Edit and Check In Structure Documents — Exercises

Required Data

Create Structure Document

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to create the required data that is used in the exercises below.

Windows:
Document Titles

  1. Create a new document title by creating a new record.
  2. Select the Structure check box if it is not already selected (If the document class you pick has the default value set, the check box will be automatically selected.)
  3. Save the information (F12). You now have a new structure document.

General exercise for Create Document Title and Revision

You will also need to have some files that can be used to check in. The optimal situation is if you have a 3D-CAD application with real files, but for this exercise, a couple of ordinary textfiles (file extension .txt) will do.

Main Exercise

Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is to learn how to check in and modify structure documents.

Windows:
Document Revision

Check In Structure Document

In this exercise, you will learn how to check in files to a structure document, and create a complete document structure with subdocuments and connected document files.

  1. Open the Document Revision window and query for the document you created above.
  2. Click Check In.

Note: The Check In Document Structure opens. This dialog box differs from the one used for normal documents.

  1. Select the first row in the table, right-click and then click Connect File. You can also double-click at the far left (on the little gray square) of the applicable row, or press F5 on a selected row.
  2. From the file structure, select a file and click Open.

Note: You have now connected a file to the main document. Next you will add subdocuments by selecting additional files.

  1. Select the first row in the table, right-click and then click Add Sub-level Document(s). You can also double click the row, or press F5, as explained above.
  2. From the file structure, select at least two files, either from the same folder as you selected the top-level document file, or from a sub-folder of that folder. You select several files by holding down Ctrl and clicking on each file you want. 
  3. Click Open.

Note: You have now connected a couple of files under the main document. Each file will generate a new document after you execute the check-in. Each document will become a subdocument to the main document (the one you checked in). By default, the subdocuments will get the same document class as the parent document. This class will control the default values, for example, the document revisions.  

If you want, you can select another class for the subdocuments, but for now, use the same. You can also add subdocuments to any of the subdocuments you just added; creating an extra level to the document structure.

  1. Click Check In. This will start the check-in process. New documents will be created, and files will be checked in to the created documents and the parent document.
  2. A log window with the check-in report will be displayed. Close this to continue.
  3. Click the Consists Of tab and verify that the document has subdocuments.

Edit Structure Document

In this exercise, you will learn how to modify a structure document, and check out all the files in the document structure.

  1. Open the Document Revision window, and query for the document for which you checked in the files in the exercise above.
  2. Click Edit.

Note: The Edit Document Structure dialog box will open. This dialog box is different from the one used for normal documents. There are numerous options here; leave the default values are they are. If you checked in two subdocuments in the previous exercise, you will see three documents in this dialog box; the main document (parent) and the two subdocuments and the files connected to each document.

  1. Click Edit. This will start the check out process and the main document will be opened. If the Choose Macro dialog box opens, click Skip Macro.
  2. Close the check-out report log window that opens.
  3. When the main document (the file connected to the parent, top, document) is open, you can perform the modifications.

Note: Only the main document file will be opened. Document Management will not open the subdocument files; they will be opened by the program opening the main document's file. The subdocument files that have been checked out will be visible in the check-out folder. If you use a 3D-CAD application, the subdocument's files will open up in the application if the main document references them. This will not happen if you are testing with simple text files.