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What's Good About Cadence Online Support? – Here’s My List!

By Gerald "Jerry" Grzenia on November 11, 2009Comments(7)Filed under: PCB design, Online Support, Support

My good friend and fellow blogger - Bob Dwyer - recently posted on the new Cadence Online Support.

Bob did a terrific job and I encourage you to read his post -  Find, Fix And Learn With Cadence Online Support

Bob's provided screenshots, highlights, and suggested tips for navigating in the system!

The new Cadence Online Support was released in a Beta mode on 10/26/09.This Beta technique has been used by several companies (including Google) to recieve valuable customer feedback prior to launching the post-Beta release. The Cadence Online Support team has received several very good suggestions for how to further enhance the site. There are of course, other areas where we know we need to make adjustments and those tune-ups will happen in subsequent releases. You can read more about the details here - Cadence Online Support Goes Live! "We designed the infrastructure to be scaleable and we are excited to be able to plan for a steady stream of releases in the coming months," stated Joe Kugler, Director of Web Enablement. A closed-loop feedback system will capture user comments. The "Feedback" page tool is present on all Cadence Online Support pages.

My personal favorites of the NEW and improved features are:

  • Searching across all areas of content including - Troubleshooting, Product Manuals, New or Changed Features, Design Info, Blogs and Forums. Some of these are new areas for simultaneous searching.
  • Much faster search with cleaner returned results. By cleaner, I can see the type of results (Troubleshooting, Blogs, etc. in a clearly categorized visualization) the date, and I have a "Show Attributes" link that provides more details.
  • Filters provided on the search results pages so I can quickly adjust the results by product, date, etc.
  • The "Top 3 Overall Matches" list and "My Search History" - slick!
  • Search within a list of returned results - so I can find certain words/phrases to further narrow my results.
  • The overall streamlined look and feel. I can access everything quickly from the top menus.
  • The "My Service Requests" section is on my Home page and I can quickly review the details. I like to use the middle-mouse button to open links in new browser tabs, so navigating and reviewing multiple Service Requests is a snap.

As the next release features roll-out (you can read the plans in the link above), I'll be back to discuss those and get yourfeedback.

I welcome your "favorite things" feedback about the new Cadence Online Support system. I would encourage you to provide formal feedback to the Cadence Online Support team by clicking the Feedback link at the top of any page on the site.

 

Jerry "GenPart" Grzenia

Comments(7)

By Ro on November 11, 2009
Will there ever be a simplified method to build a circuit in Allegro without benefit of a schematic? Currently it's a difficult procedure to add/remove netlist data to newly placed symbols/pins and can be confusing to the user. Or maybe there is already a simple method and I can't find it.?? I appreciate the ALIGN tool, it's a very useful enhancement and long overdue.

By Jerry GenPart on November 11, 2009
Hi,

I think you perhaps posted on the wrong topic here, but I'll answer your question. There is a table-based method (Allegro System Architect) which allows you to provide logical/physical connectivity to Allegro PCB Editor without developing a schematic.
By BobD on November 13, 2009
Hey Jerry,

Thanks a lot for linking to my piece! I appreciate it. It was interesting to read the details you shared as well- particularly the bit about Google-esque beta standards.

As AEs we have access to internal issue-tracking databases so we don't use Online Support as much as our customers do. Because of this, I remain very interested in hearing what folks have to say about this new Cadence Online Support mechanism.

Your friend from Digital Implementation,
Bob

By Evan Shultz on November 16, 2009
Hi Jerry,


Great article! And thanks to Bob for the info-packed blog about COS.


I think COS is a massive upgrade over SourceLink, and leaves only a bit to be desired. The lack of emails can be a bit irritating, but I understand wanting to get the site going in a functional state first.


To Bob's point about issue-tracking, I'm bummed I can't view all CCRs, or even just my own CCRs. I know this is an often-requested feature from other customers and I'd hoped to see the Cadence support overhaul include this capability. I can think of many circumstances in which customer-visibility of CCRs would be useful. I've used the Feedback link in COS to submit this request to the COS folks.


Nonetheless, I'm much happier using COS than SourceLink starting from the first time I tried COS on Oct. 26. Far more information is at my fingertips (mouse cursor??) with less work, and the improvements in viewing search results and then optionally refining the search results are terrific! Being able to so easily filter the search results, and having the different types of search results segregated by type by default, makes finding the information I want, or discovering the information I want doesn't exist, so much simpler!


It's also easier to get to all the different corners of COS, while in some areas of SourceLink you had to go back to the main page because direct links to all the SourceLink sections didn't exist.


As far as COS being Beta: I have full faith COS will leave Beta at some point. With Google software, as good as it may be in Beta, you never know when, or even if, it will ever leave Beta!



By Jerry GenPart on November 16, 2009
Hi Evan!

Thanks for your feedback. You're right, the Email notifications will be coming soon and it was a decision by the Cadence Online Support team to get the system in the hands of the customers sooner than later (even with a few missing features).

As for the viewing of CCRs - you can see those linked to specific SRs. Are you looking for a list of just CCRs (without SR data)?

By Evan Shultz on November 18, 2009
Hi Jerry,

I suppose many customers, me included, use the early adopter features in Allegro. Those are "beta". And Adobe released Flash Player 10.1 prerelease yesterday which works well with certain hardware/software combinations. Just furthering the point that releasing Beta "stuff" is far from unique.

Regarding the CCRs, I'd like to be able to see the "meat" of the CCR. Like what was submitted by the AE, not just the CCR number and some priority info. I can see all the emails that went back and forth between myself and the AE with a SR, and I'd like to see that same information for a CCR. Plus, I can only see my own CCRs, not all CCRs.
By Jerry GenPart on November 18, 2009
Ah - OK, Evan - thanks for clarifying the CCR requirements.

We've discussed this in the past (how much CCR detail to make available on-line). There's a balance between providing the entire contents (unfiltered) and specific CCR fields. I can personally say that on occasion, the CCR discussions between R&D and the Support AEs can turn into debates and we don't need to make that public. We've talked about a customer "notes" field where we can incorporate more content for the CCR. Ultimately though, the SR is where all the communications should reside.
I know you've already provided formal feedback via the Cadence Online Support link for seeing all CCRs - so we'll see what happens there.

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