Knowledge Base Articles - Light on Useful Informat...

TomU · ‎Jul 21, 2016

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: CS242245

When 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 way, and possible workarounds to get around the current limitations will be much appreciated. Thanks!

PeterCase · ‎Jul 22, 2016

The work instructions our engineers follow when authoring articles recognise that a straight "Works to Spec" as a resolution is rarely, if ever, sufficient.

We ask them, where possible, to make clear what the limitations are, include links to documentation to help with understanding, and to state any reasons as to why the functionality has been implemented as is (e.g. compatibility with ..., style guidelines etc). Where they exist, we also ask them to provide alternate techniques to achieve the desired result.

The article you've highlighted falls short of our expectations, and submitting article feedback to let the author(s) know will trigger the right actions to get this addressed.

This said, it will be a worthwhile exercise to review all our "Works to Spec" articles which have been viewed online more than a handful of times. Following Doug Schaefer's post on prematurely published content, our KDEs have already started a review of our Creo SPR-related articles with short resolutions (<30 words), and it will be a small step to extend that review to works to spec, before deciding on which corrective / preventative actions to take.

Mike Smith, Mark Fahlbeck, Gunter Koch - adding a mention for your awareness.

Once again, thanks Tom for sharing about your experience, and helping us to improve.

Marco_Tosin · ‎Jul 22, 2016

I think that this article could be a good start point to address issue about "works to spec",

https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?source=subscription&n=CS60028

Tom, what do you think about it?

Marco

TomU · ‎Jul 22, 2016

I don't know when you last looked at it, but I think it actually looks pretty good at the moment. It tells you why the import failed and what to change to get around the problem.

Marco_Tosin · ‎Jul 22, 2016

Yes.

I just want only another user to confirm to Peter that this article is written in the way to address the boring Works to spec.

Marco

dgschaefer · ‎Jul 22, 2016

I agree, this is a helpful way to say "this is how it's supposed to work". It supplies instructions and links to supporting documentation.

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Doug Schaefer | Experienced Mechanical Design Engineer
LinkedIn

TomU · ‎Jul 22, 2016

This said, it will be a worthwhile exercise to review all our "Works to Spec" articles which have been viewed online more than a handful of times.

Sounds like a good idea. I can't tell how many times an article has been viewed, but I suspect someone is going to be very busy.

dgschaefer · ‎Jul 22, 2016

Years ago we used to complain because the techs would say "intended functionality". Communication between PTC and the user base wasn't great then and PTC's response to the problem was not to improve the documentation but to stop using that phrase, hence we now have "works to spec".

I'm very pleased to see a more thoughtful and cooperative approach to the problem now.

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Doug Schaefer | Experienced Mechanical Design Engineer
LinkedIn