CAD Admin advice, Pro/E + Intralink tips + resources.
This stuff contains my personal opinions, please don't take it as representative of my employer.

May 24, 2007

CADminTools 3.4 Preview

CADminTools 3.4 - coming soon

  • Export user tables to xls
  • Add your own custom fields
  • Bulk-change values in the database
  • Track as many applications as you like!
  • And a new module... track database reports from multiple Intralink 3.x servers round your company... I use it to watch out for dBs reaching capacity - and also to monitor creation of data across servers...

Done a mish-mash of some screenshots up there from CADminTools 3.4 - coming soon... if you're dead keen contact me + get a look at it early.

Cheers
Edwin

May 10, 2007

CADminTools improvement - ability to add more applications

Originally CADminTools had a 9-feature limit on the licenses it could track... cos I thought that would be fine... then folks asked for more.. so I increased to 15 at some point.

Still folks asked to track more - see posts on forums from Phil and Peter

Well, I've finally got round to figuring it out... with a method that lets you increase your application limit, then add new apps into your database...

And the trial code is available if you want to test it - just drop me a line and add comments here when you get results.

Cheers
Edwin

Eat Your CAD - Proactive/Reactive CAD Manager

Another excellent article from Nigel @ Eat Your CAD
Take the test, then get some tips about getting more proactive.
It'll do you good!
Cheers

May 08, 2007

Pro/E and CAD RSS feeds...

feed + seed...I was just reviewing my feed list (web, not gourmet) - and then there was this post on the PTC/USER exploder... "anyone got any good Pro/E feeds, blogs, etc"... so here's a few from my own reading list : please add more in the comments below.
Cheers, Edwin

Mainly Pro/E / PTC

Mainly CAD
Often CAD
And of course there's a feed for CADminBlog

May 03, 2007

MCAD Online - Pro/Intralink 3.4 migration

Article Review : MCAD Online - Pro/Intralink 3.4 migration

When I saw the title of this article from Al @ MCAD Online, I had extra interest, since we've already looked at the 3.x migration options... and like many other PTC customers, decided to stay put on 3.x for now... their media webcast in Jan-07 said only 5% of customers had migrated.

After reading the article, 2 weeks ago I emailed the author, expressing my views (no comment boxes available on the site) - since there's been no reply yet, here's a copy + paste from that email...

It looks like most of the article content came direct from PTC marketing, since they'll tell you that version 8.0 "offers the same capabilities as Intralink 3.4 but does so in a more modern, future-proofed manner". The truth is that the functionality available in version 8.0 is like stepping back several years on 3.x Pro/I.

In a year or so, new-style Intralink will probably be usable for large customers who want a serious replacement for their Intralink servers. Until then, most of us are upgrading to the latest 3.4 versions, and getting Wildfire upgraded too (and petitioning PTC to support Wildfire 4 with Ilink 3.4). Intralink 3.4 upgrade is a real pain, and I'll write more about that soon...

Looking at the other side of the fence (ie: those who've made the switch) - it's quite an eye-opener... I've personally talked to people who gave me the real story, plus the public PTC/USER exploder has recently had many posts from customers listing loss of functionality... those of us staying with 3.4 breath sighs of relief...

Intralink 8.0 has already featured here - but I'll continue to devote time to 3.x as that's what the majority still uses. PTC may paint the picture that the world is moving forward happily onto 8.0 but the truth is different.

Please feel free to leave your comments here.
Cheers