xClass Implementation Considerations for Performance

Community,

My current client wants to use xClass Properties on Itemtypes: Document, CAD, and Part.

Current Configuration

The Document and CAD Itemtypes will use xClass in a straight forward way therefore predictable data generation.

The question is Part. The Part Itemtype is being used for Engineering Parts (Classification: Assy, Comp, Material, Software, etc.) and Manufacturing Part (Classification: Manufacturing).

So for every Eng. Part there can be 1 to 3 duplicate Mfg. Parts created with the same xClass data.

Currently the client has 240 xClass Properties defined and this is just the start. I can predict that the property count will be close to 500 + when Part, CAD, Document are fully defined.

Current:

Each xclass Property requires 4 columns and each Itemtype assigned to an xClassTree (Part, CAD, Document) their item_id, and their Itemtype_id are added to each of the xp.XPROPERTYVALUE tables.

This results in five xp.XCLASSPROPERTYVALUES tables generated: xp.XCLASSPROPERTYVALUES; xp.XCLASSPROPERTYVALUES1; xp.XCLASSPROPERTYVALUES2; xp.XCLASSPROPERTYVALUES3; xp.XCLASSPROPERTYVALUES4; xp.XCLASSPROPERTYVALUES5...

Each of these tables has 100 property values stored in the 100 Columns and managed by 300 columns.

Currently only 1, of many Division, is using the Parts Classified as Manufacturing.

Goals

The client wants to use the xClass Data to do:

1) eBOM validations so performance in gathering xClassPropertyValues is key.

2) Product development regulatory definition and tracking.

Questions

1) Are there any configuration issues that should be considered?

2) Are there xClassProperty implementation considerations that you suggest?

3) Are there performance issues that should be considered?

Thanks for your time and insight.

Scott

  • Hi Scott,

    large xClass trees are not uncommon. If you are using an older Innovator version (11/early 12), you might not be able to use the amount of properties you want. The first version of the feature couldn´t deal with large amount of data. Newer version support around 4000 property elements. At least these was the number I heard some time ago.

    How do you plan to display the xProperties? Inside the standard Form element? I wonder if this will become "easy-to-use" considering the amount of elements.

    There are alternative concept to work with xProperties. Aras has customization to display the xProperties in a relationship and not inside a Form. If you have a good contact to Aras, ask if they can give you some tips from other customer projects. They definitely have customers who use a ridiculous insane amount of xProperties.

    I don´t use a xProperties a lot yet, cause I basically always had the same question like you now.

    Hope somebody else can contribute more to this discussion.

    Angela