A standard ‘Rollback’ in Enterprise PDM destroys the versions and revisions as a matter of clean file management and follows what typically is considered a ‘best practice’. However, users have inquired about an ability to roll a revision counter backwards while retaining the file versions and history.
As always please remember to have a recent backup of your database and workflows. A test vault for new workflow ideas is recommended as well. Since we’re dealing with the revision management counter it is also a good idea to limit permissions to specific people with visibility to the impact of changing the revision counter value.
First, create a workflow transition that loops out of your ‘approved’ state. As recommended above, consider who should be able to do this when setting up permissions.
Then create a standard revision incrementing transition:
‘Set Variable’ -> ‘Revision’ (or appropriate variable) -> %nextrevision%
‘Inc. Revision’ -> Type: ‘Inc. Revision’
Finally, modify the target state to have a negative value in the ‘Increment by’ column.
Please notice the sequence of the workflow states and transitions in this example. Having a negative value in the workflow state works in this case because it’s the initial state. New files entering the vault will not have a revision value so this is permissible.
