Well, OK, Pro/INTRALINK doesn’t exactly reveal the secrets of the universe. But if the questions pertain to the “Save As” history of a Pro/ENGINEER object, the answers are only a click or two away.

Many companies – maybe even most – tend to create new products by copying existing ones. The “Duplicate Objects” function in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x works great, but if someone asks, “Now where did we start with this again? What version of what other product was the basis for this?” you may never find out.

Let’s say you’re creating a new widget assembly with some great new features, just in time for the Christmas shopping season. But since there are only a few shopping days left, you save some time by taking one of last year’s widgets and doing a “Save As” to start a new widget. You add the new features and Manufacturing is all ready to build it, but they want to save time, too, by using manufacturing information based on the original widget. You’re so stressed by the deadline that you didn’t really pay attention to which revision of which widget you actually copied it from.

Fortunately, Manufacturing can simply open the Details page of the new widget and click on “Save As History” to find out the object it was copied from, and be able to access all the other information they need from there. And the new widget will reach stores just in time for last-minute shoppers.

The opposite case can be just as important: you may want to find out whether an object was ever “saved as” a new one. Again, simply open up the object’s Details page and click on “Save As History” to get a report on what objects, if any, originated from this one.

Comments? Questions? Remember to visit the Forums.

(For my beloved wife, if you’re reading this: Don’t worry; my shopping is already done! I just used a hypothetical example here!)

-Jeff