We’re managing simulation data access in Windchill 11.2 M030 using LDAP group-based permissions. Last week, we moved 15 engineers from the ‘Junior_Analysts’ LDAP group to ‘Senior_Analysts’ group to grant them access to confidential simulation results. However, their Windchill permissions haven’t updated - they still see the junior analyst role and can’t access senior-level simulation folders.
I’ve verified the LDAP group membership changes are correct in Active Directory. The users show up in the Senior_Analysts group when I query LDAP directly. But in Windchill, their role assignments still reflect the old Junior_Analysts group. Our directory sync interval is set to run every 4 hours, and it’s been 48 hours since the LDAP change.
The group-to-role mapping configuration looks correct in our policy administration. Other users who were already in Senior_Analysts group have proper access. This is delaying critical simulation access for our design team.
Comprehensive solution addressing all three focus areas:
LDAP Group Membership Synchronization:
Windchill must be configured to synchronize LDAP group memberships, not just user attributes. Update configuration:
After implementing these changes, the 15 engineers should have Senior_Analysts role with proper access to confidential simulation data. Establish regular audits to ensure LDAP group synchronization remains effective.
This draft is based on general Windchill knowledge. It has not been verified against your specific version and environment. Practitioners: verify the steps and share your experience below.
Check if the LDAP sync is actually running successfully. Look in the MethodServer logs for LDAP synchronization entries. Sometimes the sync job runs but fails silently due to connection issues or attribute mapping problems. Search for ‘LDAPSync’ in the logs to see if there are any errors during the scheduled sync runs.
Susan, found this in the logs: ‘LDAP sync completed - 0 users updated, 0 groups synchronized’. The sync is running but not detecting the group membership changes. Why wouldn’t it pick up the Active Directory updates?
The ‘0 groups synchronized’ message suggests Windchill isn’t configured to sync group memberships, only user attributes. Check your LDAP sync configuration in site.xconf - you need to enable group synchronization explicitly. Look for wt.ldap.sync.groups.enabled property. Also verify that your LDAP search base includes the organizational unit where the analyst groups are located.
Confirmed this resolves the stale permissions issue — enabling wt.ldap.sync.groupMembership.enabled=true in site.xconf immediately reflected our updated LDAP analyst group memberships in Windchill’s simulation PDM context.
Even with group sync enabled, Windchill doesn’t automatically update role assignments when LDAP group membership changes. The group-to-role mapping is evaluated at login time. Have your affected users log out completely and log back in? Their roles should refresh based on current LDAP group membership at next authentication.
Be aware that role assignments can be cached in Windchill’s principal cache. Even after LDAP sync and user re-login, cached role information might persist for hours. You can force a cache refresh by running xconfmanager with the -p option to reload principal information, or restart the method server to clear all caches.
For simulation data specifically, check if there are explicit ACL entries overriding the role-based permissions. Sometimes simulation folders have direct user or group ACLs that take precedence over role assignments. Even if the users’ roles update correctly, explicit deny rules on the simulation folders could still block access.