Managing Consumers

A consumer is another web application that is allowed to send requests to this application on behalf of an authorized user. In other words, a consumer is a client application that consumes (or possibly generates/updates) the information of Windchill (through this app) using an authorized Windchill user.

Consumers are needed to create incoming Collaboration Links; this means you need to register the CLM Application as a consumer of Windchill, if you want to create Collaboration Links on the CLM Application side. You will need to provide the OSLC Connect for Windchill rootservices to the CLM Application administrator to achieve this point (for more details please refer to Configuring OSLC Connect). Keep in mind that additional configuration will be required also there, but for now let's focus on the requirements of this side.

It is worth to mention that regular consumers are not bound to any particular Windchill user, they have their own identity and, at the proper working moment, they will request Windchill credentials to work on behalf of a user (a process known as "user authentication"). Let's call these regular consumers as consumers for humans, because a human is required to complete the user authentication process; however, the CLM Application may have automatic processes wanting to consume the Windchill information; in such cases, it is more convenient to bound a specific Windchill user to the consumer and avoid the need for a human. Let's call such consumers as consumers for applications and the bounded user as functional user. OSLC Connect for Windchill allows Consumers with a Provisional Key, that register themselves from a remote friend application, not in the consumers page. Once registered, they cannot access the system until they are approved to do so.

Next procedures focus on actions you can do in the consumers page, this means the removing of consumers with authorized key; it also means you won't find a procedure to register a consumer with a provisional key.

[1] User authorization implies an extra click to confirm the information consuming, once per new session.

Removing a Consumer.

  1. Enter to the Configure > Consumers page.
  2. Locate the Active section and table at the bottom of the center panel.
  3. Choose the consumer you want to remove and click on the corresponding red remove icon located on the last column of the table named Actions.
  4. Confirm your decision by clicking on the OK button in the confirmation dialog.

If everything went ok, the chosen consumer will be removed from the system and it will no longer appear on the table.

Updating a Consumer.

Besides the functional user, the only field that can be updated by direct means is Trusted, this field is presented on the Authorized keys table with a checkbox, you only need to check it or uncheck it to modify its value permanently. To modify the consumer key, name or secret:

  1. Follow the Removing a Consumer procedure.
  2. Register a Consumer again with the updated information.

Accepting/Rejecting Provisional Keys.

If a remote friend application requested a provisional key, such request will be waiting an approval/rejection from the Windchill server administrator. The friend application won't be able to connect to Windchill while this request is not approved. To approve/reject provisional key requests:

  1. Enter to the Configure > Consumers page.
  2. Locate the Manage OAuth Consumers / Pending section and table in the middle of the center panel.
  3. Choose the provisional key you are interested in and click on the corresponding icon, located on the third column of the table, depending on what you want to do:

If you chose to accept the request, the key entry will be moved to the Active section and table; otherwise it will be removed from the current table. Note: provisional-key consumers will be trusted or untrusted depending on how they were requested; if you want to change this, follow the Updating a Consumer steps.