had its last metadata dump file dated 11th Dec 2006 - that's 11 months ago... The most astonishing thing: the scheduled task had failed to start and NO-ONE NOTICED.

I've now added a couple of lines to all our backup scripts to log date/time and publish to a central location... by checking this occasionally any issues can be spotted and investigated. This goes hand in hand with my weekly server report script, that tells you a bunch of info about your servers - items, users, folder, attributes, etc... I find these scripts extremely valuable working with 13 different data servers, and will post on website if there's interest.

For now, I'm off to try and remember the SQL tips I'd writted before the crash...

Celebrate: Intralink 3.x will support Wildfire 4

2007-11-12T23:33:00.000Z

Yes, it's public knowledge now: PTC will support Wildfire 4 with Intralink 3.4 next summer... I've seen the announcement mentioned on a public news group, so I'm not the first out with the news (although I heard it a couple of weeks ago on PTC/USER group, another good reason for getting involved).

Here's how I understand it:

A new build of Intralink 3.4 will be released to support a future build of Wildfire 4
PTC have listened to widespread customer opinions + petitions - thankfully
The unicode issues will be resolved by new coding (3.4 upgrade will be more than a simple patch)
3.x support officially ends in June 08 - but you can purchase an extra year at 110% if you're keen
The compatible build will be released before the support freeze (though the extra year gives the impression there'll be bugs to fix...)

In reality, all this does is buy you an extra year to sort your Pro/E data management for the future, but it will be a valuable year. As I've suggested here before, I still don't think PDMLink is yet at a level to replace Intralink 3.x for direct Pro/E file management. 9.1 may be the tipping point, but that remains to be seen. Any more I hear will appear here...

Pro/E FAQ must-read plus more

2007-11-07T22:34:00.001Z

I was just getting ready to write here + then I come across this great post on Pro/E FAQ: What does it take to be a good Pro/E operator?

Proegeek has a list of things every Pro/E user should know - and it sounds like they're based on firsthand experience, they certainly ring true with me...

How often do I find myself telling Pro/E folks to think further than just their CAD program...? Design knowledge and drafting (or draughting) standards are so important, and yet we often get embroiled in the workings of a particular feature or a dimensioning nuance.

Anyway - the dead horse of Intralink 3.x upgrades is all but flogged for me! I have a couple more on the horizon, but there won't be any more about them here unless requested (which is unlikely, since this blog's readers are remarkably quiet these days...)

My next general topic on the blog is SQL hacking... not exactly CAD-specific I know, but it interests me, and lies in the same vein as automation, mapkeys, UI scripting, macros, etc... ie: simple programming to achieve great results. I'll put together some useful findings I've made in my quest for standard attributes across multiple servers, hoping these will be useful to others out there.

Meanwhile, I'll make a note to forward the Pro/E FAQ article to my fellow Pro/E-nthusiasts.