Web User Interface for the Product
Designer 
Purpose
The product designer provides a Web user interface for presenting product structures and engineering structures (such as requirement structures) in graphical form.
Its versatile navigation options help you to keep an overview – even of complex product structures. Detailed information is provided on all iPPE objects from the early engineering phase. From the Web user interface, you can also execute engineering processes, such as creating and editing engineering documents, and use WebFlows to control special processes.
The Web user interface of the product designer is especially helpful for team members of an engineering project, who do not know the functions of Integrated Product and Process Engineering (application component LO-MD-PPE) or document management (application component CA-DMS).
People working in product management mainly tend to collect information and requirements for a new product in documents. A Web user interface gives them access to the product structure of a product, which is constantly being refined during the editing process. In a decision process, you approve or reject the current status of a structure. You add your information, and pass it on to the project manager, developers, and engineers.
Integration
Technically, the editing of product structures and documents using the Web user interface is based on Business Server Pages (BSP) of the Web Application Server (WAS). Network access uses the HTTP protocol. The exchange of different types of data on the Internet is controlled by the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) protocol.
The Business Server Page for editing product structures and engineering structures is complete. No additional activities are required.
The integration of WebFlows requires the generation of company-specific workflow templates. Examples of workflow templates are supplied with the SAP system.
Features
The application logic of the product designer is identical to the application logic of the following application components in the SAP system:
· Integrated Product and Process Engineering (iPPE)
To access the iPPE Workbench,
choose Logistics ® Production
® Master Data
® Integrated Product and
Process Engineering (iPPE).
You can only maintain product structures and engineering structures in the
iPPE Workbench. From the iPPE Workbench, you can start the browser, so that
you can navigate within product structures using the Web user
interface.
· Document management
To call
document management, choose Logistics ®
Central Functions ®
Document Management.
You can process documents
using both document management and the Web user interface of the product designer.
Not all of the data and processes that you can use in this application component are relevant to processes in early engineering. For this reason, the Web user interface of the product designer only provides some of these functions. The following sections provide an overview of the functions that you can execute on the Web user interface of the product designer.
Data
The product designer only processes data for the application areas product structure and PLM environment.
It gives you information on documents and the following iPPE application objects:
·
Product structure
(CMP)
The product structure describes the structure of a product.
·
Concept (CON)
The concept describes an implementation option of a component variant.
·
Engineering
structure (GEN)
The engineering structure describes requirements for a product.
Validity
All the valid product structures and engineering structures are always displayed. You cannot explode structures according to specific validity conditions or assigned characteristic values, as you can, for example, with the iPPE workbench filter.
Overview of Transactions
The following overview lists the transactions that you can execute in the product designer Web application.
Transaction |
Use |
Access Select for structure |
You select an object whose structure and relationship to other objects you want to display. You can select an object in the following ways: - Selection from your personal object lists (favorites, stack, or worklist) - Finding an object by the data from the master record that you know - Finding a document - Selection from the workflow inbox |
Display Object-Specific Pages |
Information on objects in a product structure or requirement structure is presented on specific Web pages. Views structure the wide range of information and offer targeted access to product information.
|
For each structure object, you see information on the higher-level and subordinate structure object. The navigation path shown is especially helpful for deep structures. Additional information from the PLM environment is determined from the master records of the following objects: - Product class - Material master - Change number
|
|
In certain processing situations, you can edit the following engineering data: - Change status - Assign values to characteristics - Create document - Link document - Start workflow From the Documents homepage, you can use the functions of Web application WebDocuments to edit documents. |
Integration
In the early phases of development, documents are the most important way of storing information. For this reason, the transactions of Web application WebDocuments from document management (application component CA-DMS) are integrated.
Restrictions
You cannot change structures on the Web user interface of the product designer. Modeling of structures can only be done in the iPPE workbench in the SAP system.
Navigation in the product structures using the Web user interface is optimized for the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, as of version 5.5.