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PTC Customer Support Engagement Guide
Get to know PTC's Service Offerings and how to engage, interact and make the most of Technical Support.

Supported Windchill Solution Releases

PTC Development supports a given release of a Windchill Solution for a limited period of time. After the support period has lapsed, any errors reported against the release are corrected only in a later release. Updated information for new releases is available at the PTC Product Calendar.

Multiple Windchill Instances

In most cases, you can run two concurrent instances of the same Windchill Solution on the same server. PTC can support Windchill Solution functionality in such an environment under the conditions described in this section.

The installation, configuration, or troubleshooting of the actual setup of a multi-Windchill instance server is the responsibility of the customer. PTC does not test and document all possible third-party product configurations running simultaneously on same server with multiple Windchill instances. It is the responsibility of each third-party vendor to determine whether it is possible or supportable to run multiple instances of their application on the same server.

PTC Technical Support assists with Windchill Solution issues (such as administration, workflow, and so on) unrelated to this multiple Windchill, single-server configuration as long as each Windchill instance is configured with its own Web server and its own servlet engine. In such cases, PTC Technical Support may require one of the Windchill Solution instances (along with its Web server and servlet engine) be shut down to isolate the problem to only one Windchill Solution instance. If shutting down one of the Windchill Solution instances (along with its related Web server and servlet engine) eliminates the problem, then PTC Technical Support will not proceed in troubleshooting the issue. In such a case, it may be a third-party product configuration that is at fault, and PTC would be unable to identify all potential causes to such problems. You must isolate the problem to the specific third-party product and work with that vendor to find a solution.

Note:

  • Runtime performance issues in a production, test, or development environment related to this configuration are not supported.
  • Some third-party vendors may not support the configuration of multiple instances of their software on a single server. In such cases, PTC cannot provide any support for a system configured in this fashion.

Support of Dataloader Tools

Some Windchill Solutions provide a default dataloader for use with the demo, which is included on the Windchill Solution CD. Technical Support is provided for this tool.

As a Windchill Solution Administrator, you have dataloading needs for which you modify this default dataloader, or in some cases, create your own. As with any other customization, support is provided only for Windchill Solution APIs.

  • Support is not provided for the following dataloader problems:
  • Dataloader code problems unrelated to Windchill Solution APIs
  • Dataloaders that do not use Windchill Solution APIs

Support of Windchill Customization

You should have significant experience with Java programming before working with Windchill Customization or developing workflow tasks in Java. Customization support is limited to the use of supported APIs that have been documented in the Windchill Customizer's Guide.  Whether to make an unsupported API supported is at the discretion of PTC.

Support for Java Programming

Technical Support engineers will not develop code for customers, nor will they assist them in debugging or troubleshooting pure Java code.

Information Modeler

You can use Information Modeler (IM) to customize Windchill Solutions for the following tasks:

  • Modeling business objects and services
  • Implementing business objects and services
  • Designing user interfaces

Create business objects to represent domain entities for a specific customer or application. Use services to add or change server-side business logic within the system. Both types of customization are located on the business layer (middle tier) of Windchill Solutions. Therefore, you must model your customization within Rational Rose. Technical Support provides basic assistance for these tasks.

Programming Styles

Adhere to the guidelines that are given in the Windchill Customizer’s Guide and Windchill Application Developer’s Guide when customizing Windchill Solutions. The customization framework and design patterns described in these documents ensure supportability and compatibility with future releases of Windchill Solutions. However, Technical Support reserves the right to deny support in cases where rules of reasonable development are violated.

Customer Source Code Examples

In some cases, you will have to submit code to Technical Support. Rather than sending the whole customization, send in an example that demonstrates the specific Information Modeler issue. Technical Support will not troubleshoot or debug large code examples (hundreds of lines).

Creation of Custom Reports

It is possible to create custom reports and SQL queries to extract information regarding objects in the Windchill system. Technical Support can provide general guidance on creating or formatting a specific report, but the actual report creation is the responsibility of the report author. Some knowledge of the Windchill data model and SQL is required to create many reports and queries. Technical Support will provide limited guidance on these topics. SPRs regarding the reporting framework are fully supported by Technical Support. Contact technical support if you believe the error you are receiving is due to an issue with the reporting framework itself. PTC may ask that you reproduce the error or incorrect results using a simple report that demonstrates the problem.