Have you ever been using Pro/ENGINEER and got stuck? Here are four easy steps to help resolve your Pro/ENGINEER questions quickly.

Step 1: Create a PTC.com Web Support Account

As a Pro/ENGINEER user on maintenance and a subscriber of PTC Express, you should already have a basic PTC.com account. You can upgrade this account to take full advantage of all the web tools available to you.

Upgrading your basic account to a web support account:

• To do this you will have to track down some basic information — your customer number and your service contract number (SCN).
• You can find your customer number on the license pack sent to your Pro/ENGINEER administrator or in the software shipment letter/email. 
• You can also access the number from another’s user profile using the PTC Account Management tools.   
• Write down the number when you have it.
• You can also find your Pro/ENGINEER administrator or someone else that already has a PTC.com web support account set up.
• Have them go to My Accounts.
• Select Account Management. They will need to enter their email and password to gain access.
• Select the Customer Support tab and you will see your customer number in the yellow brick under customer information in the upper left corner. (Figure 1)
• To find your SCN select Help>About Pro/ENGINEER and the number will be displayed.
• Write this number down, you’ll need it any time you call PTC technical support. 
• Now, select Upgrade Your PTC.com Account. You can find this link on the last web page displayed when you created your basic account or by accessing PTC.com Account Management and selecting the Customer Support tab.
• Now fill in the customer number and the SCN.
• Next, you’ll receive a confirmation email that you’ll need to verify your account upgrade; simple instructions are provided in the email. It will be sent to the email address used to create you account.

That’s it. Now you have access to all web support tools. These tools include:

• Software enhancements & updates
• Real-time customer support
• Knowledge Base
• Call and SPR logger/tracker
• Knowledge Base monitor alerts
• Reference documentation
• Tips and Techniques productivity-enhancing sessions
• forums
• License management

Step 2: Using the Knowledge Base

• Go to Customer Support. This can be done just by clicking the SUPPORT tab on the PTC Homepage. 
• Under the SELF HELP section, select Search the Knowledge Base.
• Enter a keyword in the search field. Keep it limited to only a few words, i.e. “import.”
• Select the Product. Typically, this will be Pro/ENGINEER.
• Select the Module, i.e. “ECAD.” If you can’t find the right module, leave this field blank which will allow for a much broader search.
• Select the document type. You can select all four boxes to get the maximum results.
• TAN - Technical Application Note: documents that describe specific technical issues with PTC products. TANs generally include workarounds and anticipated software.
• TPI – Technical Points of Interest: technical tips not necessarily associated with a particular release of a PTC product
• Hit Search.
• You will end up getting a list of related items.
• Select the hyperlink to the document.

Step 3: Opening a Call Online

If you don’t find an answer on the Knowledge Base you should open a call with technical support online.

There are some major advantages to this method. First, you can document the specific issue which saves you from having the tech support engineering typing furiously away while you speak to him about an issue. Second, the online call logger system now checks the knowledge base and sees if there are any related documents based on your question/issue. This search is exhaustive, checking all the key words in your description of the problem.

Furthermore, when you log a call online, you can easily attach related Pro/ENGINEER files, trail files and images to give a better description of the problem to the technical support engineer. 

• Go to Customer Support. This can be done just by clicking the SUPPORT tab on PTC Homepage.
• Under POPULAR TOOLS or INTERACTIVE TECHNICAL SUPPORT, select Log Technical Calls Online.
• Hit Next when you get to the CaRDs Customer Contact Search, since you are opening the call for yourself.
• Enter information for all the asterisk fields. 
• To find out the date code of software you are running, you can go to your Pro/ENGINEER session and select HELP>Technical Support Information. You’ll get a screen with all the appropriate information. (Figure 2) 
• Make sure to give a good callback phone number. You can enter more numbers in the long description if needed.
• Select the appropriate Priority level to define the importance or urgency of the issue. Here is a breakdown of the priority values:
• General Info Work: is not making an impact on your current work and you only have a general question about a PTC product or service.
• Non-Critical Work: is making a slight impact, but the issue can easily be worked around. Generally a very low priority issue.
• Urgent Work: is making an impact, but not significantly. Usually a workaround is available or you are able to work beyond the issue.
• Critical Work: is making a severe impact and a solution to the problem must be found quickly.
• Extremely Critical: is the most serious priority for a call and generally represents a work stoppage.
• Enterprise Down: a production enterprise system is down
• Select Next.
• The call logger will check your short and long description against the Knowledge Data Base (KDB) to see if there are any documents that are relevant to your particular issue.
• If the KDB articles do not sufficiently address your issue, you can select Open a Call.
• The system will generate a unique call number. Write it down.  
• If a Pro/ENGINEER model or images would be helpful in troubleshooting the issue, it is good to zip it up and send it to technical support.

Step 4: Track and Update Your Calls

So you have opened your call online. But what happens if your phone rings while you’re out to lunch and now you have a voicemail from the technical support engineer. What can you do to avoid playing phone tag all day? 

You should use the Track and Update Calls online tool. This tool has several advantages over calling technical support via phone. First, it allows you to either add a comment to your existing call or escalate it to a higher level. Also, those comments are automatically routed to the appropriate technical support engineer. As soon as they can, they will get back to you. Second, you can pull up a full history of all the calls that you have made and get a status update. Technical Support keeps a complete history of all the calls coming in based on the user and company.

• Go to Customer Support. This can be done just by clicking the SUPPORT tab on PTC Homepage.
• Under POPULAR TOOLS or INTERACTIVE TECHNICAL SUPPORT, select Track and Update Calls.
• Enter your customer number — remember you used it to create your PTC.com account.
• Select Continue.
• If you know the call number, enter the number. If you have already lost the number, just put your last name in the box and select Next.
• Select all variations of your caller name (it’s possible your name will be incorrectly spelled in the system if you opened your call on the phone), and select a good start and end date. (Figure 3)
• Now select Get Call List located all the way at the bottom of the screen.  The call list provides all your calls that were opened. You can re-sort based on any of the column headings. 
• Once you find the call you are looking for, just select the short description hyperlink. You will see the details surrounding that call.
• You now have three main options to communicate back to the technical support engineer to get your issue resolved. Based on level of support you need, you can follow this protocol:
• Add a new note in the Note section. You can give the tech support engineer a message and it automatically gets routed to his desk. This is great when you want to get a status or have him/her call you back.
• Change the call priority. In the Priority box, you can change the priority up or down to get the appropriate focus and response from PTC.
• Change the escalation status. Reserve this for extremely critical issues that are not being resolved with the help of a technical support engineer. These escalations are taken very seriously. It is a very powerful tool, use it wisely, but don’t be afraid to use it if you are really stuck and not getting the proper support.

Related Information:

• View the video replay of PTC Customer Orientation: Maintenance Support
• View short videos with step-by-instructions for using other web tools