Sharing documents and drawings - HxGN SDx - Update 61 - Help - Hexagon

Managing Smart 3D Project/As-Built with HxGN SDx

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SmartPlant Foundation / SDx Version
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Sharing a document for design review

When you share a document for design review using continuous sharing, you create either a graphical document or a non-graphical document in the SDx database.

For graphical documents, the viewable shared file is related to the graphical document object, along with the data file and the tombstone file. Once shared, the authoring tool continuously checks for any new graphical documents, and automatically replaces and updates the viewable shared file.

For non-graphical documents, the shared report file, in its native format, is attached to the non-graphical document objects, along with any other files sent by the authoring tool.

All files shared with SDx and related to the graphical and non-graphical documents are stored in the vault, and the information in them is available for other authoring tools to consume.

You can share a document to a plant or a project, but not to both. The plant configuration represents the plant as it currently exists on the ground. Projects are configurations where you can consider design changes. Changes that you make to a project exist only in that project configuration and will have no effect on the plant configuration until you merge your changes from the project to the plant. For more information, see Merging objects.

Sharing a revisable document

Alternatively, you can share a revisable document, which shares the entire document along with the tags associated with it.

When you first share a revisable document, a three-level complex document object is created in the SDx database. This three-level document object includes a Document Master, Document Revision, and Document Version. On subsequent occurrences of sharing the document with SDx, only new revisions or versions are created. The software relates revisions to the master document. Changes in the document status of a related revision update the status of the subsequently shared versions and revisions of the document.

When you share a revisable document, the authoring tool sends four files to the SDx vault:

  • Associated data, depending on workflow approval. If the data is approved and loaded, it is used for reporting and subsequent syncing by downstream applications when the authoring tools sync with the latest data. The shared data is not enough to recreate the document in the originating authoring tool. Some document types are shared without the associated data, such as reports from authoring tools. You can submit documents shared without data to workflows just like documents with data. The document types and data that you can share depend on the authoring tool you are using.

  • A metadata file that contains the information necessary to create the complex document objects in the database

  • A tombstone file that contains information about tags in the document that existed but have been removed

  • A visual representation of the document that you can view without the authoring tool. For many Hexagon applications, this is the application's native format. The viewable file can also be a Microsoft Excel® workbook or another viewable file type, such as PDF or DOC. You can review the visual representation of the document, which is attached to the document revision, using SmartPlant Markup Plus or Smart Review. You can also mark up the visual representation of the document using SmartPlant Markup Plus.

SDx creates relationships between all four of those files and the document version being created with the share operation. The data, metadata, and tombstone files are also related to the graphical, or native file.

  • If you are sharing from any authoring tool, the Major and Minor revision lists of the selected document or documents appear only if you have not revised the document using SDx Revision or Tool Revision.

  • The Comment box allows you to enter information about the selected shareable documents.

  • All the owning groups available in SDx are displayed for sharing.

  • A document that has been previously signed-off can be re-shared into SDx. You must revise this document to share it again.

  • When multiple documents are selected for sharing, only property values provided by all the selected documents appear in the grid. Changing a value in the grid changes that value for all the selected documents.

  • Documents that are shared into a project cannot be merged to the plant with concurrent engineering, as they are excluded by default. This is intentional and by design, such as when a 3D model has been shared directly to a project.

Loading shared documents and drawings

After you share a document, either a revisable document or a document for design review, SDx processes the tool data and the tombstone files from the authoring tool, using the Integration scheduler. The SDxiHubPublishDocLoadSchedulerTask polls periodically for the files that need to be processed, and then processes them to load the graphical file, and the relationships between the document and the shared files, to the database.

  • Documents are loaded in the order they were published.

  • If the document load is successful, the document load status updates to successful.

  • If the system encounters any error loading the document, the load status sets to failed, and the reason is set on the error message property of the document version.