1. Improving Usability and Data Quality with Stylesheets
David McLaughlin
Siemens PLM

2. Enterprise Knowledge Foundation

3. Enterprise Knowledge Foundation Improving Usability and Data Quality with Stylesheets 
Agenda
Stylesheet Capabilities
Usability
Finding Information
Displaying related objects
Quality
Creating New Data
Context-specific actions
Customer Examples and Benefits
Do’s and Don’ts
Technical Details

4. The Problem…
Historically:
You must learn the data model
Everything is there, just go get it
Items, Revisions, Datasets, Pseudo-folders, relationships, referencers, details panels, summary panels…

5. Teamcenter 8.1 Introduced the New Summary Page
More Information
Easier Access to related information
Flexible Layout
Actions
Open, Revise
Add, Remove
Start Workflow

6. Change the view with these Icons
The New Table Renderer
Change the view with these Icons

7. The objectSet Renderer
Example of objectSet configuration and output – its configurable!
<objectSet source = "revision_list.ItemRevision" defaultdisplay = "tableDisplay" sortdirection = "descending" sortby = "item_revision_id">
<tableDisplay>
<property name = "object_string"/>
<property name = “item_revision_id”/>
< … />
</tableDisplay>
Relationship
Object Type
Properties to Display

8. The Aha! Moment…
Use the Renderer to get stuff for us!
Move to:
What data model?
I’ll go get it for you.
Click the Tab and I’ll show you the answer.
One view: Summary

9. New Layout for a Commercial Part
Tabs for related objects and information
Classification information visible in My Teamcenter

10. Attachments – Files and Documents
Tabs for related objects and information
Attached Datasets can be added and removed from the summary page
Related Document Items with access to content

11. Revision History All part revisions with dates and status
Change ID shows up when the part is in a Engr Change

12. Sort on column settings by clicking on them
Where Used
Easily see all parent assemblies and properties – same as Impact Analysis
Sort on column settings by clicking on them
Objects can be selected, Sent To other apps, and even dragged and dropped on folders.

13. Changes related to the Part
Not all related objects can be seen OOTB.
“Changes” required a runtime property customization to make them visible.
Changes this part has been associated with, and its role in those changes

14. Requirements Trace Links

15. Engineering Change Change Information, reason, priority
Quick view of parts and participants involved

16. Engineering Change Affected Items
All parts in the EC, with Target Status

17. Improving Usability Click-Count Comparison
Use Case
Previous Process Clicks
New Layout
Clicks
Find Documents for a Part
2 – select folder, change view
1 – Documents Tab
Find Status of Vendor Parts for a Company Part
5 – new view
1 – Vendor Tab
View Classification attributes for a Part
2 – Send To, Classification
0 – Summary Tab
Find all active assemblies using this part
16 – Impact Analysis, select, copy , create folder, paste, details…
2 – Where Used Tab, Sort
Training to learn the above:
???
~ 0 !

18. Where Used tab only shows if there is a parent assembly
TC9 Enhancements
Auto-recognize URL’s in Labels and Text properties
Labels – insert instructions or notes
Font control for Labels and Property Names (not content)
Conditional Tabs (pages) “visibleWhen ps_parents!=null”
Where Used tab only shows if there is a parent assembly

19. Improving Usability Reducing clicks by putting Actions in Context
Eliminate Menu Clicks by adding actions directly to the stylesheet.
Assign Participants is an OOTB command. Normally it is under Tools, Assign Participants.
Now it’s one-click and users can find it without help.
Update Preferred Status for vendor parts is under Tools, Vendor Management, Update Preferred Status.
Now it’s one click right where you are looking at the Vendor Parts

20. Improve Data Quality Create New Objects in Context
The new ObjectSet renderer and related Commands can create objects and relate them correctly
The Add New action will create the defined object and attach it with the relationship defined by this table
Since the table is defined as DocumentRevision, it will paste the new Revision onto the part instead of the Item
Less chance for mistakes or invalid data relationships

21. Improve Data Quality Add a Document to a Part
Standard Method
Select the Item Rev
File, New, Item
Change wizard to Document
Complete Wizard
Paste Error:
NewStuff, Open Doc Rev, Copy
Back to Item Rev, Paste
16 steps – many potential errors
Stylesheet Add New
Select the Item Rev
Select the Documents Tab
Add New
Complete the Wizard
Stylesheet pastes the DocRev as Specification
Completes correctly
4 steps – no errors

22. Improve Data Quality Use Stylesheets to Guide and Instruct Users
Provide actions only at the appropriate places
There is an Add New button for Vendor Part because I can do that here and attach it to this Commercial Part Rev
There is NO Add New, or Paste or Cut buttons under Vendors, because you do not add Vendors, you add VendorParts
Labels help explain what to do

23. Preventing Errors – Where do I put the Company Location?
Teamcenter provides many ways to create data… New users need to learn Data Types, Actions, Folders, and Relationships
VendorRev - Reference
VendorRev - Locations
Vendor –
Locations
Vendor –
Reference

24. Preventing Errors – Where do I put the Company Location?
Teamcenter provides many ways to create data… New users need to learn Data Types, Actions, Folders, and Relationships
Wrong
Wrong
Right
Wrong

25. Simplify the UI – Make actions and information obvious
Wizards put things in the right place
Little or no training – everyone knows what “Add New” in the Locations section means
Less folders and objects on the screen – less confusion and errors
Some objects might not even need Revisions

26. Tips
Performance
Stylesheets can take a little longer to display than Viewer/Properties
Test in your environment
Object Set renderers to take a hit on refresh. Minimize them on the main Summary/Overview tab – move them to secondary tabs
Add New button
Correctly controls type and relationship of ItemRevision class objects, but does not (yet) control relationship for Dataset class objects
Use preference <objecttype>_<datasettype>_default_relation to control datasets
Views
Tree view only works well when the first column is object_name
Actions
Not all actions work from a stylesheet – you’ll have to experiment a bit

27. Stylesheet Configuration

28. How it works – Tables with objectSet Renderer
The new objectSet renderer allows you to display related objects and their properties, while you are focused on the current object.
It selects related objects with a simple <relationship.objecttype> format so you can control what is in the box
You can define the attributes (columns), whether to display in Table or List view, default sort column and direction.

29. A typical tab – Documents
<section text = "Documents"> <objectSet source = "IMAN_specification.DocumentRevision" defaultdisplay = "treeDisplay" sortby = "object_string" sortdirection = "ascending"> <tableDisplay> <property name = "object_string"/> <property name = "object_type"/> <property name = "release_status_list"/> <property name = "last_mod_date"/> <property name = "last_mod_user"/> <property name = "checked_out_user"/> </tableDisplay> <thumbnailDisplay/> <treeDisplay> </treeDisplay> <listDisplay/> <command commandId = "com.teamcenter.rac.common.AddNew" renderingHint = "commandbutton"/> <command commandId = "com.teamcenter.rac.viewer.pastewithContext" renderingHint = "commandbutton"/> <command commandId = "org.eclipse.ui.edit.cut" renderingHint = "commandbutton"> <parameter name = "localSelection" value = "true"/> </command> </objectSet> </section>
The objectSet line defines what
relationship and what object types
should be displayed. It will include subtypes of the type defined.
The Properties control which columns are displayed for those objects. You can have different columns for Table vs. Tree view (thought I don’t know why you would).
The treeDisplay only works with object_string as the first column. You do not have to include all 3 views (tree, table, list). Just use what you want.
Because the commandid is inside the objectSet, it will try and create the object type and relationship defined for the objectset.

30. ObjectSet notes
The ObjectSet renderer can have multiple selections per table:
IMAN_specification.dataset, IMAN_reference.dataset…
You can mix relations and object types – see the OOTB ItemRevSummary stylesheet, Attachments page, for some examples.
IMAN_specification.ItemRevision, IMAN_specification.dataset…
This will display all objects in a single table
Object selections inherit and include subtypes.
ItemRevision gets all revision subtypes…
DocumentRevision gets all document revision subtypes…
Creating new objects with Add New *should* use the first relation/object definition – verify before use

31. How it works - Commands
OOTB actions for the objectSet renderer create the object defined by the set and (attempt to) paste it with the defined relationship:
<objectSet source = "IMAN_specification.DocumentRevision“ …
<command commandId = "com.teamcenter.rac.common.AddNew"/>
<objectSet />
The commandId needs to be inside the objectSet section to know which object type to create.

32. Set preferred vendor part:
Other Commands
Other commands that act on the selected object in the nav tree (part, change, etc…) don’t need to be inside the objectSet.
Assign Participants:
<command commandId="com.teamcenter.rac.assignparticipants“
Set preferred vendor part:
<command commandId = "com.teamcenter.rac.updatePreferredStatus"/>
Not all commands will work, it will take some experimentation… but what if they did?

33. How to find plugins for CommandId
Search for the right jar file in ../portal/plugins.  Sometimes you can search for unique text from a Teamcenter menu command using Windows Search or other tools that search into the jar files.
Open the jar file: com.teamcenter.rac.vendormanagement_ jar
Open plugin.properties – at  the top of the jar file archive
That maps the Menu name to an Action:
updatePreferredStatus.TITLE=Update Preferred Status...
Open plugin.xml – at the top next to plugin.properties
Search for the Action from above.
That points to the plugin:
<command id="com.teamcenter.rac.updatePreferredStatus“ name="%updatePreferredStatus.TITLE"/>
Stylesheet command is then
<command commandId = "com.teamcenter.rac.updatePreferredStatus"/>

34. Related Material
Products & Solutions overview
SFB on Stylesheet and UI Simplification
Installable set of stylesheets, preferences, and configuration to experiment with and learn from
Related Sessions
2121 Stylesheets - Who, What, Where, When & Why?
Bill Bielinski, SPLM
Weds 3:25 pm

35. Siemens PLM Connection 2011 Las Vegas, NV May 2-5
Thank You!
Siemens PLM Connection 2011
Las Vegas, NV
May 2-5