Simple, flexible product lifecycle management software for growing companies™
Simple, flexible product lifecycle management software for growing companies™
Documents convey the design, construction, service and support information of a product or process. In PDXpert, you can create a document record that identifies a real physical object (rendered on paper or other media, such as photographic film) or an electronic file.
When you open a new document window in PDXpert, you're not creating the actual document, but really describing attributes about the document. The actual document may, however, be a file attachment, which is listed on the document record's Files tab and stored in the PDXpert file library.
These are the basic ideas for managing documents:
A document database record is identified primarily by the document's owner, type, and number. Within the document record, there are one or more document revisions; each revision can have a specified lifecycle phase, such as Preliminary or Production. While the document revision is pending, you provide application and other information, and may optionally create a structured relationship between the current document (the parent item) and other items (child items). You establish these relationships simply by dragging items from the Item Explorer's Search or Previous lists, and dropping them onto the appropriate Markup tab.
Items that are used in the construction of the current "parent" document are managed on the document's Markup list on the Structure tab. These will typically be documents such as book chapters, specifications, and drawings.
If the current document is supplied by business partners, such as customers or regulatory agencies, these source documents can be identified on the Markup list of the Source tab.
When you've finished entering information on the document record, you release the document revision by adding it to an implementing change form's Affected tab and then approving the change form. Until you submit the change form for approval, the document remains pending and can be changed in whatever way that you want. After the change form has been submitted and approved, the document becomes released, and the child relationships are formalized and appear on the Current list on the Structure tab.
Many of the released document's attributes are locked and can never be modified;
Some attributes can continue to be modified by members of the item trustee and product team; and
Some document attributes (such as the structure) can be modified only by creating a new pending revision of the document.
You cancel a previously released document by adding it to a new implementing change form's Affected tab, and approving that change form. (You do not remove child items from a canceled document, so there is no change to the Markup tab.)
Revising a document consists of creating a new revision (as in step 1, above), which remains pending until you release it on an implementing change form. At that time, you'll also cancel the preceding document revision by listing it on the same change (as in step 3). At most, only one pending revision and one released revision can exist; any number of canceled revisions can exist.
Typical document tasks:
1020-20100516.1311