Changes in PTC's November Web Release: Your Case Opening Experience, Related Content in Articles, and More
This Thursday November 10th, a new set of improvements to your web experience at PTC will be rolled out. These include changes to the PTC Case Logger, Knowledge Base Articles and more.
New Case Logger
After encouraging results from a proof of concept earlier this year, we're simplifying the case opening process, and using some advanced technology, which we call "Dylan", to give you the best chances of solving your issue on the spot. Dylan takes questions and issue descriptions in natural language and suggests high confidence solutions, based on the associations our engineers have made in the past for similar cases. Descriptions in English and all major European languages are handled, and if any of the results is associated with a pending recommendation for one of your connected products, it will be highlighted.
In case Dylan doesn't come up with a suitable solution, or if you still have questions, you can continue to the next page to open a case. The engineer you work with will review the solutions already shown before contacting you, saving time for everyone.
FAQs:
1. Does this tool replace the Index Search ?
No. Index Search is still PTC's one-stop repository, quickly serving rich content which can be easily filtered and navigated. As well as articles, the index search contains help center topics, reference documents, community threads, video tutorials and more. We recommend starting here to find answers to any questions you have about PTC's products.
2. How can I get the most relevant articles when using the new case logger?
Because the engine behind the scenes is processing natural language, plain descriptions as you would explain to an engineer handling your case work best, and longer descriptions also usually give better results than shorter ones.
3. What is the underlying technology?
The PTC Datalabs team used a neural network algorithm and deep learning technologies to create finely tuned "models" specifically for PTC's products.
The model "learns" the words and word arrangements used to describe problems over many years, and importantly, the association with a specific article.
Dylan is not a search engine. In fact, it can happen that some articles suggested will not contain any the words entered in an issue description or question, but will still be relevant. Dylan finds hidden relationships between words to direct us to solutions.
Articles: Related Content Expanded
Last release, we introduced a new dimension to the article viewer to show other content sources such as Product Documentation, Help Topics, and Community Threads which are referencing the current article. As this feature was heavily used, we decided to expand the scope, adding a section called "Others also liked". As the name suggests, once a handful of readers have liked the article you're reading, and share common likes of other articles, we'll display them for you to explore.
Here's a short video to introduce both of the above features:
Other Changes this Release
For a full set of release notes for the November 10th ("16.4") web release, see here.
Feedback
In case you have feedback about the new case logging experience, affinity-related content in articles, or any of the other changes in this release we'd love to hear it. Please use comments on this post, or open an Idea in this Community Group. We're constantly looking to incorporate your suggestions as we iterate and continually improve this service.