About Steps

Simulation activities use steps to move data between Process Composer and your working directory and to run predefined application connectors.

See Also
Creating a Download Rule
Creating a Delete Rule
Creating an Upload Rule
About Parameters
About File Actions

A simulation activity can contain the following types of steps:

OS Command Steps
An OS command step uses a connector to replicate how you communicate with an application through the command line, as described in Understanding Application Connectors.
Download Steps

A download step contains download rules. A download rule takes the files from specified documents in the simulation activity and places them in your working directory. You can choose which documents to download based on the selection criteria that you specify; for example, you can download all of the Abaqus input files in the Specifications category.

In most cases you will be able to define one or two download rules to download all of the documents that are used by a simulation activity.

You can add a reference from a simulation activity to a document in the simulation activity, or in another activity. When Process Composer runs the activity, it moves the document from the database to your working directory, just as it would have done had the document been in the original simulation activity.

Upload Steps

An upload step contains upload rules. An upload rule takes specified files from your working directory and its subdirectories and places them in documents in specified data categories in the simulation activity. If you do not specify a directory from which the files will be uploaded, all of the matching files from the working directory and any subdirectories are uploaded. If you specify a subdirectory (relative to the working directory), only the matching files in the subdirectory are uploaded. You can use a comma-separated list and wildcard characters to upload multiple files.

For example, if you enter a file name of *.txt, thermal/*.odb, the upload step will do the following:

  • Upload all the text (.txt) files from the working directory and any of its subdirectories.
  • Upload all the output database (.odb) files from the thermal subdirectory and any of its subdirectories.

Process Composer creates folders in the specified data category for each subdirectory that you specify. Each uploaded file is stored in a document; you can specify the name of the document, or Process Composer can use the file name to name the document. If the specified document does not exist, you can choose to allow Process Composer to create the document when it runs the step. You can associate selected attribute groups with a document that is created by an upload step.

If more than one upload rule tries to upload the same file, only the first upload rule runs.

Delete Steps

A delete step contains delete rules. A delete rule removes specified documents from the simulation activity's data categories. You should be cautious about using a delete step to remove a referenced document because you can delete a reference that is hard to recover. You should always preview a delete step to ensure that the correct files or references to files are being deleted; see About Referenced Content for more information.

An application cannot operate on data that reside in Process Composer. To make data available to an application, Process Composer uses a simulation activity's download and upload steps to move data to and from the working directory.

A step in a simulation activity can operate on the following:

  • Documents and the files contained in the documents
  • VPM data, such as parts and simulations created with a 3DEXPERIENCE platform app.

In addition, a download folder step in a simulation activity can operate on a referenced bookmark folder, a simulation folder, or a data category and download an entire hierarchy of folders and documents into corresponding directories and files in your file system. Likewise, an upload folder step can upload a hierarchy of directories and files in your file system into corresponding Process Composer folders and documents. Folder steps are described in About Download and Upload Folder Rules.

When Process Composer runs a simulation activity, it typically performs the following steps:

  1. Runs the download steps to move data from Process Composer to the working directory.
  2. Runs the OS command step and its assigned connector. The connector, in turn, runs an application, such as Microsoft Excel® or Abaqus/Standard.
  3. Runs the delete steps to delete data from Process Composer.
  4. Runs the upload steps to move files generated by the application from the working directory into Process Composer.

When you create a simulation activity with predefined steps, the new activity will contain each of the four steps--download, OS command, delete, and upload. You can add steps to a simulation activity, and a simulation activity can contain multiple download, OS command, delete, and upload steps.

You can choose to pause the activity after any of these steps or to skip any of the steps altogether. For example, you might choose to run the download steps and run the application and then examine the files that were created before you upload them back into Process Composer. See Pausing, Continuing, Synchronizing, and Aborting Jobs for more information.

Steps use rules to operate on documents. The following figure shows a simulation activity that runs an application, such as Abaqus/Standard, in your working directory. The download step uses a download rule to move documents from the specifications category to the working directory. The activity runs the application, which reads data from files in the working directory and generates additional files. The delete step uses delete rules to remove old documents from the results category (in preparation for receiving new results). Finally, the upload step uses an upload rule to move the new files from the working directory into a document in the results category.

Steps.

An application's working directory is specified by your system administrator during the installation of each 3DOrchestrate Station. See the 3DOrchestrate Installation and Administration Guide for more information.

Documents and their files are downloaded and uploaded relative to the working directory. Specifically, if an application's working directory is specified as wdir, documents and files are downloaded to and uploaded from wdir\user_name\job_name, where user_name is the user name that you used to log in and job_name is a unique string created by Process Composer specifying the name of the job.

When you download a document that is stored in a folder, the folder name appears as a directory under your working directory. In addition, you can choose whether the category name will also appear as a directory under your working directory. Similarly, you can upload files into a specified category, or you can include the category as a directory in the path to the file you are uploading.

You can use parameter expressions when you are defining a step. For example, you can use a parameter expression to define the document title in a download or upload step. See Using a Parameter Expression in Rules for more information.

You can display the content of a simulation activity and select Steps from the navigation pane to display the Steps page. The Steps page toolbar allows you to create a step; however, you must specify the name of the document that will be downloaded, uploaded, or deleted, and you cannot create a step that refers to the document by reference. You can also use the toolbar to edit or run an existing step. In addition, the Actions menu on the Steps page toolbar allows you to do the following:

  • Change the order in which the steps are run.
  • Delete a step.

Select a step from the Steps page to display the Steps Configuration page and to operate on the rules within a step. For example, you can create or edit a rule, and you can preview the files that will be downloaded or deleted by a rule.

You can choose to run a step independent of the simulation activity that contains the step. In effect, you are running only the rules defined in the step. For example, you may want to simply download or upload a file or run an OS Command without having to run all of the steps defined in a simulation activity.

You can specify whether a simulation activity will use VPM data or a document for input or output; you can also specify if the data category or folder that contains the document will be used for input or output. Process Composer uses this information to generate an impact graph. Impact graphs help you understand the relationship between a simulation activity and its input and output data, along with the impact of making changes to any of the data. See About Impact Graphs for more information. Although Process Composer uses the input and output settings to create impact graphs, the settings are independent of the download and upload rules.