Introduction to Teamcenter Customization

Teamcenter provides variety of mechanism for customization of teamcenter based on business requirement. The customization is based on base framework of API provide by teamcenter. In this blog I will discuss all customization options and its architecture.

Customization Architecture

Teamcenter customization architecture can be broadly distinguished based on Teamcenter technical architecture. It can be categorized in to three layers.

•  Server or Enterprise Layer
• Web Layer
• Client Layer

Client Layer is basically portal or thin client customization which usually deals with UI and data handling of the result of server request.  SOA client is SOA API for calling SOA services. You can see in detail of Teamcenter SOA service in my SOA blogs. Web Layer is nothing Teamcenter based J2EE deployment layer which basically communicate between Server and client.  Server customization is core of all customization as most of the Business logic is written in this layer. It mainly deals with all business transaction as it interacts with data base through Persistence Object Layer (POM) API.  FMS is resource layer which support actual file transfer between client and server through FMS framework. For more detail in FMS you can visit my blog on Teamcenter FMS. Server customization is done through C based API provided by Teamcenter. This API is also called Integration Toolkit (ITK). Apart from above discussed customization there is SOA customization and BMIDE extension which are basically either server and client\web customization or both.  Below diagram depict Customization Architecture diagram for Teamcenter. As shown in diagram, all BMIDE extension is in server side. This is because most of BMIDE extension overrides or changes object behavior based on business requirement. This can be only accomplished in server layer; hence all extension is implemented by using core ITK API provide in server layer. Below diagram shows the Customization Architect of Teamcenter.

Based on above Customization Architect, Teamcenter customization can be categorized in to following area.

1. Server Customization
2.  Portal Customization
3. Web or Thin client customization
4. SOA based customization
5. BMIDE extension customization

Server Customization: Server side customization is a most frequently used customization, as all business logic are written in this layer. Basically all requests pass through through server layer for all teamcenter transaction. Hence it is core of teamcenter customization. As discuss in Customization Architecture, Teamcenter provide C based API called Integration Toolkit (ITK) for server side customization. This toolkit provides hundred of API for processing various business process based on Teamcenter functionality. The ITK is categorized by various modules and functionality of Teamcenter. Also various extension mechanisms are provided by ITK toolkit to plug in custom code based on various Teamcenter events and object status. The detail discussion of ITK customization is out of scope of this blog and I will cover it another blog.

Portal Customization: Teamcenter Client is layer is written on Java JFC and eclipse SWT. The core client API are written in Java JFC framework and slowly it will ported to eclipse SWT framework. Presently Teamceter support both JFC and SWT customization, but it is recommended to do customization in SWT looking at Teamcenter future vision. The Portal Customization can be done extending OOTB Plug-in or developing your own plug-in. Apart from JFC/SWT UI api, the Teamcenter client API also provides object interface component which is an encapsulation of Teamceter Data model through Client object model. This Object Interface component also form interface layer between client and server.

Web or Thin Client Customization: This customization is for Teamcenter Web client. Teamcenter provides standard web interface for viewing and editing Teamcenter object in web browser. Web client is builds on asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to allow dynamic loading of data in the browser. The HTML pages are renders by java script on XML data. Most of the thin client customization is carried through JavaScript which allow the rendering as well managing request\response from web server. Both client-to-server requests and server-to-client responses in Teamcenter thin client are standard HTTP responses.

SOA Customization: It is also called Teamcenter services. It is a standard SOA based services provided by Teamcenter for integrating with third party as well custom client. Also Teamcenter provides framework to create your own custom SOA services. I covered Teamcenter SOA services in detail in my SOA blogs.

BMIDE Extension Customization: This is mainly a server customization using Teamcenter BMIDE. BMIDE provide various extension customization mechanisms for implementing desired behavior in Teamcenter. Some of example of BMIDE extension is pre-action or post-action operation for Business object, Runtime property etc. This extensions are implemented in BMIDE environment by writing C\C++ server code mainly using ITK API. BMIDE framework create stub code and other require classes for extension implementation. Developer only required implementing base logic of the extension.  I will try to cover extension implementation in one of my future blog.

Apart from the above customization; Teamcenter Dispatcher module can also be customized for required translation behavior. Most of time Dispatcher client required to be implemented for extracting and loading translated file from Teamcenter. The Dispatcher Client Framework is based on Teamcenter SOA service and most OOTB SOA API is used apart from Dispatcher API which encapsulates most of complex Teamcenter SOA API calls. I already covered Dispatcher Customization in my blog on Teamcenter Dispatcher.

See Also :

Teamcenter FMS Overview

Teamcenter SOA : Introduction

Teamcenter Dispatcher Framework

Teamcenter Query Builder

Query Builder is one of frequent used module in Teamcenter for creating object based search query. Query Builder is power full tool for quickly configuring Teamcenter for object based search query based on attribute criteria. It is also used in report builder for creating report based on query output. I covered it in detail in my Report Builder blog. In this blog I will explain in detail about local query builder configuration and basic concept to create or modify query.

Basic of Query Builder:

Teamcenter Query is based on Teamcenter persistence data model which I cover in Teamcenter Data Model. Following are the basic characteristic of query in Teamcenter.

1. Query is created against any of the Teamcenter persistence class.
2. Query Criteria can be defined either on attribute of target object or for the related object which are related to search class through either GRM relation or reference.
3. Criteria can be made invisible to end user by making  use entry field empty.
4. Predefined keyword variable can be used against some of the attributes. These variable values are executed at runtime. For example keyword variable $USERID will resolve to session userid when query will be executed.
5.  Teamcenter also support keyword query which allow to search dataset files content, that contain a specific keyword or combinations of keywords.
6. Query can also be customized through Teamcenter use exit.
7. Query results always shows list of object of class which is defined as search class in query builder.

Steps for creating Query:

Below description shows list of task required to be done for defining new query in Teamcenter through Query Builder.

1. Define Query : Before creating query, you have to first define what exactly required to be search and in what context. Context means some condition or criteria which user can either provide while executing search or defined as basic criteria for search itself. For example, if you want create a query for find specific Data type only, then you defined Object Type is query builder and make the field invisible.
2. Map to Data Model : After defining search requirement , you map it to persistence data model of Teamcenter. This become your search class in Query Builder. Basically the output will be shown for instance of this class only. It is assumed the admin user who will be building the query will be aware of basic data model of Teamcenter. I covered it in the my Teamcenter  Data Model blog. Once you select the Search Class, automatically its attributes and GRM relation are shown in Attribute Display area. The attributes can be filter to show only class specific attributes or all inherited attributes from all parent classes.
3. Define Search Context : Then defined search criteria or context in which search required to happen. For example if you want to get Item Revision which has attachment of specific data set only. In this case you have to  traverse from search class i.e Item Revision  to Dataset through predefined GRM relation shown in attribute display area or through reference by from imanrelation object to  Dataset (Primary object to Secondary Object).
4. Use Search Criteria Field : At last you defined the the criteria which you want to expose to user for executing the search. This defined list of attributes shown to User whose value can be set by user before query execution. The attribute can be of search class or related class.

Query Builder Dialog Section

Query Builder Modules has three important sections as shown in below image

Search Class: This is target class against which search will be executed. The search result will be list of instance of this class. As defined above section this will be base class for query. You can navigate required class from Class Selection dialog which shows Teamcenter hierarchy data model.

 

Attribute Selection: This provide list of attributes of search class. Option provide to see only display attributes for a given class or all attributes its inherited from all parent class hierarchy. This section help to select attribute used for search Criteria

Search Criteria: This defined criteria for context search as well user search criteria field. Following are field of Search Criteria section

Boolean Rule : This connect multiple search clauses in search criteria through And\OR condition. AND condition required related clauses should be satisfied where as OR condition means any of them.

UserEntry Name : Shows the display name shown in query. It refers to query locale file for actual display name of attributes search dialog. Make it empty if you want to hide some of clauses.

Logical Operator: This is most important field of Search field which defined actual query condition required to be executed. It basically define rules of attributes are evaluated against the value provided for execution. For example for date attribute you can defined greater then or less then Operator to execute query for before or after date clauses. Query builder support almost all sql operator clauses. The below image shows all support operation condition in Teamcenter. 

Limitation of Query Builder:

Although Query Builder is very powerful tool of Teamcenter for configuring object based query, but it also has some limitation due to Teamcenter data model design.

1. Query can be only be configured for persistence data object.
2. Query can be only build for object in the context of related object defined in Data Model.  That means query against two independent object which are not related through some relation or reference can’t be created.
3. There is no way to filter Search Results based on specific filter rules. For example if I want to get latest Revision of Item, it can’t be achieved through configured Query Builder search. The results will be shows all revision of the item. The reason is all Item Revision of Item are related to Item only which is of reference relation and there is no way defined search criteria which filter old revision.
4. Query rules can’t be build for joint query or set of and /OR clauses as can be defined in SQL statement. For example in SQL you can build where clause based on set of and / or clause through grouping the clauses throuch under different  bracket () . 
5.  Query results only shows list of instance of search class only. You can't see related object along with search object in query results dialogs.

See Also :

Teamcenter Data Model

Teamcenter Report Framework