DraftSight Community-Based Support

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DraftSight!  Ever since June 2010 when it was first launched, there’s been a lot of buzz about this new 2D CAD for reading, writing and sharing DWG files. I’m not going to tell you more about the product. I’m here to talk about Support.

So, what’s different about DraftSight? Well the major difference is that support is available through an online community!

DraftSight Community on SwYm

To get support on DraftSight, you need to register on 3DSwYm (See what You mean), Dassault Systèmes’ online collaborative platform. Then, you’ll get access to the DraftSight community.

Let me guide you a little, in case you’re not familiar with 3DSwYm.  Each SwYm community offers features like blogs, surveys, media and iQuestions (a question-and-answer functionality similar to Yahoo! Answers).

If you need support, all you have to do is ask a question and it will be answered by the community. The best answers will be promoted and validated by the other members.

Of course, among the community members, there are some official people from DraftSight support, like Annika Nauheimer. It shouldn’t be too difficult for you to find her, as well as the rest of her team.

“We all started using the same alias ‘DraftSight Technical Support’ and quickly recognized that this is not really going to work for the community. So we decided to create a new profile for everyone consisting of a surname and a short description, which is working out much better, makes support more ‘human’.”

draftsight cocreation crowdsourcing support help team soliworks 3DS dassault systèmes systemes systems catia enovia simulia 3Dvia delmia 3D modeling PLM 2.0 CAD simulation digital manufacturing design engineering regulations collaboration co-create product creation innovation

There are currently 1,119 iQuestions and 81 blog posts with a total of 414 comments. The posts getting most of the attention are those related to the learning resources and guide.

Community-Based Support

Annika supports DraftSight users every day on SwYm so I was curious to know what changes it made in her working life.

“At the beginning it was a bit strange to know that everything we are going to answer goes out to a live community instantly, so it took a bit longer to answer iQuestions or post something to the blog as everything got double checked 10 times to make sure there were no spelling mistakes etc. But I am literally just talking about the first few days, this disappeared quite soon after we started working in the community.”

draftsight cocreation crowdsourcing support help team soliworks 3DS dassault systèmes systemes systems catia enovia simulia 3Dvia delmia 3D modeling PLM 2.0 CAD simulation digital manufacturing design engineering regulations collaboration co-create product creation innovation

“A great thing to see is how the community starts to get its ‘own life’ where users from all over the world help each other. We have a great number of Linux users who surprise us every day with their inspiration. Our mission in the community is to supplement the knowledge being shared, not to drive it. And it seems that we are on a good way!”

I totally share Annika’s enthusiasm and think that community-based support makes a big difference.  Direct and instant communication with users, this is clearly the future of support.

What do you think?

Best,

Matthias

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