PTC "Articles" anything but informative.

[ByDesign]

Sometimes I have to burst out laughing at the stupidity of PTC stuff (to keep from crying).  Here is a great example:

I asked:  "How can we change the number of decimal places shown for a dimension in a note?"

I was directed to https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS337935

SOOO informative.  All it really says:

• Not part of the Creo Parametric functionality

Even the title asks "HOW" meaning the article does not meet its own goal.

OK, so did you think that is a sufficient answer?  How about explaining the preferred workflow to accomplish it?  Obviously it is done, and it is/was ProE functionality.  When and WHY was it removed?  The article is useless as it does not give any additional information.

What is the point of directing someone to it if it does not answer the question?

Please, PTC, it's time to pull a clue.  It is NOT helpful to state the obvious as if the problem does not exist.

Yes, there are multiple workarounds.  I have done a few that are long and cumbersome - doing and undoing - a bunch of time consuming steps - but what is the preferred way to accomplish the task?  Is there anyone at PTC that actually uses this software enough to know/understand what/why their customers are asking?

OK, I get it.  This probably sounds really petty.  Yet, it is one of thousands of stupid little details that would not happen if the people at PTC cared at all about the quality of their product.

Please submit this as an SPR for useful functionality that is missing - which was in the code. If you need to see it, load up Pro/E. It was handled like all others to set decimal places. I don't remember the exact menu picks, but tell it the number of decimal places, then click any dimensions you want to change, including those in a note.

A symptom is the missing functionality.  Another symptom is the incomplete and uninformative "Article".  The problem is the lack of care/understanding/passion/knowledge of quality in the people at PTC.  How do we solve that?

[vnamboodheri]

Hello @ByDesign,

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback regarding the PTC articles on our community platform. We genuinely appreciate your input as it helps us improve our content and better serve our users.

We are sorry to hear that you found the article less informative. Your experience is important to us, and we strive to provide valuable and accurate information in all our articles. If you ever come across an article that you feel does not provide the correct solution, we encourage you to use the article feedback section in the article viewer:-

1. Click on "Something is wrong in this article"
   
2. Select the appropriate issue type which you observed in the article and then click "Send to Authors"
   
3. This feature allows you to rate the article and provide specific feedback, which helps us identify areas for improvement and ensure our content meets your expectations. Once you submit feedback, an article feedback object gets created and assigned to the Author, who will then review the article and communicate with you.

If you want to ask questions about the PTC Knowledge Base Search on the PTC Community, please use this board.

Once again, your feedback is invaluable, and we are committed to enhancing the quality of our articles based on your suggestions. If you have any further comments or need assistance with any specific issues, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. 

Thank you once again for your feedback and for being a part of the PTC community.

Best regards, 

Vivek N
Community Moderation Team

[RomainGarcia]

Hello @ByDesign ,

Thank you for your detailed feedback. We value your input as it helps us enhance customer satisfaction with our knowledge base.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the article you referenced (CS337935). It appears the article did not fully address your query about adjusting the number of decimal places for a dimension in a note.

The article mentions that this feature is not currently available, but it lacks alternative solutions or explanations for its removal.

To address your concerns, we will:

- Submit an Article Feedback on your behalf: We will review the article to ensure it offers a more comprehensive explanation and includes alternative workflows or workarounds, such as using parameters to achieve the desired outcome.

- Investigate if this feature was part of a previous release and submit a Software Performance Report (SPR) if it is a regression. Your feedback is vital for product improvement, and we will ensure your request is considered.

Additionally, we have guidelines for article titles. When a direct solution is unavailable, the title should be "Is it possible to" rather than "How to...". Unfortunately, this guideline was not followed in this article. We also aim to document any possible workarounds, which was not done in this case.

As Vivek mentioned in another post, we have an internal process for article feedback, and we encourage all customers to utilize it. Enhancing the quality of our knowledge base is a key objective within our support services.

We appreciate your comments as they provide an opportunity for improvement.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. We are committed to improving our products and support to better serve our community.

[BenLoosli]

This is not an isolated case! When I get the daily CS article email, I go through it and open articles that look like they may help me based on the title in the email. At least one per day, sometimes 3 or 4, are just useless by saying not current functionality. We as users do not have the time to research and provide PTC with a workaround, yet if we just say the article is inadequate that does no help either.

Please take the time and create meaningful documents that do answer the question being asked.

[RomainGarcia]

Hi @BenLoosli , 

Thank you for your valuable feedback.

Let me explain why we have many "Is it possible" articles populating our knowledge base.

Each support case requires a knowledge base article linked as a resolution. Given the thousands of requests we receive annually, not all are covered by our current product features. To address this, we create articles that link to existing ideas or encourage customers to propose new ones. This empowers customers to advocate for specific features they wish to see implemented.

We are actively working with our engineers to document any known workarounds. I understand that you don't have time to search for workarounds, but if you know one, please share it to enrich our knowledge for all customers.

Since you mentioned this is a recurring issue, I will emphasize the importance of documenting workarounds in our internal communication process. Ensuring the highest quality for our knowledge base is our utmost priority in support services.

Thank you again for your feedback and patience.

[ByDesign]

Perhaps I have kicked the beehive. @BenLoosli is right, and his statements don't need a whitewash of justification.

More important, it is NOT a customer responsibility to be the Quality Control agent - NOT with the software, and NOT with support documents.

At the risk of being redundant, I have said it before, if these "articles" are supposed to be for customer consumption, they should be written that way. "Meaningful content" as Ben says.

Again, the real question:  How do we to change the attitude and work ethic at PTC?  "Sloppy" has been the ethos in both software and documentation for a long time.  How do we change that?

[BenLoosli]

Here is an article released yesterday that is basically useless.

Article - CS443020 - Unable to open an assembly in Creo Parametric 9.0.3.0

Why did 9.0.2.0 fail to open the file, yet 9.0.9.0 did? What changed between the Creo releases?

This may be an example where the "Each support case requires a knowledge base article linked as a resolution." is not really needed. It is a customer specific cure and nothing of meaningful content is being relayed to the user community.

[RomainGarcia · Accepted solution]

Hi @BenLoosli ,

Thank you for bringing this article to my attention. Indeed, this article is not mature enough to be customer visible. As you properly mentioned, this article is not specific enough, and it is not possible to know if this article applies to a Creo user facing crashes. Therefore, I have changed the visibility of this article to internal.

Additionally, after the feedback raised on the article mentioned in the original post (CS337935), we have updated it. It was indeed possible to control the decimal place in a dimension note displayed in a drawing

At the light of your examples, I have prepared an internal communication to remind engineers on our quality requirements. On top of that, I have reinforced quality control on articles updated/created daily. Finally, we are also working on automating quality control to reinforce consistency and accuracy.

We recognize the areas for improvement and greatly value your feedback to enhance the quality of our knowledge base. We are committed to taking every opportunity to satisfy our knowledge base users.

[ByDesign]

Thank you for updating the page. It is far better now.

Thank you for mentioning the solution of the "Decimal Places" in drawings.  I missed that detail previously, so Thank you for showing that.  I see your point about limitations.  In many cases that is fine.  Good to know the limitations.

I think it is worth noting that changing the precision of the dimension in the model will also change the precision of the dimension shown in the note. Same for changing the precision of a drawing shown dimension prior to including it in a note.  These are the other 2 "multiple" workarounds I mentioned above, but they are clucky as they require back and forth with the part to do such a simple task as manage decimal places.  This overcomes the first and second "Be advised:" issues in your first resolution, but it also changes the precision saved in the model - and it does not matter if the "Round Dimension" is checked or not. You can have many dimensions in one note with different decimal places shown.

Additionally, Using a parameter like you say can also do this, but is even more cumbersome.

Still, I don't understand why you took away the perfectly fine functionality of Pro/E where you could just select things directly and make multiple dims in a note at different decimal places. It did not require all the extra parameter fluff, or going back and forth to the model to make changes. It was fast and simple.

For completeness, we must also mention that in this area, Creo is degraded functionality from Pro/E.