Improvements to Onshape - May 28th, 2019

gerhard_swanepoel

Great job guys. I Like the BOM improvements as well as branch views in the detail pane.

Effendi_H

Nice improvement!! Thanks.

NeilCooke

owen_sparks said:

I might be wrong but I thought the EDU tier got the same as pro?

EDU is the same as Standard. 

mthiesmeyer

@Mehul_Gala

At this point we would recommend creating a custom property (something like URI/URL/Reference) that is enabled for Items and adding the URL to your (data sheets/instruction manuals/etc...) there. We have more direct connection plans in the works, but as always an improvement request to the right --->
can help guide us!

@sebastian_glanzner

When editing custom properties from company settings there is now an `Item` `Object type` that you can select. Checking this box will enable that custom property for your Items. Currently you cannot add the 'Material' property to Items. If this is something you would like to be able to do, please add an improvement request to the right ---------->

@owen_sparks

If your custom property was set to `All object types` then it would have been automatically enabled for Items. If you added the property to specific Object types (as in the screenshot you attached) you will need to manually add `Item` to those properties.

Best,

Mike

owen_sparks

@mthiesmeyer Doh, I was sure I checked that but it turned out I had two properties with very similar names and looked at the wrong one.  Thanks for setting me straight.

Owen S.

Yam_S

Great improvement with the BOM and Call Outs
Thanks

brian_brady

NeilCooke said:

owen_sparks said:

I might be wrong but I thought the EDU tier got the same as pro?

EDU is the same as Standard. 

I believe it used to be the same as Pro. Onshape is getting like Windows; free, standard, edu, deluxe, extra deluxe, semi-pro, pro, enterprise, super enterprise, etc. Will need to start having those great comparison charts with the checks and Xs to so you know what features you get or don't get. The great thing about Onshape used to be (and hopefully still is) that every level had the same CAD features, but this latest release changed that for at least one feature that I think is a CAD feature (not related to release management). Unless you don't count BOMs as CAD tools. 

I know I seem a bit extreme here, but this is how tipping points look. First it's one little thing, then somebody decide that certain groups are not paying enough for what they are getting and more features are held only for the highest paying customers. In the end, most big corporations end up being the same. I sure hope Onshape is the exception.

From Onshape's help documents for reference:

"Onshape Standard includes all of Onshape’s best-in-class parametric modeling functionality along with core data management tools."

"Education subscriptions allow the same working environment as the Professional subscription..."

Not the case anymore. Better fix the help document or align the product to your words.

edited to remove some attitude 

Steve_Leposa

This is some good content that will eliminate some of the extra work I was putting in to get drawings to follow our standards, keep it up Onshape!

NeilCooke

@brian_brady - thank you for pointing out the errors in the help documentation. Onshape was split into Professional (with companies) and Standard (without companies) when we introduced Release Management this time last year. Onshape Standard is intended for single users or small companies who don't need Release Management and we are assuming students don't need Release Management. BOMs are of course included in Standard, but custom properties (which includes Items) are company specific and therefore require Professional.

brian_brady

NeilCooke said:

@brian_brady - thank you for pointing out the errors in the help documentation. Onshape was split into Professional (with companies) and Standard (without companies) when we introduced Release Management this time last year. Onshape Standard is intended for single users or small companies who don't need Release Management and we are assuming students don't need Release Management. BOMs are of course included in Standard, but custom properties (which includes Items) are company specific and therefore require Professional.

BOM items are only custom properties because that is the way Onshape decided to roll it out. You are essentially telling non-Pro users that they don't have the need for BOM items. I cannot believe there was not another way to roll out BOM items for everybody to have access to them.

Regarding Release Management; I hope you honestly don't think a very small company or individual free-lance designer does not need to control their own releases?

Edited to remove some attitude.

owen_sparks

@brian_brady

Cough, Middle Tier, cough. 

Also "Ultimate Edition", "Day One Edition" and "Complete Edition" in the next cycle?

Being fair I don't think it's reasonable for a free used to "expect" new CAD adjacent features unless they've been prevented from purchasing the "Main" version or are being advertised at every 10 minutes of use in a free version.  It also  depends on the purpose of the free tier.  Is it a marketing tool, a helping hand for start-ups, an alternative to the 10-day-free-trial-demo used by other companies?

If it were me I'd throw banner adverts on the free version for say, McMaster Carr, Ebay, Amazon etc.

Owen S.

NeilCooke

brian_brady said:

Regarding Release Management; I hope you honestly don't think a very small company or individual free-lance designer does not need to control their own releases?

Of course not, but those companies can use Onshape's versioning system to manage Revisions. If formal Release Management and Approval Workflows are important to them, they can upgrade to Professional.

john_mcclary

Adverts in Onshape, say it aint so @owen_sparks! What do you think this is? Facebook?

To be honest, release management. Meh, the print button still works. RM is more of a headache for small companies anyway we have 30 people, and haven't given RM a second thought. Just hand them a print and say GO. If you have more than 30 people in a company, then you should have enough profit to afford a pro seat or two.

On the flip side EDU is about teaching students. (mainly) SO, having RM available for educational purposes makes way more sense than offering it to everyone, as that experience in proper release management will be invaluable when hiring in a new company that (most likely) does implement such tools.

brian_brady

owen_sparks said:

@brian_brady

Cough, Middle Tier, cough. 

Also "Ultimate Edition", "Day One Edition" and "Complete Edition" in the next cycle?

Being fair I don't think it's reasonable for a free used to "expect" new CAD adjacent features unless they've been prevented from purchasing the "Main" version or are being advertised at every 10 minutes of use in a free version.  It also  depends on the purpose of the free tier.  Is it a marketing tool, a helping hand for start-ups, an alternative to the 10-day-free-trial-demo used by other companies?

If it were me I'd throw banner adverts on the free version for say, McMaster Carr, Ebay, Amazon etc.

Owen S.

@owen_sparks I use the EDU tier because I teach. Designing with CAD is one of the subjects I teach. Since I started using the EDU version it was billed last the same as the PRO version. In fact, it still states that in the Help documents. Creating BOMs is a central part of creating a finished drawing package for release/build. Therefore I don't see BOM items as CAD adjacent, they are CAD. If we could manually change BOMs and add rows, then I could make due without BOM items. So could any of us. In that case, I would say the new functionality could be considered CAD adjacent since it is creating a common store house of non-part items for the company to access.

Onshape has marketed all of the tiers as having the same CAD features short of private versus public documents. The CAD adjacent features of release management, while very important, could be done another way for those not using Pro and above. I can understand why these features are withheld from the lower tiers because they don't directly affect making parts, assemblies, or drawings. Once they do (i.e. BOM items with no built-in alternative work around), then Onshape has changed their philosophy.

If ads were added to the free and EDU versions, I would take my time elsewhere and use another product to teach CAD.

I am not against paying for a product for educational use as long as the price reflects the actual amount of time the product will be used by students with respect to the amount of time it is used by professional designers. My program used to pay for Creo. Now we use Onshape for free. I still have to pay for part of a SW license (share it with another program) in order perform FEA because the state of free, feature rich FEA for educational users in Onshape is not good. The one I had nope for sold to Altair and they don't yet have educational pricing. I have hope that someday Onshape will roll out their own FEA for at least linear elastic, static analysis.

Enough rambling, I should get some work done.

owen_sparks

Sorry @brian_brady It certainly wasn't my intention to imply adds or reduced features should be in the EDU section, that's a totally different sub-set of users in my opinion.  To my mind they're future Pro's in training so having the Pro feature set makes the most sense to me.

For the adult non-educational free user then I'd take the youtube model.  Pay a subscription or watch some adverts.  No such thing as a free dinner.

Owen S.

lemon1324

owen_sparks said:

If it were me I'd throw banner adverts on the free version for say, McMaster Carr, Ebay, Amazon etc.

A McMaster banner ad might be the only ad in the history of the internet that I'd click.  Just brand it as a "helpful shortcut" for all us engineers and Onshape can get free money!

don_williams909

STILL waiting on being able to group items in the assembly tree to reduce the length of the tree, and also removing the Mates from the Assembly Tree altogether.  WAY too much scrolling folks.

nicholas_aarestad

You could just put a McMaster-Carr section in the "Standard Content" inserts and I would consider that far more of a feature than an ad.

Cache_River_Mill

This is da work of Gipsies!

emagdalenaC2i

@NeilCooke are you going to post the improvements this time?

NeilCooke

@emagdalenaC2i - unfortunately, I don't get the honour of doing that anymore    Not sure who unpinned this, but it's always a good sign