Overview

The goal of the "Configuring ENOVIA V6 Applications" guide is to explain the different concepts for tailoring ENOVIA V6 Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) applications. Gathered in this one guide is the main information required for a developer, an architect, or an administrator to understand what should be done in order to develop a correct and sustainable configuration.

The following topics are discussed:

About Configuration

This guide places emphasis on configuration of existing functionality as opposed to development of new functionality.

The V6 PLM applications deliver out of the box (OOTB) a set of business processes with corresponding data model and behaviors. Often, it is required to extend these processes in order to fulfill company specifics but still keep the foundations of the concepts—for example, adding attributes to an object data model, changing states in the lifecycle, or adding a "check" trigger to a specific user operation. The act of tailoring what is delivered OOTB is what we refer to as configuration. In rare circumstances it may be necessary to create entirely new objects, new functionality, and new behaviors (which may be seen, to some extent, as creating a brand new product). This more involved activity is referred to as customization & development and should be avoided as much as possible due to the cost and complexity of migration and maintenance.

Before jumping into the technical details, these steps provide an overview of what is required to configure ENOVIA V6. This overview procedure guides you through the process. The specific order provided is an example of the required tasks.


  1. Declare the People and Organizations contributing to the project:
    1. Use PLMPosImpor as a batch or person-and-organization web management console. This tool creates the organizations involved in a project, the roles that represent levels of authority and access, the projects (often starting with a single project). The association of these three concepts defines the security context of a user.
    2. Create the users (name, id, and so on), and associate them to the proper security context.
  2. Configure the objects to be manipulated. Out-of-the-box, the V6 solution provides a number of objects (also called modelers), used in the different applications. The set of attributes and behaviors constituting these objects have been defined up front to comply with most of customers requirements. Often changes, such as adding new attributes, setting the alias names, the unit, and so on, are needed to better fit specific customer processes. Depending on the application using these objects, use:
    • Business Modeler for ENOVIA web applications
    • VPM Data Model Customizer for rich applications
  3. Configure the lifecycle of the objects. A lifecycle is a set of rules that determines the states through which an item passes from its initial stages through its retirement, and enforces approvals at different states in the lifecycle. States are defined that determine the work that can be done on the object, who can do the work (referring to an organization, a project, a role or a person), and the execution of automated processes. Lifecycles are defined by policies and can be edited using Business Modeler or a text editor.
  4. Configure the applications to account for any object or lifecycle changes. Changes may include defining the layouts of forms and tables for the objects, or showing or hiding newly-defined attributes.
    • For web applications, modify the settings and URL parameters passed to the configurable component that defines the page (forms, tables, structure browsers, and so on)
    • For rich applications, modify the mask for the page
  5. Define new rules to enable additional checks or behaviors. The out-of-the-box V6 solution installs rules that are triggered based on actions or objects in use. These rules enforce data integrity and business process rules, but because the metadata of the objects has changed, new rules must be implemented to account for these changes. To define triggers, use:
    • Business Modeler for ENOVIA web applications
    • VPM Data Model Customizer for rich applications
  6. Because the rich application interface allows programs to run locally, you can also add rules on the client, by either declaring business rules (mainly for data checking) or configuring the compass (highlighting 3D data based on specific rule).

The ENOVIA V6 applications support a wide range of configuration without the need to devlop custom programs. This guide does not require knowledge of a specific development language (such as Java or C++); it explains the mechanisms involved in configuring ENOVIA V6 before deploying it. The guide also presents best practices and recommandations. You should follow these practices to avoid issues that could cause delays in development and migration. The less time you spend modifying the out-of-the-box ENOVIA V6 solution, the lower your cost of maintenance and migration will be.

The book is divided into the following main sections:

Additional References

To avoid duplication, this book references other guides that contain in-depth information about specific topics. These are the main guides; explict references to specific guides are provided when relevant in this guide:


  • For data models and lists of all schema delivered withENOVIA Business Process Services, see the Schema Reference Guide (Overview)
  • For data models delivered with VPM Central, see Installation and Configuration | ENOVIA | Unified Live Collaboration | VPM Enterprise Customization
  • For detailed instructions on setting up the organization and persons for the ENOVIA web applications, see Managing the Organizational Profile in the Common Components User's Guide
  • For detailed instructions on setting up the organization and persons for VPM applications, see Installation and Configuration | ENOVIA | Unified Live Collaboration | VPM Multi-Discipline Collaboration Platform - Installation | Configuring ENOVIA VPM Multi-Discipline Platform
  • For instructions on using Business Modeler to extend the ENOVIA data models, see the Installation and Configuration | ENOVIA | Unified Live Collaboration | Studio Modeling - Busienss Modeler
  • For instructions on using the DMC Tool to extend the VPM Central Data Model schema, see Installation and Configuration | ENOVIA | Unified Live Collaboration | Studio Modeling - VPM Data Model Configuration
  • For background on programming for ENOVIA products, see the Installation and Configuraton | ENOVIA | Unified Live Collaboration | Studio Modeling - Programming
  • For instructions on setting property values (properties files), see the Adminstrator's Guide for the specific ENOVIA product