List Digest, PTC Community

[jlippeth]

Let the fun begin…

The Exploder is coming to an end.

So after feeling sad for a few months, I decided, hey let’s go visit PTC Community and sign up for some groups.

Sign up for Groups that are Unlocked, not a problem

Sign up for Groups that are Locked and you must wait for a reply to see if you are voted in or meet the “special” requirement.

IE. Tried to join PRO/MOLD, got an email a few days later..







Don’t worry I’ll start a new group and keep it Unlocked!

Knowledge is Power



Jeff Lippeth ▪ Mold Design Engineer



NyproMold, Inc.

955 Tri-State Parkway, Gurnee IL 60031

144 Pleasant St, Clinton MA 01510 ▪ www.nypromold.com
This thread is inactive and closed by the PTC Community Management Team. If you would like to provide a reply and re-open this thread, please notify the moderator and reference the thread. You may also use "Start a topic" button to ask a new question. Please be sure to include what version of the PTC product you are using so another community member knowledgeable about your version may be able to assist.

[mlocascio]

Interesting! Why are they postponing the end of the exploder IF it is actually going to happen?

[iceblink1]

From the group description: "You have to be a member of PTCUSER
Pro/ENGINEER CAM Technical Committee to join".

Maybe you should try the "Pro/Mold - Tool Design - EMX" group?


I've been trying the Community for a while now, and it is not as bad as
i expected it to be, though it still needs some improvements. You can
get all the new posts (on the forums that you are subscribed to) via
email. But the emails only contain the newly posted bits, no history, so
it can be hard to follow discussions. The forum has the annoying
property of being reply-thread-based, meaning the messages in a thread
are not always in chronological order, but depend on which previous
message is replied to. This makes it even more complicated to understand
some of the emails you receive, without knowing what is replied to. The
amount of messages is not too bad, similar to the exploder.


I didn't know about groups yet, so thanks for pointing that out.
Wondering how groups function now.... I'll join some and see how that
goes 🙂 I was wondering why the amount of subforums was so low, but
maybe this groups thing fixes that.

Best regards,
Patrick

[mlocascio]

Bottom line is that these forums are NOT dead yet.



>

[dgschaefer]

I had no idea there were groups to join, but look, there they are under “browse”.

I particularly like the “Woo Sprint Group” or the “The Cindy Shearin Group Real Estate Paris Properties” group. Seems like maybe there needs to be some housekeeping.

To your point about the ProMOLD group, it does say that you need to be a member of the PTCUSER Pro/ENGINEER CAM Technical Committee to join it. Probably why you got denied.

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[jlippeth]

Yes I did not read the fine print.

“need to be a member of the PTCUSER Pro/ENGINEER CAM Technical Committee to join”

I was mouse clicking on groups at 10pm with a beverage in the other hand.

MUI



Jeff

[ShandRonnie]

Here’s another question:

Why a general topic such as ProMold would have restrictions for member to apply?

I could understand if a group called the “pony tails” had restrictions to apply. But Pro Mold, please give me a break!

Respectfully,
Ronnie Shand

[BobSchwerdlin]

Pony tails on some girls do look very nice ;^)
On most boys, not so ☹

Happy Friday everyone.

[dgschaefer]

As mentioned (and indicated on the community site), that group is intended for TC members. Perhaps a bit too broadly named, but nothing nefarious going on.

There is a general, open ProMold group as well, I don’t recall the name.

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[ryankelley]

Thanks for alerting me to this, gang.

providing some additional documentation in the coming months to the tune of: "What’s the difference between PTC Product Communities (I.e. PTC Creo – Modeling) and PTC Community Groups (I.e. Pro/Mold)?”. It should cover how groups are user generated and moderated, providing some of the use cases for how members use groups and instructions on how to set the correct group type (I.e. public vs. private vs. secret).

for pointing out the groups "Woo Sprint Group" and “” etc. Our spam filters generally catch these, but some slip through the cracks and require me to delete the content. I’ve gone ahead cleaned up these directory listings.

[BrianMartin]

Also just to interject…

Groups can be started by anyone. Groups are not usually created and managed by PTC. So there’s really not a ‘secret handshake’ you have to use to get in. Basically you can create a group called “People Who Love Smurfs” and make it private (by invitation only). In the case of the Pro/MOLD group, someone already pointed out it was specifically created for TC Members.

Still, it’s easy to misunderstand the intent of Groups. I think what you’re really looking for Jeff, is a Mold Community (unfortunate name). Right now there is no such Community dedicated to just questions, comments, and documents related to Creo Mold Design. Because this is rather a specialty/niche type of module, PTC probably feels it’s better to allow Mold Design questions to flow into the overall Creo or Modeling communities.

While I am happy to make a case for a special community just for Mold Design users, my feeling is that so few people will view/join it that questions posted there will go unanswered. In this case, a new, open Group is probably the next best bet. As I mentioned, anyone can create a group… but then you need to advertise to gather members or else it will also suffer from a lack of readership and participation.

I’m happy to help set up a new group or explain the steps to set up a group if you’d like more information.

Thanks!
-Brian

Brian K. Martin
Sr. Mechanical/Application Engineer
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

301.286.0059 (NASA Office)
443.421.2532 (Cell)
-<">mailto:->

Follow me on Twitter @CreoHelp<">https://twitter.com/CreoHelp>
[Need_Help_Small]<aetdsupport.ndc.nasa.gov>

[iceblink1]

I looked into these Groups a bit further, in order to understand them
better.

It seems groups have their own little forum. You can post to the group
forum, and group members will get an email alert automatically about the
new message.

What is bad about this is that it creates nooks and crannies in the PTC
community. For example, apart from the Creo Analysis and Simulation
forum, there is also a group Creo Simulation. Why? No idea. All it does
is spread the information in two places. (Which is the reason to end the
exploders.)

There may be even more groups regarding analysis and simulation, but I
am not willing to wade through 10 pages of groups with names such as
"North Pocono Jamaican Bobsledding Narwals".

There is a search function, but be warned that searching for "simulat"
renders no results. You need to tell it to search for "simulat*" or be
very specific and look for "simulate" or "simulation".

After creating my own group ("gossip") it seems that whoever creates a
group has the power to do however they please with the group. The group
can be deleted. It can be changed to "closed". Etc. I haven't tested yet
what happens to the group discussions when a group is deleted.

All this makes me conclude that Groups are not the way to go for
exploder replacements. Best would be if PTC created more sub-fora with
the same categories as the exploders. Low volume of messages in such a
forum is not a bad thing, in my opinion. That way people can take email
subscriptions and not be flooded by emails. Whereas if everything is one
big dumpster of unrelated topics, people with specific interests will
likely stop reading the forum.


Best regards,
Patrick Asselman

On 2015-01-24 00:41, Martin, Brian K. (GSFC-540.0)[SGT INC] wrote:
> Also just to interject…
>
> GROUPS can be started by anyone. Groups are not usually created and
> _managed_ by PTC. So there’s really not a ‘secret handshake’ you
> have to use to get in. Basically you can create a group called
> “People Who Love Smurfs” and make it private (by invitation only).
> In the case of the Pro/MOLD group, someone already pointed out it was
> specifically created for TC Members.
>
> Still, it’s easy to misunderstand the intent of Groups. I think what
> you’re really looking for Jeff, is a MOLD COMMUNITY (unfortunate
> name). Right now there is no such Community dedicated to just
> questions, comments, and documents related to Creo Mold Design.
> Because this is rather a specialty/niche type of module, PTC probably
> feels it’s better to allow Mold Design questions to flow into the
> overall CREO or MODELING communities.
>
> While I am happy to make a case for a special community _just_ for
> Mold Design users, my feeling is that so few people will view/join it
> that questions posted there will go unanswered. In this case, a new,
> open _GROUP_ is probably the next best bet. As I mentioned, _anyone_
> can create a group… but then you need to advertise to gather members
> or else it will also suffer from a lack of readership and
> participation.
>
> I’m happy to help set up a new group or explain the steps to set up
> a group if you’d like more information.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Brian
>
> BRIAN K. MARTIN
>
> Sr. Mechanical/Application Engineer
>
> NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
>
> 301.286.0059 (NASA Office)
>
> 443.421.2532 (Cell)
>
> -
>
> Follow me on Twitter @CREOHELP [1]
>
> [2]
>

[dgschaefer]

Ryan,

The entire of the PTC community needs more clarity. If I may be blunt, it’s a confusing mess right now. There are forums, blogs, articles, product ideas and user defined groups all mashed into one interface. These are different types of content, yet are treated the same both from a graphics & layout standpoint and an interface standpoint.

There’s no obvious entry point or hierarchy of navigation. I may be several layers deep in the system, but there’s no easy way (like bread crumbs) to tell. There are top level drop down menus and tabs and side menus with no obvious link between them. Are the tabs sub areas to the dropdowns? No idea. In fact, I had no idea the groups even existed until someone brought them up and it took going back to the site twice to find them. I still don’t know how they relate to the rest of the site.

Even worse is you have areas for things like “Creo – Modeling”. Well, there’s Creo Parametric, Creo Direct and Creo Elements Direct, all with “Modeling” capabilities. These are very different packages, however, with different user bases and different command structures and functionality. There is almost no overlap, so someone coming in asking about Creo Direct in a group that’s primarily Parametric users is going to get nothing. The fact that people rarely indicate which Creo “app” they are using is another problem, but that’s more about PTC’s naming strategy. Clear community design, however, could greatly help that.

These things are going to seriously hamper adoption by the PTCUser user base, in my view, and are creating problems with your PTC community user base now. I certainly hope the upgrade that is in the works will address some of these things.

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[ryankelley]

Doug -

Thanks again for the harsh, but constructive criticism about the PTC Community UI and infrastructure. Believe me when I say my goal is to make sure the way we define and present content within product communities and sub-communities is clear to the end user and ultimately helps you find the knowledge you want the quickest.

We are just putting the final touches on our PTC Community upgrade and I’m happy to report that the leap Jive has taken in their roadmap helps us immediately solve for a lot of the issues you’ve brought up here.

There are breadcrumbs on every page, both on the current system and within the upgrade, to help members navigate their way through the architecture (i.e. PTC Community > Creo > Modeling, listed here: http://communities.ptc.com/community/creo/modeling). We’re working to ensure this is more visible, with a larger more pronounced font on the new community.

Groups are user-generated, focused areas that can be created for a variety of uses. If you’re just looking for product-related content your best bet is to stick to the top-level navigation and categorization, as it provides the most direct way to discuss PTC products and are more likely to be viewed by the most community members, as well as PTC technical support and product management employees.

I’m in complete agreement that we need to do a better job separating content that is specific to the products people are actually using! As you’ve pointed out this is complicated due to PTC’s naming strategy around PTC Creo, PTC Creo Direct, and PTC Creo Elements/Direct, but that’s a conversation for another day. I always tell the members at PTC Community if they see a piece of content that should be moved to contact me (via @mention, direct message, or email) so that I can address the issue as it happens.

[dgschaefer]

Well, I did not intend to be harsh, my apologies if that was the case. Blunt or direct? Yes, but not harsh. 😄

And I did see the breadcrumbs on the current site after my post. I agree with your comments on making them a bit more prominent.

For those not versed in web UI terminology, “breadcrumbs” is a string of text indicating the path to get to where you are.

[cid:image001.png@01D04445.49EF8310]

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