3DEXPERIENCE Interview Questions With Answers

PLM, or Product Lifecycle Management, are processes and solutions used by companies to manage product-related data.

PLM application extends from a new product’s initial concept through to its design, manufacturing, maintenance, and disposal.

PLM is used by various industries, and can in some cases apply to services as well as to products.

Checkout our detailed PLM Guide at https://plmcoach.com/plm-guide/

Objects are defined as a class or reference – a kind of blue-print or factory for generating instances which, themselves, carry real business information.

Specialised objects can be derived from previously defined general ones. Such derived objects are called subtypes.

Subtypes usually inherit the structure and attributes of the original “parent” object, but they can extend this definition with dedicated attributes.

• A characteristic of an object (or an item). Any field on a form, such as a create or edit form, is referred to as an attribute.
• For example, part attributes can include Description, Weight, and Material Category. Engineering change request attributes can include Reviewer’s Comments and Reason for Change.

The Lifecycle Graph is a state machine which models the different possible states of an object revision during its whole existence.

• For example, an object might go through the following statuses: in work, approved, released, obsolete.
• Different actors can make the object revision move through its lifecycle by promoting or by demoting it.

In PLM, any lifecycle object can be revised. 

• When an object is revised, a duplicate is made and assigned an incremented revision index.
• The system creates and manages a historical link between revisions of a given object.
• This makes it possible to easily retrieve old revisions of an existing object.
• It is also possible for a new revision to inherit a number of contextual characteristics of the preceding revision as they are recognized to be of the same lineage.
• The information that gets revised is determined by a concept called aggregation.

A policy is the container for the set of rules that govern business objects, such as the conditions for passing through the lifecycle states and the various approvals required. Policies also define revision sequences and access controls.

• Program/Project Management
• Requirement Management
• Systems Engineering
• CAD Management
• Digital Mockup
• Simulation
• BOM Management
• Document Management
• Change Management
• Configuration Management

• 3D Modeling Apps
• Simulation Apps
• Social & Collaborative Apps
• Information Intelligence Apps

• 3DPassport – Identity management and authentication across all 3DEXPERIENCE apps.
• 3DDashboard – Aggregate all information that matters in personalised Dashboard
• 3DSpace – Manage and share data, documents, related information
• 3DSearch & 6WTags – Search and Discover content. Add Semantics by Tagging the content 6 dimensions (Who-What-When-How-Where- Why)

Checkout https://plmcoach.com/3dexperience-customization-guide/#introduction

• Data – contains data & storage related components
• Logic & Access – contains core platform services alongside licence and file server respiratory components
• Presentation – provides access to the user interface

Checkout our detailed 3DEXPERIENCE Architecture Guide at https://plmcoach.com/3dexperience-platform-architecture-guide

Business Process Services – loads the baseline schema into the database as well as web files for the application server.

• Data Layer
  • Schema: Attributes, Types, Relationships
• Integration Layer
  • Java Code (business logic) operating on the Schema
• Presentation Layer
  • Common UI Elements: Tables, Forms, etc.
• Web Presentation Layer
  • JSPs, JavaScript, CSS HTML, JSON for OOTB Widget

Checkout https://plmcoach.com/3dexperience-customization-guide/#mvc-architecture

Metadata is data that provides information about other data. In other words, it is data about data. PLM System maintains metadata for objects and relationships as well as business logic, which are stored in the database. Metadata is stored in Database, whereas physical files are stored in File Store.

• ER Data Model
  • Attribute, Type, Interface, etc.
• IRPC Data Model
  • Reference, Instance, Port, Connection, RepReference, RepInstance, Positioned Matrices
• 3DSwym
  • Communities, Blogs, Wikis

Yes, Inside 3DEXPERIENCE platform, the following services maintain their own individual databases:

• 3DSpace
• 3DPassport
• 3DSwym
• 3DDashboard
• 3DNotification
• 3DComment

• Metadata Content refers to the files, including 3D representations, streams, office documents, etc., that are referred to by the Metadata.
• Metadata Content consists of unstructured data and gets saved in File Collaboration Server (FCS).
• Metadata content is no longer stored on local client-machines.

• The data model has been designed using the fundamental elements (Type, Attribute and Extension). 
• Users will have flexibility of adding extra attributes for characterization and separate behaviour. 
• This whole process is referred to as custom schema definition.

• P&O is now called Organization Modeling & Secure Data Accesses. 
• It is the main security mechanism to manage authorizations for 3DSpace. 
• P&O consists of five key concepts at its foundation, they are Roles, People, Organization, Collaborative Spaces and Security Contexts.

• A Person object represents a logical user in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. 
• A Person is always related to at least one (or multiple) security context(s), which is a combination of an Organization a Role and a Collaborative Space (PnOProject). 
• A Person is assigned product licences (“Named User” licence).

• A Collaborative Space represents a shared space where people can work together on content/data.
• Collaborative Spaces are mainly used for access management.
• Collaborative Spaces are used for making up Security Contexts, and stamping objects’ Ownership vectors

• Public Design Collaborative Space: Data with this ownership vector is accessible from all users assigned to this Collaborative Space or affected to another Collaborative Space (except for data in private maturity state)
• Protected Design Collaborative Space: Data with this visibility is accessible only by users assigned to the Collaborative Space, but data in the Released or Obsolete states has read-only visibility by users assigned to other Collaborative Spaces.
• Private Design Collaborative Space: Data with this visibility is only accessible by users explicitly assigned to the Collaborative Space.

• Collaborative Space families can be used as templates to create other collaborative spaces
  • Standard (StandardTeam): Applicable for Public and Protected content only
  • Design (DesignTeam): Applicable for Public, Protected and Private content

• Organisation object’s purpose is to define a group of persons belonging to a same operational entity.
• Organisation represents the disciplines of a company which does not change frequently. 
• It does not represent other organisational structures, such as HR structure, that may change frequently

• There are four types of organisations in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform:
  • Company
  • Subsidiary
  • Business Unit
  • Department

Roles represents the area of work, or access level of a person on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform P&O

• Depending on the access level, three separate categories of roles are available.
  • Applicative Roles
  • Administrative Roles
  • Restricted Roles

Restricted Roles are assigned to partners to allow employees of other companies access limited to content in the Collaborative Space and organisation of the user’s credentials

• Gives users authorization to visualise, modify, save and delete data. Applicative Roles are dedicated to usual users
• Authorizations are cumulative from Reader to Leader Roles

These set of roles allow the user to administer and manage platform resources

• A Security Context is defined by the combination of one Organization, one Role and one Collaborative Space (PnOProject).
• A Security Context is assigned to a user/person.
• A user can have several Security Contexts assigned simultaneously

• The Active Security Context is used to set the initial data ownership, when a user creates data. 
• The initial data ownership is also referred to as the Primary Ownership Vector (POV).
• The POV of an object is defined by the combination of 3 properties: A User (Owner), A Collaborative Space (project) and An Organization

Baseline Behavior is Access Management deployment model for 3DEXPERIENCE platform Applications

• It is an Out Of The Box behaviour and it is available on both On-premise and Cloud
• Pre-defined Horizontal Roles and Pre-Configured policies should be used.
• In Baseline environment, only those apps that support the baseline access roles may be used
• Custom access roles and Policies cannot be created
• Any app-specific roles cannot be assigned to users in this environment

Administrators can also manage P&O objects by using the VPLMPosImport / VPLMPosExport and PassportUserImport batch tools

• VPLMPosExport.bat
  • Used to extract people and organisation data from a 3DSpace database to text files.
  • The tool allows you to export one or all specific data
• VPLMPosImport.bat
  • Used to import/modify/delete P&O objects in 3DSpace database, as specified in an input text file.
  • Used to create or update person, organisation, or security data.
• PassportUserImport.bat
  • Used to import or modify users in the 3DPassport database.

• It is a Licence associated with a unique platform user.
• The named User Licence cannot be assigned to someone else before 30 days after the first consumption.

3DPassport service provides authentication and single-sign-on (SSO) service to all 3DEXPERIENCE platform services (except for FCS).

• Web console – Create your 3DEXPERIENCE ID option on 3DPassport Login page
• Batch Utility – PassportUserImport.bat can be used by the Administrator.
• Web Service – Using the OOTB User Account API we can create, update, delete or recover user accounts.

• User Group is a group of users defined within a 3DEXPERIENCE platform instance.
• User Groups are an integral part of P&O.
• One User can be members of several Groups.

Yes, When a Security Context is assigned to the Group, the same Security Context is added automatically to all the members of the group.

• Login Tickets allow you to authenticate and connect to protected servers to run batch programs.
• The Login Ticket includes the details required for the batch program to log into the server, such as, user-name and security context (credentials).

Administrative Objects define the 3DEXPERIENCE platform data model explaining how Information should be stored in a database.

• Business Objects contain the information about customer data and business processes.
• Business Objects are displayed on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform Web as well as Native User Interfaces.

• Business Objects are instances of Administrative Objects.
• Administrative Objects define “how to store information”
• Business Objects define “what to store”.

• The Data Model defines how objects are related to each other and how they interact with each other.
• A Data Model illustrates object types used by an application and the relationships that connect them.

• The Entity Relationship (ER) Data Model is the core model of 3DEXPERIENCE platform Web Apps (3DSpace)
• Entity Relationship (ER) Data Model is a graphical representation of entities and their relationships to each other.

• Types, to define the entities and these entities can have Attributes that define its properties.
• Relationships, defined between Types.

• The Policy is a mandatory object which defines the behaviour of a Type. It defines:
  • Revision sequence
  • Lifecycle
  • Access control
  • Signatures

• The Instance Reference Port Connection (IRPC) Data Model is the core model of 3DEXPERIENCE platform Native Apps (CATIA, etc.)
• The IRPC Data Model relies on the notion of Instance, Reference, Port and Connection.
• IRPC Objects can be organised in structures, by creating parent-child relationships.

• A Reference provides the definition of a structure object (a parent object in the model).
• An Instance is the usage of a reference in another reference.
• A Connection models semantic relationships between components i.e. is an object composed under a reference that can have multiple links.
• A Port is an object composed under a reference that can have one link.

• An Attribute is any characteristic that can be assigned to an object or a Relationship.
• Objects can have Attributes such as size, shape, weight, colour, materials, age, texture, and so on.

• A Type defines a kind of business object and the collection of Attributes that characterise it.
• Types are defined by the Business Administrator and are used by 3DSpace users to create Business Object instances. Every created Business Object must be of a specific Type

• Relationship Administrative Object is created to allow the connection between either
  • Two Business Objects (Type – Type definition)
  • A Business Object and another Relationship: Type – Relationship definition
  • Two Relationships
• All Relationships always have a From end and a To end. To conceptually represent a Relationship in any diagram an Arrow is used, with the arrowhead typically representing the To-end.

• Cardinality refers to the number of relationships that can simultaneously exist between the two Business Objects or Relationships
  • ONE-to-ONE (1 : 1): A specific Business Object can be connected only once to another specific Business Object using this Relationship. A second connection will not be permitted.
  • ONE-to-MANY (1 : N) or MANY-to-ONE (N : 1): Many Business Objects can be connected to One Business Object using such a Relationship.
  • MANY-to-MANY (N : N): Multiple business objects/relationships can be connected to multiple business objects/relationships.

• Extension is a group of Attributes that can be added to Business Objects as well as connections to provide additional classification capabilities to objects.
• Multiple Extensions can be assigned to the same Business Object and/or connection.

• Vaults
• Stores
• Locations
• Sites
• Indices

A storage location for 3DEXPERIENCE platform Administrative and Business Objects

A storage location for files that are checked into Business Object (Physical Storage)

An alternate host and path for a Captured Store

A set of Locations

A set of Attributes and optional Basic properties that are stored in a single table to improve query and expand performance

Platform Managers can use the Collaborative Spaces Control Centre widget to list Collaborative Spaces, create new ones, transfer ownership, define who can create Collaborative Spaces and configure settings.

Platform Managers can use the Collaborative Spaces Configuration Centre to configure content behaviour such as naming and revision rules, lifecycles, access rules, automation, and attributes

• Data Model Customization app is an unified and common framework for all PLM applications. It unifies the Data Model customization techniques for all 3DEXPERIENCE applications
• It goes along with a new generation of Data Model customization consoles that are Simple and easy to use and provides Instantaneous testing and deployment
• Standardize domain processes for end users with a simple administrative tool without requiring IT skills.

Customization Administrator – TXO

Typing system that was used before the introduction of the Unified Typing

It is a group of Types and Extension Types, grouped together by domain

• Unique key is a Set of Attributes that are used as a key for uniquely identifying objects
• Unique Keys can be defined to ensure that two objects won’t be saved with the same values for a set of chosen Attributes
  • For example: Type name + PLM External ID + Version number
• This is used for « identifying » objects with a name that can be used in other applications (excel, CRM, etc.)

• Types created by a customer with DMC tool in the context of an environment
• DMC tool was the tool for customizing Native applications data model, as part of former typing system.

• Baseline behavior deploys the baseline access roles such as Owner, Leader, Author, and so on.
• In Baseline Environment, you can use only use those apps that support the baseline access roles.

• Introduce concepts specific to the customer, with associated Attributes
• The end-user can choose the sub type to create objects with the standard 3DEXPERIENCE applications.
• Sub typing may influence the behaviour of the objects through 3DEXPERIENCE applications.

• Introduce data extension specific to the customer, with associated Attributes that can be applied to objects of different Types
• The end-user can choose to extend an object with a particular Extension

Deployment Extensions enable the Administrator to add Attributes to existing DS Types and Specialized Types, which will be made available to end-user depending on their assigned Collaborative Space.

• A Transient Attribute is not stored in the database.
• A Transient Attribute is not persistent: it can be accessed only by using EKL.

• INFRAComputedAttribute and INFRAComputedAttributeWrite are two dedicated Openings which enable to define Business Rules for working with Transient Attributes:
  • INFRAComputedAttribute: Opening is used to read the value of Transient Attribute
  • INFRAComputedAttributeWrite: Opening is used to compute and set the value of the Transient Attribute.

Enterprise IP Schema Specialisation app (DBS) is used to customise the Data Model on private or dedicated Cloud.

In order to meet client business needs for Native Apps customization, a technological choice can be made among the following:

• • Interactive
  • Scripting
  • Programming

• Design Automation
• Application Creation
• V6 Data Model Extension

• There are several Apps dedicated to automate design at the heart of V6
  • 3D Templates Capture / Engineering Template (PKT)
  • Know-how Apps Creation (KAC)
• KAC generates business oriented Apps
• PKT helps with automating complex assembly design

• Scripting involves the usage of Interpreted scripting languages
• Two script languages are available at the heart of V6
  • Enterprise Knowledge Language (EKL)
  • Visual Basic (VB)
• EKL is used for Quality, Feasibility and Corporate Compliance control
  • EKL is available in Know-how Capture / Engineering Rules Capture Apps
• VB helps automating tasks and creating small applications without requiring the user to perform any geometry handling
• VB is available in all 3DEXPERIENCE Native Apps

• Component Application Architecture (CAA) is the main technology used
• CAA involves the usage of Compiled, Object Oriented Programming Language
  • CAA makes use of C++ and COM technologies
  • Allows to build dynamic link libraries (dll)
  • Enhances implementation encapsulation
  • Enables objects behaviour federation
• Large scope of customization
  • IP Integration
  • V6 Model Customization
  • Batch Creation
  • User Interface Modeling for Native Apps

Enterprise Knowledge Language (EKL) is the language used to define programs and procedures specific to apps. EKL language includes knowledge packages, types, methods and functions where:

• • Knowledge Packages : Provides essential information on the types, methods, and functions that you can access when working with the browser.
  • Types : The different objects you can handle.
  • Methods and Function : Manipulation of object and its attribute

EKL is oriented to provide a quick development environment to enable easy customization to automate task execution on Client or Server.

EKL is a DS, portable, object oriented, interpreted, Automation language that directly manipulates the V6 objects:

• • DS: designed, engineered, and maintained by Dassault Systèmes.
  • Portable: independent from OS
  • Object Oriented: manipulates objects with methods
  • Interpreted: does not require compilation
  • Automation: enables to create & manipulate existing classes but does not enable to declare new classes.
    • There is an extension called KML(Knowledge Modeling Language) that adds some object modelling capability. This is part of the Company App Builder Role (KAC).
  • V6 objects: provides native access to V6 constructs

Enterprise Knowledge Language (EKL) is used by a series of toolkits & products on top of V6 architecture. They are used for the below purpose:

• • Business Rules
  • Validation Rules
  • Generative Rules
  • Associative Rules
  • User Interface Logic Rules

The Engineering Knowledge Language is defined in 4 different layers, from the very simple Mathematical language (M-EKL) to the most complete advanced language (A-EKL).

1. 1. Mathematical Engineering Language (M-EKL)
   2. Core Engineering Language (C-EKL)
   3. Advanced Engineering Language (A-EKL)
   4. Extensible Engineering Language (X-EKL)

• M-EKL is the foundation of EKL. 
• M-EKL groups the language operators and the numerical functions (maths, measures, etc.) necessary to express the sets of equations used to evaluate parameters in Knowledge Advisor.

• C-EKL provides Keywords for control structures
• C-EKL also provides Specific functions, like the ones dedicated to messages and prompts for user inputs, geometry construction or strings and lists manipulation.

• A-EKL inherits most of the operators, keywords and functions of C-EKL.
• A-EKL provides a full set of functionalities to manipulate 3DEXPERIENCE Native Client features as Knowledge Objects.

X-EKL language contains the applicative packages available in EKL . You can use X-EKL to add functions to the EKL language by 2 means:

• • CAA development (users development). 
  • User functions. BKT lets you create interactively new functions that may be used within A-EKL

• Temporary variables can be declared at the beginning of the script using the let keyword. A temporary variable does not persist as a parameter after the rule execution is finished.
  • Let enables you to initialize values with constants and not with formulas
• The Set keyword lets you set a variable of a given type and directly enter the attribute to read and/or write its characteristics.
  • Set Keyword performs the assignment without checking the Type.

Operators are special symbols that perform specific operations on one, two, or three operands, and then return a result

• • Arithmetic operators
  • Logical Operators
  • Comparison Operators
  • Type Operator
  • Ternary Operator

• Language Browser is the main language tool when scripting EKL code.
• Developers can keep the Language Browser open while scripting.
• Language Browser provides information about
  • Type
  • Package Display
  • Supported/Inherited Types List
  • Attributes
  • Functions Using Type
  • Functions Returning Type
  • Search

• 3DEXPERIENCE VPLM architecture allows customization by Administrators to better match the critical behaviours of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform with the specific requirements of the customer’s business processes.
• These are accomplished using Business Rules

To be effective, a newly created Business Rule must be linked to both the Opening ID, the Fact Type and also to a distinct Collaborative Space.

• 3DEXPERIENCE VPLM System Openness consists of a full set of building blocks that make up VPLM.
• It includes and delivers a set of pre-defined Openings to integrate its specific business processes, user actions and system behaviours

3DEXPERIENCE VPLM system triggers the Business Rule with a Customization Intent. There are three Types of intents:

• • Validation: Used to validate the state of an object, or an action on an object. For the sake of maintaining consistency, every possible Rule for the couple <Object Type, Opening> is executed in an undetermined order. For the validation to be correct, every Rule must be correct.
  • Computation: Used to compute a result from the state of an object. Only the best possible Rule for the couple <object Type, opening> is executed.
  • Execution: The object can be modified by the Rule. Only the best possible Rule for the couple <object Type, opening> is executed.

The 3DEXPERIENCE VPLM Openness consists of rules which work on a set of three typed variables.

• • ThisObject
  • Parameters
  • Validation (optional)

• ThisObject is a variable that represents the object on which the rule is acting.
• The type of this variable is defined when creating the business rule.

• This is a standard object that provides contextual information about the opening.
• This variable is of the type Rule Context. This type inherits the basic Feature type and holds below six attributes:
  • UserID
  • Role
  • Project
  • Organization
  • Severity
  • Message.

• In Validation mode, the rule uses an additional variable Validation of Boolean type.
• The rule writes its value to express the validation.
• The Message attribute of Parameters may be set inside the rule for displaying the standard failure message.

Resource Set provides you with information related to the resources you can link to your resource tables. The resources are gathered by resource sets and are classified in alphabetical order.

No, only Some Opening IDs are common for On-Premise and On-Cloud environments. There is a List of Environment-Specific Openings available in the DS documentation

• A Business Rule is the description of the behaviour alteration using the Enterprise Knowledge Language (EKL).
• A Business Rule is created to implement a certain Business Logic, to govern a specific application behaviour.

ER Generic Server Openings resource set contains the Precommit openings that allow you to customize server operations like create, delete, modify, promote, etc. on Private cloud, Dedicated cloud and On Premises.

Business Rule can be defined using Data Setup native app. You require TXO role to access the Data Setup native app

No, Precommit openings are not available on public cloud

• Execution of business rule with a precommit opening is different from other openings. The transaction follow below sequence of operations:
• The kernel registers the transaction
• The kernel executes the action (e.g. create or promote)
• The kernel fires the precommit opening
• If no error occurs, the kernel commits the transaction.
  • Else the transaction is aborted.

In order to implement the Server Side Business Rule, the following steps are to be carried out:

1. 1. Using Data Setup app, create a Resource Table under Resource Set named ER Generic Server Openings.
   2. Create a new Business Rule against Logical Name precommit at promote.
      1. Right click on the logical name and add a resource using Add a new resource sub item option.
   3. Create and associate a Resource (Business Rule) against the opening.
   4. In the Business Rule editor, set the Type of ThisObject to VPMReference, and key-in the code
   5. Save the changes.
   6. Verify the implementation

• MQL is an acronym for Matrix Query Language
• MQL is the language in which the 3DEXPERIENCE platform directly interacts with the database. It is similar to SQL.
• MQL commands and their syntax follow specific rules, which the user has to apply when using MQL.
• MQL consists of a set of commands that help the administrator set up, build, and test a 3DSpace database quickly and efficiently.
• MQL can be used to add information to the existing database, or to extract information from it.

MQL acts as an interpreter for 3DSpace Live Collaboration and can be used in one of three modes:

• • Interactive Mode
  • Script Mode
  • Tool Command Language (TCL) Mode

• When a user opens an MQL client, he can directly type commands to perform actions in the database. This is called the Interactive mode.
• The Interactive mode is command-line based. This means, one command is typed and processed after the other.

• MQL commands can also be processed using the scripts, which then may process a large number of commands at once.
• This mode is one of the most comfortable methods of administering a data model

• The Tool Command Language (TCL) is a scripting and programming language, which can be called from within MQL
• TCL provides programming features such as variables, loops, arrays, procedures, file operations, etc.
• MQL commands can be extended in TCL programs. This allows us to embed MQL commands to handle metadata, directly into Business Logic written using TCL.

• MQL expressions and queries can be executed via the MQL web-console also.
• User needs to be assigned VPLMAdmin or Administration Manager in order to be able use MQL web-console

• MQL Web-console can only be used to query for existing data.
• Activities like creation of new data, modification of data, Business Administration, printing program objects to get source code cannot be done.

• All script file comments use the hash symbol (#)
• Multiple words with blanks in between must be enclosed in quotes
• MQL statements must end in a semi-colon

TCL statements do not need a semi-colon to indicate the end of a statement. Pressing the Enter button or inserting the newline character is sufficient to invoke command execution.

• Add: To create new administrative objects or new business objects.
• Modify: To modify the business and admin objects.
• Delete: To delete the business objects or admin objects.
• Copy: To create a copy of the objects.
• Print: To display the objects.
• Help: To obtain technical help about an entity

add businessobject TRG_Product_Structure MQLTST001 -.1 policy VPLM_SMB_Definition vault vplm;

mod bus "TRG_Product_Structure" "Coupling Assembly" "A.1" description "Coupling Assembly in MQL";

delete bus TRG_Product_Structure MQLTST001 -.1;

print bus TRG_Product_Structure prd-apc-00000275 A.1 select policy vault;

• Most of the MQL commands can be abbreviated to three characters as long as the command is unique
• help businessobject; can be shortened to help bus;

• MQL is not case sensitive relative to commands or keywords.
• Both statements are equivalent: VERBOSE ON; verbose on;

• MQL is case sensitive relative to object names (Administrative Objects as well as Business Objects).
• Both statements are not equivalent – two different objects would be created:
  • Add vault Engineering;
  • Add vault engineering;

For easy identification, it is a recommended convention to use a file extension of .mql when creating MQL scripts. This, however, has no effect on the behaviour or execution of the scripts.

run <scriptnamewithpath>

• MQL commands mandatorily require a Person/User context to perform any action.
• Example of setting context: set context user creator password x387yz vault Manufacturing;

• To obtain general help information about any Administrative Object type, use the command: help;
• To display information about a specific administrative object, for example on type: help type;

• Query: Finds Business Objects according to defined criteria.
• List: Displays Business Objects within a defined Vault or to list specific Administrative Objects.
• Print: Display all the required and available information on an object.
• Expand: Allows to view connected Business Objects based on a starting object.
• Clauses: Various clauses used with the above commands further influence what is seen as a result or how the result is displayed.

• Saved queries contain the search information and it can be evaluated/run whenever needed.
• Temporary queries are used for an ad-hoc search, which does not need to be saved or used later.

• A temporary query is a one-time use statement and is evaluated immediately.
• A temporary query can use all object definitions as possible search criteria. Select statements are allowed.

temp query
businessobject “type_pattern” “name_pattern” “revision_pattern”
vault pattern
owner pattern
where query_expression;

temp query bus PART *D* * where 'attribute[Cost] > 25' select policy current dump |;

• The list command is used both for Business Objects and Administrative Objects within the user logged in vault
• The list command supports wildcards *.
• list [admin_object_name];

list ADMINTYPE [PATTERN]
[select FIELDS][dump SEPARATOR]
[recordsep SEPARATOR][output FILENAME];

list bus vault Manufacturing;
list policy;
list policy P* select type format output “E:\policy.txt”;

• The print command retrieves detailed information about one single Business Object or Administrative Object.
• Wildcard characters are not allowed in print command

Printing Business Objects:

print bus BO_NAME
[selected | select [Fields]]
[dump [SEPARATOR]]
[output FILENAME];

Printing Administrative Objects:

print ADMIN_TYPE
[selected|select[FIELDS]]
[dump [SEPARATOR]
[output [FILENAME];

print bus Part A-0000144 1 select policy owner;

print policy “EC Part”;

If the print command is typed without a select clause, the complete information stored with the object is output.

expand bus BO_NAME
[to|from] [relationship PATTERN]
[type PATTERN] [recurse to [all|N]]
[select bus FIELDs] select rel FIELDs]
[into|onto set SETNAME] [dump] [SEPARATOR]
[recordsep SEPARATOR] [output FILENAME]
[terse] [limit N];

expand bus Part A-0000144 1
rel EBOM
from recurse to all
select bus attribute[Weight].value;

expand bus Part A-0000144 1
rel EBOM from recurse to all
terse;

• Select clause
• Selectable Clause
• Dump Clause
• Output clause

• All pieces of information or definitions of an object such as the Name, Owner or Originated date are stored as a property or field of the object.
• These definitions of an object that can be extracted as a piece of information are referred to as selectables.
• If there is no selectable specified, all available information is output. But if a selectable is specified, then the information is reduced to the defined selectable.

• name
• description
• revision
• originated
• modified
• Id
• cestamp
• Etc

• When typing a command requesting a data output without a dump clause the requested information is given in detail one per line
• Using a dump character you can specify a general output format, which does not print the leading field names, but rather separates the output information by the specified dump character

temp query bus PC2_Product_Structure * * where 'attribute[PC2_Material] == Steel' select policy current dump |;

With the output clause you define that the result of your query, list or print command is not directly returned in the interactive client, but sent to a file for further processing.

list policy select type format output "c:\temp\MQLPolicyList.txt";

Expressions are mathematical, statistical or logical statements that can be evaluated against collection(s) of business objects, a single business object or a single connection.

add expression NAME [ADD_ITEM {ADD_ITEM}];

The evaluate expression command makes it possible to evaluate either a saved expression (Expression Administrative object), or a temporary expression that is not saved.

evaluate expression EXPRESSION {EXPRESSION}…on ON_ITEM {on ON_ITEM} [dump [CHAR]] [recordseparator SEPARATOR];

The end of a command is defined by the semicolon(;), which indicates that the command is complete and should be then executed.

By default the transaction starts after the user hits the Enter button after the semicolon at the end of the MQL command, and is committed or aborted after the command execution process completes or fails respectively

connect bus ACK_CouplingComponent "Coupling Assembly" "A" rel ACKAssemblyBOM to ACK_CouplingComponent "Flange" "A" Quantity 2;

expand bus ACK_CouplingComponent "Coupling Assembly" A rel ACKAssemblyBOM;

• Using the recurse parameter along with expand command we can see all Business Objects connected over multiple levels.
• expand bus ACK_CouplingComponent “Coupling Assembly” A rel ACKAssemblyBOM recurse to all;

• A Web-Service is any standard Application that is available over the network (Internet) which is capable of interacting with other Applications over the same network.
• Web-Services are typically designed to allow interoperability.
  • Web-Services are operating system independent.
  • Web-Services are programming language independent.

• REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer
  • It is a software architectural style that defines a set of constraints to be used for creating web-services
  • Communication in REST services is HTTP based
  • The Action to be performed is described by the HTTP Method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).
  • Information is represented in the Request / Response body in XML or JSON format

• Using 3DDashboard Widgets
• Non DS Third-party web or batch applications
• 3DEXPERIENCE On cloud

• From a dashboard application (Additional App widget), one can reach 3DEXPERIENCE services. The 3DEXPERIENCE authentication (username/password) has to be performed manually by the concerned person.
• For calling 3DEXPERIENCE platform web-services, 3DDashboard Widgets make use of the DS/WAFData/WAFData JavaScript API.

From any non-DS applications (web or batch) you can reach 3DEXPERIENCE services using your personal credential. Before consuming any DS web-services, the 3DEXPERIENCE authentication must be executed.

• On the cloud, you can consume 3DEXPERIENCE web-services on behalf of someone using an openness agent.
  • An agent is valid for one platform instance and for one user.
  • Using an agent, you can call only public 3DEXPERIENCE web services enabling the “on-behalf” connection.

3DEXPERIENCE platform’s web services are available in Developer Documentation

• Generate CAS Login Ticket
• Perform CAS Authentication
• Fetch CSRF token
• Invoke the required web service endpoint

• Yes, 3DEXPERIENCE platform web-services are capable of working with Custom Data Model.
• We can create and modify objects governed by custom data models on premises and cloud environments.
• Custom attributes created using Collaborative Spaces Control Center app, Data Model Customization app and Enterprise IP Schema Specialisation app can be manipulated using platform web-services.

• Logging is the process of recording events within a program, in a certain scope, in order to provide an audit trail that can be used to understand the activity of the system and to diagnose problems.
• 3DEXPERIENCE platform logging consists of many events using different mechanisms.

• Mxtrace.log
• mxAudit.log
• Ematrixwar.log

• Any errors raised in 3DSpace Server environment are automatically written to mxtrace.log
• All system-wide warnings are collected in that log file as well

mxAudit.log is generated at system startup only the messages related to the kernel are written to mxAudit.log

Log file for capturing actions of the 3DSpace WAR Utility. Contains information about constructing the web application archive such as merging JARs and classes in one folder

• System.out.println command will output the log messages to the console and/or Web Application Server output file.
• For Tomcat, the file typically has format like catalina.<date stamp>.log and can be found under the folder <TomEE_INSTALL>\logs.

SLF4J stands for Simple Logging Facade for Java. It provides a simple abstraction of all standard logging frameworks like Log4j, Logback, JUL (java.util.logging), etc. using single dependency

• Widgets are lightweight HTML and script-based applications that provide the ability to derive and present information or functionality from a variety of sources.
• A Widget is based on standard web-technologies (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS)

• Widgets are movable, resizable, configuration, sharable and are also removable from the Dashboard.
• Widgets allow end-users to get and share a personalised view of their information
• Widgets load UI elements only once, and in subsequent requests only new data are loaded. This leads to faster performance.

• Widgets are not stand-alone, i.e., they will not run in a browser page, just by calling their URL
• For a 3DDashboard Widget to run, it has to be first hosted on a Dashboard

• There are three different ways to integrate a web application in a dashboard of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. They are:
  • Web Page Reader Widget
  • Run your App Widget
  • Defining an Additional App

• It is the way to integrate an existing stand-alone web application into a 3DEXPERIENCE Dashboard
• The web application – integrated in the Web Page Reader Widget – runs as a stand-alone application
• It cannot access 3DEXPERIENCE servers (3DSwym, 3DSpace, etc.).
• It cannot communicate with other Widgets.
• It cannot interact with 3DEXPERIENCE platform UI components such as 6WTagger

• It is the quick way, but with limited capabilities, to integrate a Widget application into the 3DEXPERIENCE platform
• For Run Your App Widget to work, the server that is hosting the Widget application must be accessible from the 3DDashboard server
• The Widget is granted access to the 3DEXPERIENCE servers (3DSwym, 3DSpace, etc.)
• The Widget can reach external servers (non 3DEXPERIENCE servers)
• It cannot communicate with other widgets.
• It cannot interact with 3DEXPERIENCE UI components such as 6WTagger

• 3DDashboard allows Platform Managers to push externally hosted Widget source-code onto the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as an instance, known as Additional App.
• Creation of Additional App can be done only by users having Platform Manager Role
• The Widget Platform Engine loads this transformed widget in the 3DEXPERIENCE browser into a trusted 3DDashboard domain, hence can access 3DEXPERIENCE servers
• Access to the custom Widget may be provided to all Platform users, or may be limited to specific users
• It can communicate with other Widgets.
• It can interact with 3DEXPERIENCE UI components such as 6WTagger, Global Search, or other widgets

• MUST be encoded in UTF-8
• MUST be made of well-formed in XHTML 1.0 Specification
• MUST feature the widget namespace on the html element

UWA (Universal Web App) is a simple and elegant web apps framework that uses XHTML for structure, CSS for styling and JavaScript/Ajax for behavioral/DOM control. UWA lets developers “build once and run everywhere”. Apps built with Netvibes UWA can run virtually on all major Web, computer and smartphone platforms.

Reference: https://uwa.netvibes.com/docs/Uwa/html/index.html

UWA_Standalone_Alone.js can be included to give widget the application the look-and-feel of UWA environment

• User Preferences can be defined using the UWA’s <widget:preferences> element.
• User preferences are widget attributes that the end user is able to edit.

External style sheet can be associated with a widget using <link> element for beautification.

• Require function is used to declare the dependencies
• DS exposed APIs applicable on the widget object is used to handle DOM
• The event mechanism is based on the DOM event protocol.
• The widget must set the event callback (to react to the events)

• onLoad: Triggered when the widget is launched
• onRefresh: Triggered when the widget is refreshed (manually or programmatically)
• onEdit: Triggered when edition of preferences begins
• endEdit: Triggered when Edit Preference dialog box is closed (save or cancel buttons are pushed)
• onResize: Triggered when the widget size (height and width values) changes. It can happen if the end-user resizes the widget’s window, or if the widget’s contents increases/decreases the window’s height
• onViewChange: Triggered when the widget is windowed, maximized or minimized
• onKeyboardAction: Triggered when a key is pressed within the widget’s area

• Interaction with 3DSearch
• Interaction with 6WTags
• Perform Drag and Drop of data
• Respond to Publish and Subscribe events
• Interact with other platform services like 3DSpace, 3DDrive, 3DSwym, etc., using web-services

• Widget.html
• Code.js
• Stylesheet.css

• The web-apps automate business rules using Trigger programs that run when a particular trigger event occurs.
• The 3DEXPERIENCE platform Business Process Applications contain Trigger programs that automate business rules.

• TCL
• Java – A Program administrative object with Java code is also referred to as a Java Program Object or JPO.

• Check Trigger
• Override Trigger
• Action Trigger

• Any event could be associated with multiple Trigger programs. This allows for defining multiple separate and independent business logic for any database transaction.
• You can also run multiple Trigger programs of the same kind for an event (for example, run 3 separate Check Trigger programs when an object is created). It also makes it easier to enter input for the trigger program arguments.

• Business Objects support a lot of events, which can be configured on it’s Type, Policy States, Attributes and Relationships.
• Some frequently encountered events are:
  • Revision
  • Connect
  • Create
  • Delete
  • Disconnect
  • Lock
  • Modify
  • ModifyAttribute
  • Promote
  • Demote

• The Check Trigger executes before any of the normal system code that carries out the recognized event has a chance to execute.
• A Check Trigger program can block the event from actually occurring, aborting the event transaction, which means that no other trigger programs are executed. This is a hard block.
• A system error message indicating the blocked event is displayed in case the condition check fails.

• The Override Trigger executes after the Check Trigger (if not blocked) and before the trigger event has a chance to execute.
• It can replace the normal event processing, with an alternate event, in effect blocking the event, which is also referred to as a “soft block” on the event.
• In this case, only the user-defined error message will be displayed.

• The Action Trigger executes after the event transaction is committed, irrespective of whether the normal event took place or the override program replaced the event.
• An Action Trigger is only executed if the previous event is successfully committed.

A Program is an Administrative Object used to execute specific commands or business logic

• Programs can be used to:
  • To populate attribute ranges with dynamic values
  • In format definitions for the edit, view, and print commands
  • Define business logic for Action, Check, or Override Event Triggers

• Java Program Object (JPO) – JPO contains code written in the Java language
• MQL – An MQL program can be run from any machine with 3DSpace installed. It is not necessary for MQL to be available on the machine
• External – An external program consists of commands that are evaluated by the command line syntax of the machines from which they will be run.

• Name : Program Name
• Description : Comment Field
• Type : MQL (default) / Java / External
• Code : It is used to define the program code
• File : The contents of file are added to the code section of the program

A Java Program Object (JPO) is a Program Administrative Object that contains code written in the Java language. In general, we can say, anywhere in the platform, where a Program is used, you could potentially use a JPO.

JPOs are stored in ADMINISTRATION vault

Macros are a simple name/value string substitution mechanism, where the macro value is substituted for the macro name when used in a program.

• ${CLASSNAME} returns the name of the current Java class.
• During compilation (and extraction), the macro ${CLASSNAME} is mangled.

Round-trip engineering means, JPO code can freely move in and out of Live Collaboration from an external IDE.

extract program * source C:\Temp\JPOs;

insert program C:\Temp\JPOs\MyCustomProgram_mxJPO.java;

compile program MyCustomProgram;

• SCT stands for Studio Customization Toolkit
• SCT Classes allow you to access the 3DSpace platform database.
• They provide database access to list, read, modify and create Business Objects. Further, they provide database access to list and read Administrative Objects.

Java classes are organised into packages. The Java Archive (JAR) file can contain many packages. Each Business Process Application can add one or many JAR files to 3DEXPERIENCE platform

The framework.jar file contains the base classes; DomainObject and DomainRelationship, as well as several interfaces and classes that are needed to support these base classes. This jar file also contains a number of utility classes.

• Matrix.db
• Matrix.util
• Com.matrixone.servlet
• Etc.

The MqlUtil class from com.matrixone.apps.domain.util package contains static methods that can be used to execute MQL commands.

• Each JPO is shipped as a combination of a base class and a derived class
• All “out of the box” (OOTB) business logic is placed in the base class.
• You should never customise the base class as it contains OOTB code.
• The derived class is available for the extensions to the business logic.

• To pass Objects to a JPO, the JPO class has two methods that correspond to serialising an Object into a String, and de-serializing a String back into an Object.
• The method names are packArgs and unpackArgs, respectively.
• Since JPOs only accept strings as arguments, you must use the packArgs / unpackArgs methods to convert Java objects to/from strings when using JPOs.