TeamcenterKnowledge

Structure Management on Active Workspace ─ Usage

Filter a structure

You filter a structure so that you can work with a specific product definition, which is smaller in size than the entire structure.

Restrictions and limitations

You can filter structures if your Teamcenter setup has the Context Management User license. Additionally, you can filter only those structures that are indexed using Smart Discovery Indexing. Such structures can be identified by the Indexed indicator . Hovering over the indicator shows the start time of the last successful index update indicating whether the modified structure is available for filtering. You can further visualize the 3D design data of those structures if they are indexed for massive model visualization (MMV) using Smart Discovery Indexing. Such structures can be identified by the Massive model visualization indexed indicator .

Procedure

  1. Search for a structure, and click Open to open it.
  2. Click Filter .
  3. In the Filter panel, click Settings , enable or disable the following options, and click Apply: Auto-update filters: By default, this option is enabled, and the structure is filtered in real-time as you apply each filter. When not enabled, you select all filters first and then apply them on the structure. Filter/Append Elements with Children: By default, this option is enabled, and the children of the structure element selected as a filter are automatically added to the filter criteria. When not enabled, the children are not added to the filter criteria.
  4. In the work area, right-click a structure element to choose a filter. The filters that you can choose and how these filters are applied on the structure depends on whether the administrator has configured the advanced search or not. SCENARIO 1: The administrator has not configured the advanced search. If the administrator has not configured the advanced search options, you can use the following filters: Filter Description Filter Selected Elements with children Use this filter to narrow down the structure by including the selected elements along with the children. The elements and the children are added to the filter criteria using the AND operator. This filter option is displayed when the Filter/Append Elements with Children setting is enabled. Filter Selected Elements Use this filter to narrow down the structure by including only the selected elements and not their children. The selected elements are added to the filter criteria using the AND operator. Append Selected Elements with children Use this filter to broaden the filtered structure by including the selected elements along with the children. The elements and the children are added to the filter criteria using the OR operator. This filter option is displayed when the Filter/Append Elements with Children setting is enabled. Additionally, this option is displayed only when after you first apply another filter. Append Selected Elements Use this filter to broaden the filtered structure by including only the selected elements and not their children. The selected elements are added to the filter criteria using the OR operator. This filter option is displayed when the Filter/Append Elements with Children setting is disabled. Additionally, this option is displayed only when after you first apply another filter. Exclude Selected Elements Use this filter to narrow down the structure by excluding the selected elements along with the children. The elements and children are added to the filter criteria using the NOT operator. For example, if you want to exclude an assembly and its children parts, select the assembly and click Exclude Selected Elements. The filters are applied in groups. If the advanced search options are not configured, a maximum of three groups with the OR operator can be created and you can use the same filter expression in NX. The filters applied using the OR operator are always placed last in the filter criteria.

Sometimes, when you append selected elements with children, a filter applied using the OR operator overrides a filter applied using the NOT operator. For example, if you want to exclude FRONT_BUMPER_DC from the structure but want to append its parent CHASSIS-CK with children, FRONT_BUMPER_DC is automatically included in the structure. 

*SCENARIO 2:* The administrator has configured the advanced search. If the administrator has configured the advanced search options, you can use the following filters:    Filter   Description      Filter Selected Elements with children   Use this filter to narrow down the structure by including the selected elements along with the children. The elements and the children are added to the filter criteria using the AND operator. This filter option is displayed when the Filter/Append Elements with Children setting is enabled.     Filter Selected Elements   Use this filter to narrow down the structure by including only the selected elements and not their children. The selected elements are added to the filter criteria using the AND operator.     Exclude Selected Elements   Use this filter to narrow down the structure by excluding the selected elements along with the children. The elements and children are added to the filter criteria using the NOT operator. For example, if you want to exclude an assembly and its children parts, select the assembly and click Exclude Selected Elements.     If the advanced search options are configured, the  OR Group and  NOT Group buttons are available in the Filter panel. You can use these buttons to create the filter expression which is a combination of the OR and NOT groups. You can create multiple OR groups in the expression but only one NOT group can exist in the filter expression.  When the filter expression is a combination of OR groups and a NOT group, the filter shows all results from the OR groups by excluding the result from the NOT group. For example, suppose that you want to filter the structure that was not created between 1 January 2020 through 31 December 2020, contains CHASSIS_CK, and does not contain ACCESSORIES. In such a case, you can use the filters shown in the following image.

If the administrator has configured a wild card search in the Teamcenter environment, in a text-based filter, you can use operators like Contains, Does not contain, Equals, Does not equal, Begins with, Ends with, and Like operators. For example, suppose that you want to search for the parts in the structure that are owned by John. In such a case, use the Contains operator and then type John in the Owner filter. Similarly, if you want to search for all the parts that are not owned by John, enter John and then change the operator to Does not contain in the Owner filter. Tip To use a negative operator, use its positive operator first and then change to its negative one. For example, in order to use Does not contain operator, first select the Contains operator, enter a value in the filter, and then change the operator to Does not contain. In a numeric filter, you can use operators like Greater than or equals, Greater than, Less than or equals, Less than, Equals, Does not equal, Range inclusive, and Range exclusive. After you select a value in a filter, the values in the remaining filters are dynamically populated. For example, imagine that the structure contains parts that are created by John who belongs to the Engineering group. In such case, if you select John in the Owner filter, the values in the Group ID filter are dynamically populated and only show Engineering. If advanced filters are configured, the values in the filters are dynamically populated even when you switch between groups. You can use an asterisk () to filter the parts in the structure. For example, consider that the structure contains parts owned by different engineers whose names are John, Johan, and Johnnie. In such a case, if you want to search the parts that are owned by all these engineers, use the Like operator, and then type Joh in the Owner filter. The advanced search might not provide you with the intended results. 5. In the Filter panel, apply additional filters, as required: To filter by spatial proximity: From the work area, select a structure element to locate other structure elements that are at a certain proximity from it. In the Filter panel, select Proximity from the Spatial section. Enter the proximity in Distance and click Add.

To filter by spatial volume: In the Filter panel, select Volume from the Spatial section. Select the volume for which you want to perform the search. For example, you can choose to locate parts that are inside the brake and suspension assembly.

Click Add. To filter the structure by spatial freeform zone: If the structure administrator has set up the freeform zone hierarchy and configured its display in the Filter pane, use the following steps: In the Filter panel, select Freeform Zone from the Spatial section. In the Add Freeform Zone section, select a type from the list.For example, Inside or Intersects. In the freeform zone hierarchy, search for and select the zones for filtering.For example, you can choose to locate parts that are inside the brake and suspension assembly. Click Add. To filter the structure by properties: Note The top element in a structure or BOM is not considered for the Find or Filter actions. Therefore, the properties of the top element are not available while you perform these actions. Note If you do not have the Read access privilege for the structure element selected in the work area, you are not be able to view the value of its indexed occurrence properties in the Filter panel. Select the attributes, such as ID, Occurrence Type, and Date Modified, by which you want to further filter the structure In the Filter panel. For example, include all elements that are of the type, Item Revision.

To exclude a property as a filter, select the property and enable the NOT option. For example, to exclude all elements that were not modified in 2020, select 2020 and enable the NOT option in the Date Modified section.

To filter by partitions: Tip To quickly filter a structure by a partition using a shortcut menu, right-click the partition and then click Filter Selected Elements with children. However, to filter a structure by a partition using the Filter panel, follow step a and later in this section. If you use the shortcut menu option, the structure is narrowed and the selections are included with children as filters. The selections are added to the filter criteria using the AND operator. This action is synchronized with the method of filtering by using the Filter panel. In the Filter panel, select a partition scheme. Select the partitions that contain the required structure elements and click Apply.

If a selected partition has child partitions, the elements of the child partitions are also considered. As you select different filters in the Filter panel, an expression is built at the top. To remove any filter from the expression, click next to it. To remove all filters, click Clear All. 6. If you disabled auto-update, click Filter to filter the structure.

What to do next

To view all the structure elements including the ones that are not displayed due to the applied filters, click Configure > Show Excluded by Filtering.

You can save the filtered structure in a workset or session for easy retrieval.