Customer Success

This topic is a place to discuss random observations about the reference documents currently provided in the Product Help Centers.  This was spawned from a discussion started by Gary Jackson proposing the idea of moving more of the existing PDF documentation online.‌   1.)  Searching for a combined term (or phrase) should default to providing results for the complete term.  Search results for only one of the words should only be returned after results for the entire phrase.  In this example, only one of the results has anything to do with BOTH of the terms.   2.)  The text highlighter does not match the search term when searching for something in quotes.  In this example, "name" in the middle of "rename" should not be highlighted since the search term was "common name".

Normally when I create technical support cases the response time is very good.  The case will quickly get assigned to a technician and I will typically get a phone call (or email) within a couple of hours.  I'm having the exact opposite experience with the "Windchill Performance Advisor" product area.  It's almost like there is no one assigned to monitor cases created for this product.Most recent example:Case created on July 12thRealized on July 15th that no one had contacted me or even been assigned to the case yet so I escalated it.  Almost immediately I received a call from a manager promising that a tech would contact me on the next business day.  He then asked if I could de-escalate the case, which I did.July 25th (today) - The case still hasn't been assigned to anyone and I'm still waiting for the first contact.I'm also noticing that this "product" isn't listed in the All Products list when filtering existing cases.  Not under "Performance Advisor" a

Something is going on with the "Share by Email" links today.  This doesn't happen on every article, only certain ones.  I did confirm with both IE and Chrome.  Two examples:https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=CS50729https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=CS29630(Tagging Pierre Maraninchi‌ and Peter Case‌.)

  Hi,   I’m Sharan Hallur. We are exploring Creo Simulate thermal analysis & I have queries regarding travelling heat loads in the training material.  .1. In the heat load dialogue box {applying heat load to the weld}, please help me in understanding the time function 1:  exp(-1*(((s-time)/50)^2)),what is its significance & how you arrived to it!2. I tried to add multiple welds in the same weldment, but all welds are simultaneously starting. How to make the heat loads run one after the other?Really appreciate your help!ThanksSharan Hallur

A valuable feature of many successful websites is the ability to serve up some "other stuff" associated to the product / service / literature you're interested in. For commercial sites, the motivation is clear: "Other customers also bought.." draws attention at the right moment (when interest is high), reduces search effort and leads to further (hopefully mutually beneficial) transactions.   When it comes to our articles, the currency is different (Knowledge), but the circumstances and outcomes are similar. If we expose related content at the right time, we can reduce your search effort, and guide you to other sources of knowledge to improve your experience with PTC's products.   So what's new and how do I use it ? The changes use our existing Search functionality to detect relevant content such as product documentation, help center topics, community threads, videos, and other articles. When this happens, a box like this will appear below the article Resolution field, with fa

The links to the product families on the support website are all broken (except for ThingWorx.)It looks like someone restructured the main website and forgot to update the support site.  Notice the change in destination:vs.P.S.  This probably isn't the right place, but I don't feel like hunting around on PTC's website to try and figure out where to submit this.

This may be in the wrong place, but I couldn't find a community for topics related to the tech support site.  If it is, Toby Metcalf‌, please move it. I get email notifications about new or updated KB articles relevent to topics I've chosen.  It seems that frequently these notifications link to articles that were published prematurely.  There is a title, and nothing more.  The title and description match completely but don't adequately describe what the article is about.  Sometimes it even refers to an SPR, but there is no link to the SPR.  It's as if the article was created as a place holder, but there wasn't enough information to complete it yet.Is it possible that these kind of preliminary articles can be made hidden until there's some real information to share?  It's frustrating to click a link to learn more and find that there is no more to learn.

It seems like there are many knowledge base articles that contain insufficient information to really be useful.  Here is an one example I came across today:  CS242245When I see something like this I start to ask questions like... "Works to product specification."  Really???  So Creo is intentionally not regenerating merge features?  Why?  Who actually writes that in the specification?  Is this behavior documented somewhere?  (Peter Case - This might be a good use case for "Related Documents" section to link to some relevant product documentation.)Here is what I posted to the feedback widget:It would be helpful to understand WHY this "works to product specification".Are you saying that anytime a merge feature fails to regenerate, it is intentional and a good thing?Under what conditions WILL it regenerate the merge feature and under what conditions will it NOT?Anything you can do to provide better explanations of how things work, why they work that

I am about to start a new project which has to be done on Catia V5. Now having very little experience of Catia but as a long term user of Creo & Pro/E what sort of transition should I expect?Has anyone else has to do this for a project?  Would a training course be needed or would a few good youtube videos be enough to get started?Also is the admin / file system similar.Any sort of ideas or help would be greatly recieved

I am looking in to option to use creo simulate to conduct bolted joint analysis.I am not expert in creo simulate and I am looking for any tutorial and other help material related to Fasteners/ Bolted joint in creo simulate.

I am looking for information for CAD administrator training. My company runs Creo, Catia, & Autocad.  I have training in Creo (16 years), Catia (3 years) Autocad (3 years) & Solidworks (1-2 years).Any suggestions for training would be helpful.  Thank you in advance.

In attempting to create a variable connector group, I've run into a snag when it comes to naming the ports. The tutorial runs you through how to automatically name them numerically, but when I apply the help documentation to try and label the ports in an alphabetic manner instead, (which will make it easier given that the real life connectors are labelled alphabetically) I get stuck.In the tutorial, you set the name_format parameter to #, and then add a label to the port shape with the format set to <name>. This then populates a variable connector with port names 1, 2, 3, etc.In the help, it states:However, when I try to use this, I get something that looks like:This happens regardless of which of the versions I use (full, trunc, hex).I've tried varying the capitalization (Trunc vs trunc), varying the location of the # (#trunc vs #trunc# vs trunc#), but all that does is vary the location of the number.Can anybody help me out with a step I'm missing?Regards,Matt

Hi guys,          Am beginner with creo customization, am trying to create a simple 3D model say a Rect block. I am trying to create that, really I don't know how to start that. If any body had sample program, please give me or please give me any tutorial link. Thanks in advance.

What do you guys think would be the best training avenue?  Take the intro to CREO 3.0?  I think the CREO 3 intro will help me understand what I'm being taught in CREO-NC.  I'm starting new after 9 years of MasterCAM.TIA

Myself and another new mechanical engineer recently started working at an established company 2-1/2 months ago to replace a person that left.  Both of us have years of experience using SWX and Inventor and a few other CAD packages; the company is using Creo, which either myself or the ME ever used.   After 2 months of using Creo, both of us are finding  that Creo is so unintuitive to use with a steep learning curve that there's a large drop in productivity that its effecting the company.   During the interviews we were never asked if we know Creo, because from what I found out by asking around, management ( non-engineers) assumed that if you know one CAD s/w package how hard could it be to learn another, there all the same.     We asked for 2 weeks training but after showing the training quotes they took no action on it, and swept it under the rug.Recently I stated my argument to the same managers, that with no training on using Creo ma

  In the last week or two, the format has changed for the WORST. Each software used to be broken into builds like we subscribe to, Creo Parameteric listed Creo 2 in one section followed by Creo 3 in the next section under Creo Parametric.     Now they all fall under on section called Creo Parametric and are all mixed together. It is this way for each subject. Now I have to hunt and pick for Creo 3 Parametric issues.   Has everyone else seen this regression?  

I'd like to thank Gord Mehta, David Lewis MIKE CRECELIUS‌, Brian Toussaint‌, Guy Yarter‌, Denise Welch‌, Robert Lee‌, Pavel Glukhov‌ and all the other customers who came to visit us in the UX Labs at LiveWorx 2016 - June 6-9, 2016 - Boston‌.   Kathleen Byrnes‌ our UX Designer collected a ton of feedback on the designs that we presented during the sessions. She'll categorize and prioritize all of it and will improve her prototypes accordingly. If there is anything you forgot to tell us during the session,feel free to use this community group to continue the conversation. Open a new Product ideas or share feedback in the discussion forum!   For those of you who could not attend LiveWorx or could not join the UX lab sessions, you can still have a look at one of the prototypes which is now in production and available for everybody to use. Even if you are not a ThingWorx user, we are interested in your feedback on the new Thingworx Developer eSupport Portal. Feel free to comment

PTC University is participating in the LiveWorx conference in many different ways: We are offering many different trainings for users of all skill levels and across the PTC product lines and have some of our experts present breakout sessions. We also run an eLearning Lab and a dedicated Certification Room for those users of ThingWorx who would like to get officially certified. On top of this, we are looking forward to meeting you at our booth in the Xtropolis expo hall (look for the Travel Agency in the floor plan!), where we can chat about our latest training offerings and answer curriculum questions.   At the latter, we also run short presentations around a variety of topics and will demo our latest learning tools to you. One highlight will be the NEW and revamped PTC Learning Connector, which will be released at LiveWorx.   As we would like to give you the opportunity to plan your visit and select the topics most relevant for you, here's our on-booth demo schedule: &nbs

As we are getting into the "hot" phase of final preparations for LiveWorx, we are seeing more and more questions from attendees on individual classes offered. People are finalizing their agendas and training sessions.   There are only a few slots available for some of the full day classes we are running on the days before and after the conference. These full-day classes are very popular, as they are small-sized deep dives into a given topic and they are sold with a 50% discount off the regular training day rate.   We had an inquiry for the ThingWorx Analytics class just this week and the customer requested more information on the content. As we currently have 3 more seats left, we thought we'd share this information here to help others with their registration planning.   Course Structure: "Applying Machine Learning using ThingWorx Analytics" (The following lists the modules of the course and a brief explanation of what will be covered in that module.)   ThingWorx A

The eSupport team will be present at LiveWorx 2016 - June 6-9, 2016 - Boston‌ and we are looking forward to meeting with you in person!   We will be part of the UX Labs from Monday to Thursday where we will be testing upcoming new designs for the eSupport portal and our web tools.   You can register here for one of the sessions where you will have the opportunity to discover some of our latest ideas and influence how the aspect and the features of the eSupport portal will evolve in the upcoming quarters. Each of those 1-hour sessions is individual and participants will be rewarded for their efforts and feedback by a pretty neat present !   See you soon in Boston!

A short notification for all who find video clips useful when exploring and discovering new functionalities of PTC’s software: Over 4000 educational videos from the PTC Learning Exchange were recently added to our Search page.   These high quality tutorials are created by product experts, and can greatly enhance the experience and value our customers derive from PTC's products. When you enter search keywords and one or more videos are available, a new content type will appear on the left hand side: Please let us know about your experience. We’re particularly interested on how we can keep improving the search to respond to your needs.

If you opened a case on Windchill Functionality or Business Administration recently, and your language preference is set to English, then the chances are you will have encountered Dylan: Here's some background to help you to get familiar with with him, so that you know what to expect.   At PTC, we're encouraged to "take a fresh look" at everything we do, and it turns out that the search UI we used to display when opening a case was not very effective at matching issue descriptions with the best knowledge to solve your problems on the spot. Most times, the right article was available, just not returned.   Getting a quick, convenient and effective solution to your issue is right up there on our list of priorities, and recent advances in data analytics and machine learning have given us some great opportunities to return relevant article suggestions in a much more focused way than the previous UI did. We also added some new features to help solve your issue with knowledge, incl

I would like to solicit recommendations for live training for our company.   We are starting from the ground level, but there are a few of us who can perform simple routing for cables and wires.  Thanks....

If you are new to the eSupport Portal, how can you get started? When you are struggling online but still can’t find what you need, what should you do?   The eSupport Portal is the entry point for all important eServices functions, including knowledge base search; software licenses management; software download and many more web tools… Below are 3 quick tips to get instant help online:   1. “Welcome to eSupport” Portlet Go through the educational materials under “Welcome to eSupport” portlet. These materials are the summary of the most important web functions. This can help you quickly get started. 2. Knowledge Base Search For eServices questions, you can also try searching in the Knowledge Base. Take “web account” as an example, there are many articles on how to create, delete and manage your web account.   3. “Search Overview” and “Advanced Search Techniques” To get help with searching the Knowledge Base, take a look at the “Search Overview” and “Advanced Search Tech

The PTC Technical Support Knowledge Base contains thousands of articles in English, Chinese and Japanese, all written by our team of Technical Support Engineers.  Every single article in our Knowledge Base has an article feedback widget which you can use to provide your feedback to us about the article, if it was helpful or not and a space for you to leave any comments you have for the authors. I say authors because an article can be created by one engineer but over time be updated by several different engineers.   When you leave verbatim comments using the feedback widget they get sent to our internal systems and recorded against the article. We have a team of “Knowledge Domain Experts”, or KDEs for short, who monitor the incoming feedback. The KDEs have the technical skills and expertise to triage the feedback and determine if further action needs to be taken, either by themselves or another Technical Support Engineer.   If you leave a comment that requires further fol