Pro/E and IntraLink question...

Hi all,
Noob to the forums here, and just getting back into Pro/E after about 2 years on Inventor and AutoCAD. I have a bit of a dilemma, I located and checked out a series of 5 drawings into a workspace I created in IntraLink, I had to insert 2 simple parts into the assemblies and move said parts in the explode state where the parts show (there were 4 or 5 explode states in each assembly), when I couldn't get the new part to show in 2 of the drawings, I re-checked out one drawing into it's own newly created workspace, and was able to get the part to show. Then I started getting cute, I copied the drawing and assembly that worked, back into the 1st workspace I made, making sure to rename the version number to the highest version in the 1st workspace (I zipped up all the non-working drw and asm files). My boss says that is not the way to do it, he says that this may corrupt the data and the data in my whole workspace (all the folders?), my question is, is this true? can you corrupt files by manipulating them in an explorer window as opposed to in IntraLink?

Thank you and I will be glad to explain further if needed.

Intralink exists to keep track of which version is which and how files are related to one another. I can't say with certainty whether you will corrupt files or workspaces by manipulating them outside Intralink like that, but I would guess that the potential for trouble is high. Intralink creates a history of what you do, and to have file versions floating around that don't correspond to that history could very well cause problems.

It is always better to let Intralink track versions on its own terms. If you need to manipulate versions of files, there's a better way to do it, within Intralink. You need to be very careful anytime you do this sort of trick, since you are overriding Intralink's version control. Make sure you understand why this works, so that you are using the right versions and not overwriting anything important. This is a generic procedure that will work for importing things that have been outside Intralink, reverting an item to an earlier version, and so on.

1. Start with an empty workspace.
2. Open in Pro/Engineer the version you want to end up with. Keep in mind that saving a drawing will also save anything in the drawing, and that saving an assembly will save all its component parts. Pro/E keeps this version in memory.
3. Save the version you want into the workspace. You will get errors about the object already existing in Commonspace, in the Compare Status column of your workspace.
4. With the object still open in Pro/E, update the files in the workspace. You are replacing them with the latest from Commonspace. Even if you don't want to keep the version in Commonspace, you need it to have touched your workspace this way so that Intralink will let you check in later.
5. Change something inconsequential in Pro/E (such as saving the changed display status of a layer). This forces Pro/E to save the file, when you ask it to.
6. Save the file in Pro/Engineer. You will get an error about different from the workspace/commonspace version. You want to override that version, so dismiss this error.
7. Update again in your workspace only those parts you do not want changed or can't check in (e.g. library parts).
8. Check the modified items from your workspace back into Commonspace.

Hope this helps,
DG