How to Install Windchill 13 with SQL Server 2022 - Part 6: Post-Installation Steps

​Windchill may be installed but there are still some recommended things you need to do before you carry on with your business configurations.  Let's take a look.

Create the New Master Filevault

OOTB, Windchill stores all file content in a Filevault called defaultsystemvault which is located in <Install Drive Letter>:\ptc\Windchill\Windchill\vaults\defaultsystemrootfolder.  There isn't an easy way to just rename the subfolders so we are going to create a new vault, migrate the data to it, and then delete the OOTB vault.
Note: "<Install Drive Letter>" going forward will just be my actual drive letter "E".  Make sure to adjust to your configuration.

1. Go to the location where you would like your Filevault to be.  This can be a network location.  You need to make sure that the user account running the Windchill service has permission to read and write here.  The most typical location is E:\ptc\Windchill\Filevault.
   1. This folder is just the parent directory.  Files will be stored inside subdirectories which Windchill will automatically create.
2. Login to Windchill as wcadmin and go to Site -> Utilities.
3. Click on File Server Administration under the Sytem Administration section.
4. Click on Vault Configuration.
5. Expand Sites -> Main -> Main Vaults.
   1. You can see the defaultsystemrootfolder here.
6. With Main Vaults selected -> Click the New Vault button.
7. Give it a name i.e. Filevault.  This will be the name of the vault.
   1. Check the box for Default system target.
      1. You will get a warning about switching the default vault.  This is okay.  Click OK
8. Click OK to create the vault.
9. Click on the New Folder button.
10. Give the folder a relevant name.  This is the prefix of the name of the subfolders that will be created in the parent vault folder.  I will use Filevault again.
    1. Change the Vault dropdown to match your previously created vault i.e. Filevault.
    2. You can't click enabled right now so click OK.
11. Expand Root Folders.
    1. Click on filevault. (It always changes the name to lowercase.)
    2. Double click on the only row item that exists on the right Mounts table.
12. Paste in the path to the Filevault folder you created earlier.
    1. Click OK.
13. You will get a Notice.  Just click OK again.
14. You should get a Success message at the top of the window.  The folder should now be enabled as well.
15. Go to the folder in Windows Explorer.
    1. You will see a subfolder called <your root folder name>_Folder_1 plus a MOUNT_VALIDATION_DATA folder.  The system will automatically create subfolders once each folder hits a threshold for the number of files stored inside.  We will configure this threshold later on.

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Revaulting Existing Data from BLOB and OOTB Master Vault

1. Go to Site -> Utilities -> Filer Server Administration -> Revaulting Scheduler.
2.  Click on the New button in the top left corner.
3. Change the Main Vault dropdown to the newly created vault.
   1. Set the Time to Immediate.
   2. Set the Frequency to Once.
   3. Click OK.
4. You'll see a job listed in the Revaulting table that has the status of Executing. 
5. Refresh the page and you should see "All runs completed".
6. Select the job and click the Log button.
7. A popup will show you more details.  In my case, it is saying that 84 files (they call them runs) were transferred to the vault.
8. If you go to the first folder in our new vault, you should see 84 files.  These files are usually OOTB templates that were stored in a database BLOB.  We have now moved them out of the BLOB and into our new vault.
9. Repeat steps 17-23 for the defaultsystemrootfolder vault.
10. In my case, there were 4 files in the defaultsystemrootfolder vault so my the total number of files in my filevault is now 89.

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Deleting the OOTB Master Vault

1. The old vault is now safe to delete.  To do so, go back to the Vault Configuration window.
   1. Select the defaultsystemrootfolder under Root Folders and click the delete button.
2. Confirm your choice in the Notice popup.
3. You should see a Success Message at the top and the folder is no longer listed in the Root Folders section.
4. Repeat the process for the defaultsystemrootfolder vault listed under Main Vaults.
5. Confirm it has been removed.
6. This doesn't delete anything from your computer.  You still need to do that part.  Go to the vault OOTB vault location E:\ptc\Windchill\Windchill\vaults and delete defaultsystemrootfolder.
7. We have now completed a replacement of an existing master filevault.  You can repeat this process for the defaultuploadrootfolder vault as well if you would like.  This is a temporary holding vault for uploaded (not checked in files) as well as files that where checked in but are waiting for the queueing system to move them to the master vault we just created.

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Filevault Properties

There are a few filevault​ properties that you should be aware of.

1. ​wt.fv.forceContentToVault
   1. When set to true, only a single vault is allowed.  All content gets pushed to this one vault so any vaulting rules you created will be ignored.
   2. OOTB value: false
   3. Recommended value: false
2. wt.fv.useVaultsForAllContent
   1. When set to true, you are allowed to have more than one vault.  This would allow you to use vaulting rules to store specific content based on class, state and context in different vaults i.e. all CAD data in one vault and document data in another or all released data in a single vault.
   2. OOTB value: true
   3. Recommended value: true
3. wt.fv.useFvFileThreshold
   1. When set to true, this property allows you the ability to specify how many files should be in each vault subfolder before a new folder is created.
   2. OOTB value: true
   3. Recommended value: true
4. wt.fv.fvFileThreshold
   1. If wt.fv.useFvFileThreshold = true, this property tells Windchill how many files to put in each vault subfolder.
   2. OOTB value: 50,000
   3. Recommended value: 100,000 but I would leave it to IT to give input as to how many files in a single folder is too many.

I like to explicitly set these properties.  To do so:

1. Go to E:\ptc\Windchill\Windchill.  Open site.xconf in Notepad++.
2. Paste in the below properties right before the </Configuration> tag at the very bottom.  Save.
3. Open a Windchill Shell.
   1. Run the command: xconfmanager -p
   2. You should see something similar to what I have in my screenshot.
   3. Restart Windchill using the scripts we made in Part 5.

Windchill Filevault Properties

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Recommended Preferences

There are some preferences that you should consider setting as soon as possible. 

1. You can access the Preference Management tool at any context level but for now, I want you to go to Site -> Utilities -> Preference Management.
   1. Anything we set at a higher context trickles down to the rest of the lower contexts and since we are at the very top, changes here will affect the entire system unless they are explicitly overridden at a lower level.
2. Go to Display -> Toolbar Action Descriptions -> Right click -> Set Preference.
   1. Set it to Yes.
   2. This will give you larger buttons.  The icons for many button will now have text underneath them making it more clear what they mean.
3. Icons OOTB with Toolbar Action Descriptions = No.
4. Icons with Toolbar Action Descriptions = Yes.
5. Set Search -> Latest Version Search to Yes.
   1. This will make it so that only a single version of an object is shown in your search results rather than every revision.
6. Workgroup Manager Client -> Workspace Frame Stack Size
   1. Ever wonder what happens to your Creo history after you click Save?  You lose the undo option.  With this preference set to anything other than 0, the system creates snapshots of your entire workspace on each major workspace action like save.
   2. I recommend setting this to at least 10 but it depends on the size of your assemblies.  It will take up more space.
7. Workspace -> Out of Date Check
   1. This, combined with a custom Workspace View, will automatically check your workspace for out of date files and give an indicator in the workspace.  For example, let's say you added version A.1 to your workspace but didn't check it out.  Another user then modifies that file and checks it back in so it is now A.2.  The next time your workspace refreshes you will see an indicator letting you know that your file is out of date.  You can then quickly update your workspace to grab the latest version.

Note: You might have to right click on each preference after you set them and click "Delete Child Instances".  This will set the value of the preference on the lower levels to be the same value as you just set.  This is typically only needed if someone actually changed the value at a lower context.

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Creating the Organization Administrator Account

The wcadmin account we have been using so far is the Site Administrator.  You can use this account to do everything but it is recommended to create a lower-level "orgadmin" account for doing any administrating below the Organization context level.

1. Login as wcadmin and go to Site -> Utilities -> Participant Administration (under Business Administration section).
2. Click New User.
3. Fill out the required attributes.
   1. Name is actually username.  There is Full Name and Last Name.  Don't ask me...
   2. Use the Find button to search for the only Organization that should be in your system.
   3. Create a password.
   4. You can use the Alternate user name boxes if you would like to give people options as to what they can use when they sign in.  For example, you can put the employee id in one, first part of email in another, full email in the third, etc.
4. Go to the Assign to Groups tab -> Search for the License Exclusion group and add it to the table.  Click Finish.
5. You should see a familiar success banner.
6. Now go to Organization -> Administrators.
7. Click Add Users -> Search for the orgadmin account we just made and Click OK.
8. Go to Site -> Utilities -> License Management -> License Information Tab.
9. Even though we added the orgadmin to the License Exclusion group, orgadmin will not be able to login.  We still need to add the License Exclusion group to some licenses.  Adding users to the group only means they won't count against your license numbers.  Don't get any ideas here, PTC knows when you are abusing this.  This group is meant for admins only and not for users who do day-to-day work.
   1. Click on the Windchill Base/Advanced/Premium License Group (depends on your license).
   2. This will open up a new tab.
   3. Click Actions -> Edit Group.
10. Click on Add Members -> Search for License Exclusion and add it to the table.  Click Finish.
11. You should now see the License Exclusion group in the Members table.  You can expand it to see the users.
12. Repeat for each license except for Navigate, View and Print, and anything else that sounds like a read only license.  For my system, I am just going to add the group to the PTC Mechanical Design I License which grants Creo access into Windchill.
13. You should now be able to login as orgadmin.
    1. There isn't a logout button by default so you have to close all windows on your active browser, user another browser, or use private browsing to login as more than one user at the same time.

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Other Properties

There are a few more properties that everyone should set.  Set these properties just like you did for the vault properties above.

1. Mail Server information
   1. If you want Windchill to be able to send emails.  You can set your mail server to allow sending from the Windchill server or create an account for Windchill to do so.
   2. Refers to the notes in the properties below to see where to put the credentials.
2. ​Iteration Start
   1. Every time a user checks out and in an object in Windchill, the iteration number increases by 1.  You can choose to start the iteration at 0 or 1.  Iterations reset back to this defined value with each new revision.
3. Allow users to change their own passwords.
   1. If you are just using OpenDJ like I am, you can allow your users the ability to change their own password by setting this property to true.  This will not work for your corporate active directory if you configure that to work with Windchill.

Other Windchill Properties

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Next Steps

That is all I can think of for now.  I reserve the right to update this post anytime in the future.  There will eventually be a Part 7 but I am going to shift my focus to more exciting work.  Customization.