Just curious. I’m on a student license - so don’t deal with a VAR - and I was wondering if this was a thing. It would seem like a logical move for Dassault to make, bring all the VAR/customer interactions ‘in-house’ where they can keep an eye on them. Each VAR would have their own private community only visible to them and their customers (and the all-seeing-eye).
I rarely deal with my VAR (asking in forum is faster 
) but I dont think this will be the case…
I doubt they will make the move too… Creating a private community for the VAR seem a bit unrealistic.
The different customer (customer A and B) will never want to be at the same community (proprietary file, patent, nda agreement issue, etc)
Nothing can beat good old fashion way of emailing each other…
All the VAR’s I’ve worked with, stayed far away from all the SolidWorks fora. They all had their own business plans, and probably ashamed of the advice and help they could give.
Good point, I never thought of that. Yeah, you would need a separate private community for every customer; not practical. But I suppose it could be done with some sort of ‘private messaging’ within the platform.
Please dont give them any idea… 
Private messaging, i assume you mean “the conversation” function…
Attaching file will be a headache (which is already a headache now)
Unable to archive / search for the past discussion will be another headache (which is also already a headache now)
Oh and do you know the conversation suppose to get deleted automatically if no activity for 30 days
Thanks for your insights. But I’m thinking that Dassault can dictate who can and cannot sell their product. They could easily make it compulsory for VARS to conduct customer-service on their terms.
From what I saw early on the majority of the activity, question answering over there was being done by DS employees or VARs. I have no idea if DS “Strongly suggested” VAR’s come there or whether some just thought it was a good idea but there were several with a presence there.
I doubt that VAR’s would see this as any type of replacement for their current customer support but, at least historically, it was a great resource and VAR’s would be remiss to ignore it. I’ve, on many occasions, gotten answers from the forum(s), that the VAR’s said “did not exist” or just better answers than what was provided by VAR’s. This is not to say “The forum is better than VAR’s” it’s just the nature of the beast, 10,000 heads are better than 10.
The SW VAR’s I’ve dealt with have really been stellar, but as above, it’s really hard to compete on certain really tough issues with the width and breadth of knowledge in a large forum.
From the look of it, nobody really used the platform until forum moved over.
Some said they have 300 communities. But never see the problems we see?
The platform worked for over 3 years and we just found all the problems?
Good to know I’m in a special need group.
Those saying they have 300 communities are companies that are using the 3DSyWm platform as it was intended to be used, IE small collaborative groups. They wouldn’t see most of the issues we see because their use of the platform is largely different.
I’d even go so far as to say that some of the functional problems we see are largely because the infrastructure of the platform is not meant to be used for groups of 100’s or 1000’s all leaving messages and attempting to communicate. Knock that number down to 10 people and maybe many of the “Hey this just doesn’t work” problems go away.
Am reminded of “Dunbar’s Number” - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191001-dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships
. . . I believe online forums also obey this rule; lots of transient noobs and silent spectators of course, but never any more than a hundred-or-so ‘regulars’ - usually much less.
Each customer that adopts the 3DX Platform is designated their own SWYM Community. In that community will be DS employees including R&D, the relevant VAR employees and of course the customer platform members. The community can be used for enhancement requests or raising any problems etc.