I have created literally hundreds of SPRs in the past 3 years of using
Pro/NC. I've learned that if you cannot reliably reproduce it, then neither
will PTC. The best approach is to:
1) Determine how to reproduce the problem
2) Do a File>Backup of the .mfg file to disk and zip it.
3) Open a call on the Pro/CALL Logger and document the sequence of events
and tell them in which sequence the problem is occurring.
4) Upload the Zip file with the call.
I think that the key is giving them the actual data with which you are
experiencing trouble and an example sequence exhibiting the problem - if a
picture's worth a thousand words, a sequence must be worth 100,000.
When tech support contacts you, they've already looked at the issue and
generally understand what is happening, though sometimes they want to
clarify a few things. I have yet to receive a call-back from India on an
NC-related problem (I'm the 'one person' experiencing good support). I
generally receive an SPR within a day or two and most are resolved within 3
or 4 datecodes, though high-priority ones get fixed much faster. For
example, I was able to get tools of type THREAD_MILL to be able to be
selected for a trajectory sequence in the very next datecode (it wouldn't
allow them, and you have to in order to thread mill a pipe thread). Some
GUI issues can be difficult to reproduce because I find that perhaps 25% of
the time Intralink is the culprit, and the techs in Needham do not use it,
so they need to send it to the Intralink group and then explain to a PDM guy
how to use Pro/NC.
Regards,
Peter Brown
NC Programming Manager
Jarvis Products Corporation
http://www.jarvisproducts.com
