Is PTC losing focus on improving Windchill as a product?

[amar_karthi]

Hello Everyone,

How many of the long term Windchill folks feel if PTC is losing focus towards improving Windchill as a product with every release with no much of improvement in adding or enhancing functionalities?

The What's new document for Windchill 13.0 is just a mere 38 page document for a new release with No meaningful to NIL new enhancements or any key features for few key modules like PDM Link, Project Link & Service Information Manager.

[Fadel]

Hello,

I think that Windchill is getting mature spec wise ,on the other hand PTC is focusing to adapt Windchill to be fully SAAS functional.

New stuff may not be visible to end users, imagine all what used to be done from windchill shell ,needs to migrated to be done from UI ,its a big scope that requires adapting the software architecture .   

Windchill is and will always be a flagship product.

[BenLoosli]

SAAS does us no good as we have Windchill in a closed environment due to security reasons.

I don't mind PTC working on a SAAS implementation, just don't do it to the detriment of those who have been using Windchill since V7!

[amar_karthi]

I would respectfully disagree to this on both the answers.

First, Windchill has not matured spec wise, what else can be a better example than the Windchill ideas section still talking of lots of basic user friendly options that customers are asking for? We still don't have an option for log out in Windchill which if i remember right is something that lots of customers had been asking for since Windchill 9 from PTC. This is just an example and similarly there are quite a lot of basic features that customers who use modules like SIM & Project link are requesting for which has not been considered for years. May be just on PDMLink perspective Windchill has all features that can satisfy a small to medium base customer whereas most of the large install bases have to satisfy all such needs with heavy customisation.

And coming to SAAS - I really cannot agree that prioritising SAAS at the cost of products features - NO I don't think PTC is doing it as most of their PLM competitors don't do that yet and most of their popular customer bases whom PTC quotes in their White papers all have secured and private clouds and they are never going to touch PTC's SAAS offerings ever. 

This is just not a question that I felt but infact most of the big installation bases I have known for years are quite unhappy with PTC's direction with Windchill  for the past 3 releases including 13 and some are already considering switching over. When the big elephants move out I don't think what holds for the future.

[d_graham]

@amar_karthi 

How to setup "Log off" is all documented in the help.

[avillanueva]

Do you have a link to that? What I found is not for latest version but requires use of form based authentication.

https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS34749?source=search

[Fadel]

@amar_karthi logoff exist since years (Form-based Authentication) , I had a windchill 11.1 with logoff . what else are looking for , maybe it is implemented and you are just not aware ?

[jbailey]

Forcing a customer to use a very specific type of authentication (Forms Based) is not a "feature." I would call that a workaround. The article @avillanueva quoted specifically states that if you are using SSO, logout is not supported. 

Additionally, the Ideas section can be a bit of a joke. No real threshold for acceptance... PTC Segment folks sometimes don't even acknowledge...

Use this idea for an example...

This idea was open for 10 years before anyone from PTC even commented on it... and in the end, it was changed to "No plans to implement"

I don't know how PTC believes they even have a chance to convert customers to SaaS when for a decade plus they have been ignoring many ideas forcing customers to implement back-end customizations that won't work in Windchill+.

Just my $.02

[avillanueva]

To be fair, when they did change status to no plans to implement, there was a targeted reply. I think there was an effort by the mods to get PTC to starting looking at the ideas section and acknowledging them which was about the time of the reply. I rarely have looked at or used the ideas section. I will have to browse a few in my spare time. Still, perception is reality.

[jbailey]

Oh I agree that it was targeted.. but no response from PTC in 10 years to something that had 200+ likes? That is a large number of likes, and watermarking is a relatively broad need. It is a vicious cycle. Open a case for a bug, R&D vehemently defends that it is not a bug, but needs an enhancement request. Product idea is ignored by product management for months / years or closed with "No plans to implement."

Case in point, I have an open case currently (for almost a year) where when you import/export Projectlink plan to/from MS Project, it doesn't completely follow the XML schema for MS Project. An attribute that represents the unique ID of a line item in the plan is ignored on import, and not tracked on plan modifications inside PJL. When the plan is exported, the Unique ID is matched to the ID attribute. After almost a year, I have a feeling I am going to be told "Working to product specification, Submit an Idea." 

One of the things software companies are judged on is if they have a way for the user community to suggest enhancements. Yes PTC does this. But if PTC routinely closes requests because they are not part of PTC's roadmap - I guess solving my organization's needs are not part of PTC's roadmap. To be clear, when I suggest an idea it is to solve a problem. If I request A, but PTC's roadmap doesn't include A but includes B which will largely address A. That is acceptable. The problem I have experienced is that even when I give detailed requirements that are solutions which competitors have tools to address (Siemens, Dassault, ARAS) and PTC still determines my problem is not on their roadmap - it is extremely frustrating.

[avillanueva]

I agree with @Fadel in that I do not believe that PTC is losing focus but I do agree that in the past few upgrades, I've told my users that their day to day will change little. Its great they at they did not have to relearn everything all over again but I did not see some new feature that would make their lives dramatically better. There is still so much that I teach them. SAAS is great but not totally for defense industry. I would rather they address issues like archiving, being able to easily delete old data (purging is a chore) and generally keeping systems neat and tidy. 

[d_graham]

@amar_karthi 

What specific improvements/enhancements did you have in mind?

We’d be very interested to hear your thoughts and the specifics on what you like to see added.

[avillanueva]

Agreed, there is the Windchill Ideas section where you can post those ideas and you can also relay them to the Windchill working group. For me, it would be adoption of more modern UIs, perhaps AI applications and improvements in system messaging to the users.

[HelesicPetr]

Hello all and @amar_karthi 

You can just check the Idea statuses and you can see how does PTC focus to the ideas. 

Yes this year it is better then before.

I can say that users are really frustrated that the ideas were archived without any PTC reaction about the issue. 

PetrH

[jbailey]

Good point on the numbers If you look at the items Under Consideration, Current functionality, In progress and Delivered... that totals 4.8% of all requests. 74.6% were archived with no official response and 1.2% were marked as "No plans to implement."

For the "Acknowledged" ideas, 10% of those are 10 years or older!

[BjoernRueegg]

I totally understand your frustration.

I also think that the basic features get too little attention at PTC. From a commercial point of view, however, this may make sense. Does PTC win a customer just because a real number can be displayed with a predefined number of digits? Or a column can be added OOTB to a where used table? Or is it because of the rather powerful Smart Platform module?

I've worked with some of the big PLM systems and they all have advantages and disadvantages. I still believe that Windchill is one of the most powerful PLM systems, although there are some small gaps. Okay, there are modules like ProjectLink that I've never really used before. ProjectLink is just too hard to compete with Sharepoint, Atlassian etc. And I also miss some of the document management features, but MPMLink, PartsLink, PDMLink and not to forget the combination with Codebeamer, Thingworx and ServiceMax makes PTC a big player.

And yes, even MS Teams or SharePoint have many small missing features that many users vote for, but MS has never implemented them. I also would love to see once a system which can provide all the missing features. If that system is invented, I will be the first switching to this software 😎