By Ravindra Wagh

How to customize Windchill?

Windchill is a three-tier JAVA Runtime Architecture that can be customized in many ways to meet your customization requirements in addition to the existing Out Of The Box (OOTB) functionality. There are basically two ways to customize Windchill based on the level of complexity of your customization. Lightweight Customization Heavyweight Customization

By Ravindra Wagh

Windchill Lightweight Customization

Adding Windchill Soft Types. Adding Soft Attributes. Changing the look and feel of the existing user interface. Text tailoring by altering resource bundle files (i.e. list of selectable values) Modifying or automating business logic in workflows. As Out-Of-The-Box (OOTB) features in Windchill there are existing tools that support Windchill lightweight customization.

By Ravindra Wagh

Lightweight Customization Tools

Name Initialization Rules Administrator Resource Bundle Files Attribute Definition Manager Type Manager Purpose Change rules that affect newly created objects. Custom text displayed in dropdown lists. Instance-based attributes. Soft type extension

Workflow Editor

Custom workflow creation or existing workflow editing.

If these tools can not meet customization requirements, you may need to use Windchill heavyweight customization.

By Ravindra Wagh

Windchill Heavyweight Customization

Heavyweight customization applies when lightweight customization cannot meet your requirements. Some examples, To create a new user interface. To add object extensions to the existing data model To add new Windchill services. To create a new object in the data model. Complex workflow may involve advanced functionality that requires heavyweight customization such as calling Info*Engine tasks from the workflow to perform data manipulation logic on Windchill objects.

By Ravindra Wagh

Comments
While most of the Lightweight customization can be done by using the OOTB mentioned above, heavyweight customization involves use of client and server technologies, require extensive Windchill API knowledge, and solid software development skills for a person to effectively perform the customization. Lightweight customization are supported by the OOTB utilities, supported by PTC Technical Support, and thus are typically carried over during MOR(i.e. maintenance only release or patch) installs or point release upgrades. Heavyweight customizations are not supported by PTC Technical Support, and may or may not carry over during MOR installs or point release upgrades.

By Ravindra Wagh