This topic is contained in the PDXpert help file: select Contents from the application's Help menu.
General tab
The General tab provides the basic information about the document: its name, its identifier number, its revision or version, who created it and when, the product families that use it, and its lifecycle phase.
- Document
- The item class icon indicates the current document revision status:
Pending
Released
Canceled- You can drag the icon and drop it onto a destination, such as another item's markup list or a change form's affected list.
- Owner
- This is the organization that assigns the document number, controls the document's contents and approves its release. Typically, your own organization owns documents that describe its designs, processes, and procedures. Other partner organizations can also own documents, such as (a) regulatory agencies that publish industry requirements, (b) manufacturers that publish product datasheets, or (c) customers that issue product requirements to your designers.
- Type
- The document type ("DocType") classifies the document's purpose and attributes. Design documents contain different information than inspection procedures, and are treated different from marketing plans. Your administrator has defined your organization's DocTypes and their attributes, so selecting a particular DocType determines what you can do with it.
- Lifecycle phase
- Independent of data revisions, a document can be assigned a level of "maturity". You may have relatively little confidence in a first-draft document: you may need to circulate it for comment, try out its procedures, or build prototype parts with it. As your confidence in the document's accuracy and relevance develops, your willingness to commit additional resources becomes somewhat greater. Later, as the document's value proves itself, you release it for unrestricted use, and the document's audience is given the green light to use it without reservation.
- Lifecycle selections are defined in the Item Lifecycle Phases collection.
- Number
- As mentioned above, the DocType determines certain document behaviors. In the case of the document number, your administrator may have specified that all documents owned by your organization will be automatically assigned a number when they're created. If this is the case, then the Number field is locked; you must assign a document number after you select the DocType. On the other hand, documents issued by other organizations (for example, a regulatory agency's requirements) will have numbers assigned by those organizations; therefore, the Number field will be editable and the AutoNumber (123) button disabled. Finally, in cases where your administrator gives you the option of having a new number assigned or using your own number - such as when you want the document number to be the same as the number of the part it describes -, both the Number textbox and the AutoNumber button will be enabled.
- The assigned auto-number format and value is defined in a Sequences: Identifier collection member, which is then used by the current document type.
- Revision
- A document revision distinguishes earlier iterations of a document from later ones.
- Depending upon the process adopted by your company, a document revision can indicate a major functional, or a minor ("clerical"), difference. Normally, a design iteration that results in significantly altered content is assigned a new document number. Modifications that simply add to the content in minor ways, clarify technical information, or correct clerical errors will likely retain the same document number, but require a new revision.
- Version
- A version is any number of characters that you assign to distinguish documents with the same document number. The Version field may be displayed or hidden, depending on whether your administrator permits documents of the current DocType to have versions.
- Like a revision, a document version distinguishes earlier iterations of a document from later ones. Unlike a revision, which is assigned automatically by PDXpert, the version is created by an outside entity - a person or another computer application, such as a software compiler - and manually entered here. If both revisions and versions are used for a document, you must create a new revision to also change the version.
- Document name (title)
- The document title (or name) provides a human-understandable summary of the document's contents or purpose.
- Trustee
- This is the person with overall responsibility for the document window's contents, and is typically the person who created the document record. The trustee can edit various fields, build the document's structure, attach the document to a change form's Affected tab, and designate a new trustee. The current trustee, as well as analyst, can re-assign the document to another user, who becomes the new trustee.
- Revision area
- If a particular document location ("zone A-3", "Appendix B", "pages 7-9") has been affected, you can summarize that here.
- Language
- The document is written in this language, which need not be the same language as that used by PDXpert. When a new document is created, the owning organization's default language will be copied to this field, but can be overridden.
- Product families
- Product families (a) allow you to define groups of related items for convenient searching, and (b) restrict who can work with the items based on permissions granted within a product family's collection member. If you do not specify a product family, then any user role with general document permissions can view the document.
- Release description
- This can be used to state why the current document revision has been created.
- Released
- This checkbox indicates whether the document has been released for use. The accompanying field displays the change form that released the document. Double-click on the change form identifier to open it.
- Release date
- This date is set by the system to indicate when the new document revision was released on the implementing change form.
- Canceled
- This checkbox indicates whether the document revision has been replaced by a later revision or withdrawn from use. The accompanying field displays which change form canceled the document revision.
- Cancel date
- This date is set by the system to indicate when the released document revision was canceled by the implementing change form.
- Effective date
- This date indicates when the current revision may be used for its intended purpose. Although the effective date is typically the same as the revision's Release date, you can specify a different date to indicate, for instance, a delay before the document may be shared with suppliers. The effective date should never be set to a date later than the effectivity date of parts that rely on the document.
- Snapshot from
- If you've created the document from another item, then that source will be shown. Double-clicking on the displayed item will open it.
1055
Help topics describe the most current PDXpert PLM software release, and may differ from earlier releases.
