Creating Collections

In workbench, collections can be created in two ways:

  1. Using the Search tab, perform a search, and create a collection of the results
  2. Using an import file, create a collection of the contents

Regardless of how they are created, if a collection contains less than 10,000 objects, these can be inspected in the Tree hierarchy by expanding the Collection node. The collection will be displayed in an entirely flat structure regardless of any parent-child relations that may exist between the objects, and regardless of which parents / children the objects have when viewed elsewhere in STEP.

Note: While this topic and the Collections section do not address Web UI functionality, it is important to note that the Web UI Collection Content Screen also has the same 10,000 object restriction to allow for the best performance.

In Web UI, objects can be manually added to and removed from a collection. This functionality is not available in the workbench.

Creating a Collection from Search

The most common way to create a collection is through creating a search. To do so, follow the steps below.

  1. Navigate to the Search tab, enter in the needed search criteria, and click Search to verify the results. For more on how to search, refer to the Navigating and Searching topic in the Getting Started documentation here.
  2. Click the Save as Collection button.

  1. Select the appropriate parent in the collections hierarchy (either the top collections folder itself, or a collections group folder), enter a collection name (the ID is autogenerated), and click OK.

  1. A background process runs, and the new collection is created and saved under the specified folder.

  1. Right-click the collection, and run any needed bulk update, or export the objects.

Note: The initial search criteria used to locate the included objects is stored on the collection, which allows for later updates of the collection. To learn more about editing searches to update collections refer to the Maintaining Collections topic here.

Creating a Collection from File Import

Collections can be created from a text or CSV import file containing STEP IDs of products, assets, or classifications. Objects in the import file must already exist as the import will not create or update objects, only place them in a collection.

Important: If the import file includes only attribute values or unique keys of the products, assets, or classifications to be added to the collection (and does not include the STEP ID), you must use the above steps for Creating a Collection from Search.

To create a collection from a file:

  1. In the Tree, right-click the Collections top node or a collection group to determine where the new collection will be saved, and select Create Collection From File....

  1. In the Create Collection From File dialog, locate the file to be imported.

The Collection ID is autogenerated

  1. For the Collection Name parameter, add a Name for the new collection.
  2. For the File Contains parameter, select if the import file contains IDs of products, classifications, or assets.
  3. Click OK to start a background process which will create the new collection.