Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft Office Importer’

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Unconventional business practices thrust into the public eye!

Monday, 7 July 2008

Clearwater, Florida, USA —When the MicroStation Today editor asked me for an article about the latest release of Microsoft Office Importer, I was a little surprised because this release isn’t the type that usually makes headlines.

I told the editor — his name is Wil — that this would have to be more about unconventional business practices and why I love my job than about any single new Microsoft Office Importer feature or refinement. With a quizzical look, he told me “Go for it, just don’t miss the deadline.” Well, okay. [Editor's note: He missed the deadline.]

Having the best software products in our field affords opportunities unavailable to most companies. Most software companies are under constant fire from competitors. These competing groups spend a lot of time keeping up with each other. For example: Microsoft Windows has Apple’s OS X, Intuit’s Quicken has Microsoft Money and Bentley has Autodesk. Breaking from the software theme, television news shows have each other, for better or worse. And the entire auto industry has, believe it or not, Toyota, the quiet juggernaut of efficiency. Toyota knows how to listen to the little guy on the factory floor and constantly improve their car creation process. They’re going to be around for a long time producing ever more reliable cars because they listen to the man on the production line and constantly improve their operations based on that feedback.

For Axiom, having little to no competition for most of our products is the result of almost two decades of Toyota-like quiet innovation, constantly listening to customers, consolidating gains and doing what worked before, over and over again. This has put us in a position where we don’t have to spend time implementing minimally useful features added by our competition just to look good on a feature comparison chart. Instead, we can spend our time really finding out what our customers need and giving it to them. Because, believe me, predicting and fulfilling the needs of the MicroStation community is a full-time affair with no end in sight.

As a product manager, this hard-earned market position means I get to do things that really matter, often even things that matter to just single users. I love what I do and it’s great to be able to practice my craft someplace where there is so much contact with end users. It’s like working for a startup company but without all the stress. I like waking up to go to work.

Anyway, a little bit about this project. As you probably know, Microsoft Office Importer is a tool used by innumerable MicroStation professionals to bring Excel and Word data into MicroStation with amazing formatting and control, maintaining a link to the source document for automatic future updating when the source document changes.

We have our eyes on a lot of exciting, major new Importer features for the future. But this project was about the little things, like adding enhancements here and there that make the importing experience better for users.

There was the fella in Fargo that had a problem when his paths contained an exclamation point. He was a very nice guy, by the way, but we would have fixed this even if he wasn’t.

Then there were some non-English-language users who had trouble importing charts from Excel, a feature we recently added. Fixed. And while we were in there we ensured it would be fixed for every language we could think of.

Then we figured out how to scale imported chart data even better than we’d done when we originally added chart support. We figured out how to take one step out of it for the user. No one had asked for it, but we knew we had to make it as good as it could possibly be and that users would benefit from the improvement, whether they noticed it or not. With the knowledge that it could be better came the responsibility to make it better. Microsoft Office Importer’s chart scaling is now as awesome as its chart formatting and we learned some things along the way.

There were a lot more little fixes like these in the project, usually for one or two customers that ran into a problem. But we didn’t discriminate, we fixed things for big companies, too. We feel an obligation to do our best regardless of how many seats of software it will sell. If we’re going to do something, we want to do the best job we possibly can. That’s the secret to our success. Rounding out the project, after we’d made our fixes and improved the existing features, we threw in a new feature: Support for Excel’s diagonal border lines.

I want customers who can’t help but rave about the tools I provide. I’m serious about using the best possible software myself. When I find something that’s a cut above the rest, I can’t shut up about it. I tell my friends, my colleagues and I even try to tell my wife. She just sort of pats me on the head kindly with her eyes. That’s our goal — users who can’t shut up about how much time they save with Axiom’s tools and how easy they are to use.

If there’s any way you can see to improve Microsoft Office Importer, please drop me a line.

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Saving time, saving money and getting the job done

Saturday, 7 June 2008

Clearwater, Florida, USA — Maybe you’ve heard stories of Axiom’s time-saving MicroStation utilities salvaging the “unsalvageable” design file, or completing 200 man-hours of work in a matter of minutes.

Making MicroStation work easier, faster and more efficiently puts more money in the bank and more time in your weekend. Isn’t that where they belong?

Now it’s time to hear it straight from the individual owners of MicroStation Productivity Toolkit:

Doing weeks of work in three hours
“Last week I was asked to ‘convert’ approximately 200 drawings from an existing design for re-use in a new project. The task required all existing reference and mark numbers on all drawings be re-mapped to new project numbers, including a few commonly used permutations.

“Naturally, the project manager had left it to the last minute to assign this task, and was worried that he wouldn’t achieve the first submission date — especially after he’d unsuccessfully tried to find and replace the numbers manually in a trial-run of ten drawings.

“He was skeptical when I told him I could do all of them this afternoon if he wanted. All I required was an Excel spreadsheet with the old and new numbers. “Once I had the spreadsheet, it took me 30 minutes to re-format the data for Global File Changer to import, and a couple of hours for it to process all 200 drawings — less than three hours in all. To do this manually would probably have taken us weeks!

“Now, instead of being slightly behind schedule, his project is a few weeks ahead of schedule!

“This is just one example of the many tasks I’ve been able to use MicroStation Productivity Toolkit for — I highly recommend it for any organization processing large numbers of DGNs or DWGs.” C.A.

Increasing productivity with no side-effects
“Just to let you know, it is working perfectly. Thanks for your help.

“The replace cell is also working fine, it’s impressive to see that the cells update without losing the tag values.

“Most often with MicroStation, I find that something else goes wrong when trying to fix another [problem] or that the fix available is limited in scope or incomplete by nature.

“It is quite amazing how Axiom tools can handle all the oddities and offer perfect solutions without side effects.” M.B.

Doing the work of six draftsmen in three hours
“I love it! It’s very easy to use. I did the work of six draftsmen in three hours. I saved 15 to 16 hours of work. This tool can be used so many ways. I want to get it for my whole department. I really, really like this tool. And I got excellent help down there [at Axiom]. I called in and they helped me a lot. You have a good team down there. We also use FileFixer all the time, everyone does.” D.D.

Meeting (or beating) project deadlines
“I want to thank you and your staff for your exceptional service in getting the V7 and V8 Office Importer to me at the drop of a hat. It made a big difference and the job went out on time. Great tool. “Thank you for all of your efforts and I will be in touch.” R.O.

Making translations from MicroStation to AutoCAD a cakewalk
“The majority of our projects have AutoCAD deliverables and have to be translated from USTN [MicroStation] to AutoCAD. We could never accomplish this without the Axiom Toolkit. Can’t do without it.” D.D.

Handling messed up design files before it’s too late
“We mainly use the FileFixer product, and we use it to fix corrupt files and to make sure files are clean when we send them out of the office. I can not measure the financial savings of the product has given us, but I can say that it has saved us time when fixing corrupt files. This can be much quicker than retrieving from our archives.” J.H.

Making MicroStation work easier
“We use the Office Importer and RefManager very often. Even if those two products were the only tools used, I would be totally satisfied.” D.L

Changing 1,300 reference attachments at once
“Thank you very much for your time… I now love RefManager. I wasn’t looking forward to changing 1,300 reference attachments manually.” C.S.

Changing hundreds of drawings in two minutes
“I changed 241 drawings in about two minutes! Thanks!” D.W.

Fixing misbehaving design files
“We have utilized the Axiom tools set since [MicroStation] version SE and are happy with the results. Although we do not use it on a daily basis, we have used it most often for fixing designs that exhibit bad behavior and RefManager for fixing reference file attachment locations, aliases and settings.” J.L.

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How to win the war on MicroStation terror

Wednesday, 7 May 2008

MicroStation users overcome fearsome productivity barriers!

Clearwater, Florida, USA — Have you ever encountered a situation that made you want to send an SOS?

  • You’re in the trenches. 250 design files and their reference files must be submitted tomorrow and you notice all the links to the reference file attachments are broken.
  • You think you are done and notice that your client’s company name is misspelled in 300 design files.
  • After taking hours to import a spreadsheet containing the costs of all the materials involved in a project, you discover the spreadsheet has been updated and has almost completely changed. Now you have to go back and re-import!
  • You are ready to submit the design file to your client. Suddenly the system crashes and an error message comes in: “Unable to open design file. Please contact your local site administrator blah blah blah…”

Should you send up the white flag? No — you call Axiom.

Our goal, at Axiom, is to help you win the war against MicroStation production barriers. We want to help you handle MicroStation problems, save time and meet your project deadlines. Find out how others have dealt with missed deadlines, late nights, lost weekends and upset clients. In this article, we share some of our all-time favorite war stories with you.

How to save time, meet deadlines and look like a MicroStation genius as you easily handle everything that comes your way.
The tedium of repetitive manipulation of design files ties up valuable resources, consumes man-hours and devours project profits. With the tools in MicroStation Productivity Toolkit, expensive, time-consuming tasks can be a thing of the past.

Here’s what a few of our clients wanted you to know:

“Last week I was asked to convert 200 drawings from an existing design for re-use in a new project. The task required all existing references and mark numbers on all drawings be re-mapped to new project numbers. The project manager was worried that this would not be achieved by the first submission date, especially after a manual trial run of ten drawings. He was skeptical when I told him I could do all of them in one afternoon if he wanted. It took a couple of hours for Global File Changer to automatically process all 200 files, most of which time I was still productive doing other tasks. To do this manually would have taken weeks. Instead of being behind schedule, the project is a few weeks ahead of schedule!” C.A.

“[Before Microsoft Office Importer] there was a lot of time being wasted. We used to have to bring in spreadsheets one column at a time. Instead of wasting about an hour per revision, I used Microsoft Office Importer and handled the problem in four clicks of a mouse.” C.M.

“We recently had thousands of reference files that got messed up and would have taken at least two weeks to fix. RefManager fixed them automatically in four hours.” L.C.

“I now love RefManager! I wasn’t looking forward to changing 1300 reference file attachments manually.” C.S.

MicroStation quality of life
You can spare yourself the worry and aggravation of not having the tools you need to get the job done, by just having Toolkit ready in your arsenal. Our clients share how the versatility of MicroStation Productivity Toolkit relieves project anxiety:

“We started using Microsoft Office Importer on one of our larger projects and some of the Product Managers liked it so much that they started using it for the index and summaries of a lot of our smaller projects.” S.K.

“I use the tools in Toolkit every day and it’s invaluable. A problem will come up and I’ll say, ‘I bet we can solve that with Toolkit’, and we usually do.” L.C.
“Do yourself a favor and buy MicroStation Productivity Toolkit.” B. M.

Trouble getting everyone doing it right?
MicroStation Productivity Toolkit applications can be used to ensure project quality and standards — while still meeting deadlines. By submitting error-free designs on time, and meeting or exceeding your customer’s expectations, you’ll impress them and secure future business. SpecChecker (part of MicroStation Productivity Toolkit) is particularly handy for automating quality assurance checks and repairs. Here are some examples from MicroStation Productivity Toolkit owners:

“Using FileFixer and SpecChecker we are able to stop problems before they affect our schedules.” D.H.

“I’ve used SpecChecker to reorganize the symbology of elements in many of our design files. This saves me 85% of the work I would have had to do myself!” F.L.

“When dealing with lots of CAD files like I do, I don’t know how I could check all of them if I didn’t have SpecChecker.” S.A.

Save money and increase profits.
There is no better evidence of the cost-effectiveness of MicroStation Productivity Toolkit than the results owners achieve with it. MicroStation Productivity Toolkit owners explain:

“My company has a corporate Bentley license (about 30 sites) and this office was the first one to acquire Microsoft Office Importer. Every chance I get, I tell the other sites that it works and that within the first week, it paid for itself.” S.C.

“When it comes to the purchase of additional licenses of MicroStation Productivity Toolkit, money is not an issue. My guys rave about Axiom tools. Just the other day, we handled 6,000 design files with RefManager and it saved us an incredible amount of time.” M.E.

“I love FileFixer. It saves me many, many man-hours!” M.K.

“FileFixer alone makes MicroStation Productivity Toolkit worth it!” R.S.

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Insisting on the best — How CAD Manager Donnell Griffith handles the constant pressure to get the job done faster and easier

Thursday, 7 February 2008

New York City, New York, USA — CAD Manager Donnell Griffith was so impressed with Axiom products at his previous job, that when he came to work for Urbitran, he requested Title Block Manager, RefManager and Microsoft Office Importer straight away.

Donnell Griffith jumped at the opportunity to learn.

MicroStation Today: Hi Donnell, what are some of the problems you encounter in your position?
Donnell: Some of my problems? Well, I guess the same as any other CAD manager: drafting production, quality assurance – and anything else they decide to throw at me. The biggest problem I face is the constant pressure to get the job done faster and easier. Axiom’s products help me do that. The Axiom tools I currently have are Title Block Manager, RefManager and Microsoft Office Importer. Axiom products help me by saving time through automating time-consuming tasks.

I had this one situation on my last job, when I was at Jacobs, Edwards and Kelcey. We had a job that was over 1,000 drawings. The job was broken up so that we were working on it in three of our offices: Miami, Chicago and my office in New Jersey. We had three sub-consultants working on it as well. When the time came to combine all the work, there were many little changes that had to be made to make it all consistent. Then we would get new drawings, from Chicago or Miami, which meant all of the existing sheets had to be renumbered. Title Block Manager made it very easy to do the renumbering in batch. About 900 had to be renumbered in all. We basically had one title block we used on all the drawings but each office, with the help of Title Block Manager, would change it slightly to reflect that it was drawn in that office, you know: “drawn by,” “checked by,” and so on.

When the drawings were finally combined, with all the references attached, we used RefManager to handle the levels that needed to be turned off. Using RefManager allowed us to do this on many files at the same time.

We used Microsoft Office Importer to import large quantities of data from Excel. Since Microsoft Office Importer establishes a link between the spreadsheets and the design files, it was easy to update the many little changes we had to make to that data. That is why I requested getting those Axiom products at my new job. I have a job I am working on now that will require me to renumber about 500 title blocks. Title Block Manager will come in handy.

Another big way Axiom helped me was through their training. The trainers at Axiom showed me the best ways to use the products. It made life much easier.

MST: Donnell, you have a pretty interesting story on how you began in the CAD field. Can you tell us about that?
Donnell: I was introduced to CAD through a minority training program called JUMP in 1994. I couldn’t afford to continue in school and needed a job. I went to the business library in Manhattan and found a book on scholarships and internships. I made a few calls and got in the program. I have been in love with CAD ever since. [Editor’s note: The Joint Urban Manpower Program helps New York engineering firms meet equal opportunity and affirmative action requirements by recruiting and training females, minorities and disadvantaged individuals for entry-level drafting and construction inspection positions on New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) Engineering Agreements.

MST: What would you like to be doing in ten years?
Donnell: I would still like to be working within the CAD industry, something other than engineering and architecture. I would like to be doing something more creative and pushing the limit of what CAD can do.

MST: What do you think is your greatest accomplishment?
Donnell: I don’t think I have accomplished it yet. I am still young and I feel very good about the future. I see myself growing in the CAD field. I want to see how the CAD field grows too.

MST: What’s a book you wish you’d written?
Donnell: CAD: Making the Most of Computer Aided Design.

MST: If you could trade places with anyone for just one day, who would it be?
Donnell: New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg – he doesn’t need money.

MST: What do you predict will be the “next big thing” in CAD?
Donnell: I think the next big thing will be with hardware. The way we communicate with CAD drawings currently involves a lot of input. You don’t have as much freedom as you do when drawing with a pencil.

MST: Thanks, Donnell.

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New Year's resolution: Save time, reduce effort and maximize profit!

Monday, 7 January 2008

By Steve Palmer
Clearwater, Florida, USA — It’s almost midnight. You are wrapping up a project submittal for an important client. MicroStation keeps crashing when you attempt to open a vital project design file. The necessity for a FileFixer midnight miracle is abundantly real to you right now. Just press FileFixer’s <Start> button and you’re back to work in three minutes.

But FileFixer’s midnight miracles, despite being dramatic and life saving, are, in truth, only part of the story. FileFixer is just one of the vital applications in MicroStation Productivity Toolkit*.

MicroStation professionals, like you, can save time, reduce effort and increase profit continuously during the entire life span of all your MicroStation projects. Keep reading to see how Toolkit can benefit you all year long.

Get MicroStation Productivity Toolkit early this year and watch your company’s profit skyrocket.

At the beginning of a new project or new project phase, use FileFixer to ensure existing design files are healthy and whole before you rely on them. Use FileFixer for V7 to search for problems in your V7 files before moving them to V8. Use FileFixer for V8 to search for problems in your V8 files before corruption stops your project dead in its tracks. FileFixer can determine which files are healthy and which are likely to cause trouble – and FileFixer can automatically generate a list of the isolated troublemakers so you can immediately and efficiently repair them. This makes for fast and easy project preparation!

When setting up a new project, use CellManager to clean up and consolidate multiple, old, non-standard cell libraries. Eliminate the non-standard junk cells. Ensure your drafting staff start off new projects with one consolidated, fully-standardized cell library. The most recent release of CellManager allows you to easily select cells from one or multiple cell libraries and display just the cells you need for your project in a concise cell-selection palette.

If you are starting a new project or new project phase, use Global File Changer to standardize each project design file’s settings (locks, snaps, coordinate readout, view attributes – you name it!). Global File Changer can replace your obsolete or non-standard cells in multiple design files with the correct, standard cells (from the standardized cell libraries you just created with CellManager).

MicroStation users around the world use RefManager when they need to update reference file folder paths after moving project files to a new server or a new folder. RefManager can make short work out of standardizing attachment level settings or display settings in one or multiple master design files. Ahh, ready to go with perfect initial layout.

Plus, all Toolkit owners with active Axiom Maintenance Plus are eligible for unlimited support and on-line training. Get your questions answered fast at the start of your project (or as questions arise during your project). The entire Axiom team is at your disposal.

Project execution with Toolkit: Continuous time-saving ease
During the course of your project, use Microsoft Office Importer to import spreadsheets, charts and Word documents into your designs with perfect formatting. The beauty of Microsoft Office Importer is the ability to automatically update design files to keep your design files synchronized with the original spreadsheets, charts and Word documents.

RefManager is indispensable for updating or replacing reference file attachments as the project design progresses. Use RefManager’s “Clone and Replace” command to add new attachments (with proper settings and correct clipping) and easily replace existing attachments with the latest revision.

Wise MicroStation managers set up automated batch runs of FileFixer to search for problems once a week as projects progress. FileFixer creates a list of files with serious problems so you can repair corrupted files before they impact your work.

DgnCompare shows the differences between two versions of a design file. What was changed in the design file since last week? Was any billable work done? Is the project progressing on schedule? What did your staff do this week? CAD Managers can use DgnCompare’s reports to identify today’s drafting errors – making it possible to train or correct project staff now (to ensure standards are maintained for current and future projects). Get your staff (or subcontractors) re-trained fast and eliminate last minute end-of-project fixes. Get it done right, from the start.

When drafting work begins, use SpecMonitor to continuously monitor adherence to CAD standards as the work is done (not after-the-fact). SpecMonitor helps ensure the work is done right the first time – it’s also great for training new project personnel!

Project finalization with Toolkit: Preparation for submittal to client
When all project work is completed, use FileFixer to perform a final “Search for Problems” to ensure you don’t submit troublemaker files to your client.

SpecChecker can eliminate tedious manual proofreading. Just fire up SpecChecker and confirm whether or not all project files comply with your CAD standards. Plus SpecChecker can automatically correct violations of your standards. Going beyond traditional quality control, SpecChecker’s analysis of your files can also be used to correct and train your own project staff (or your subcontractors).

SpecChecker can eliminate tedious manual proofreading.

Resolution kept
Now that the majority of its clients have moved to MicroStation V8, Axiom is really pouring the coals on V8 development – adding enhancements more rapidly than ever. All Toolkit owners with active maintenance receive all product updates at no additional cost! There has been no better time to own Toolkit for V8.* [Editor's note: There are 16 applications in Toolkit for V8, 22 in the Toolkit for V7.]

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How to import Microsoft Office files into MicroStation with perfect formatting

Monday, 7 January 2008

Clearwater, Florida, USA — As product manager for Microsoft Office Importer, I recently spoke with a number of Microsoft Office Importer users about what, if anything, they needed from Microsoft Office Importer that it didn’t already do or that it could do better. I wanted to know how we could make it even better for them than it already is. Not surprisingly – to me anyway – the majority of users had no idea how it could be improved.

Since the customers I surveyed were already so happy, I took a different approach. I spoke with Axiom support and training staff.

By talking to them, I confirmed that the most frequent questions we get are about how to get the linked data to be the desired size in MicroStation when it is initially created by Microsoft Office Importer. I’ll explain how that works and show you how to do it.

Microsoft Office Importer is Axiom’s wildly popular tool for bringing Word document and Excel data (including Excel charts) into MicroStation with perfect formatting while maintaining a link to the original file for when it changes in the future.

How Microsoft Office Importer knows what text size to use

Like a cargo ship, Microsoft Office Importer can import large quantities of Word and Excel data (and even Excel charts) into MicroStation.

Microsoft Office Importer looks at the point size of text in the source file (an Excel spreadsheet, for example) and assigns a user-defined number of MicroStation master units to each point. Larger or smaller text is scaled at the same ratio. For example, if you set Microsoft Office Importer so that each point of text would be equal to 0.5 master units, that would bring ten-point text from a spreadsheet into MicroStation as five master units tall. 20-point text would come into MicroStation as double that: ten master units tall.

How to set text size
It’s easy to set this in Microsoft Office Importer:

  1. Select Microsoft Office Importer’s button.

    2. Setting text size is easy with Microsoft Office Importer. First, click on the <Settings> button.

  2. Then choose the “Size” tab.

    3. You’ll notice the height-to-width ratio is unlocked by default in the “Size” tab.

  3. Click on the icon to lock the height-to-width ratio. I’m assuming you’re starting with default settings, which are 1.0 height and 0.8 width.
  4. Type “0.5″ in the “Height” field. Then hit the key.

    5. >Hitting the <Tab> key after entering “0.5″ in the “Height” field will automatically update the “Width” field with the correctly proportioned value.

  5. Press <OK>.

That’s it! Really. You’ve just changed Microsoft Office Importer’s text scaling settings. These settings will affect your future Microsoft Office Importer pastes. That’s as hard as it gets, so you’ve got an easy road ahead using Microsoft Office Importer.

Making easy-to-use software isn’t actually easy. But it is fun and challenging and there’s always room for some kind of improvement. So please drop me a line at pm-office@AxiomInt.com if there is any aspect of Microsoft Office Importer that you believe can be improved.

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From city streets to drag strips to dams — An interview with Burns & McDonnell’s Frank Nelson

Wednesday, 7 November 2007

Kansas City, Missouri, USA — When MicroStation Today caught up with Frank Nelson at the Mid-Continent MicroStation Community (MCMC) summer conference in Kansas City, he was swamped. In addition to his busy life as project manager for Burns & McDonnell, he also volunteers as a vendor coordinator for the MCMC and just had a grandson.

Frank Nelson would like to introduce Wesley

MicroStation Today: You have been in the design field for almost 35 years now, how has your role changed?
Frank: In 1988, after 15 years of hand drafting and design, I purchased my first laptop with a 20MB hard drive and started learning drafting and designing in CAD. However, it was not until I joined Burns & McDonnell in 1998 that I encountered MicroStation and went from the world of AutoCAD to the world of MicroStation. I did have some adjustment time. About the time that I began to understand and become familiar with MicroStation V7, the Bentley folks took a quantum leap into V8. The introduction of V8 moved MicroStation from a good drafting/design platform to a great platform and from swearing at it to swearing by it. As a transportation/civil engineer, I have developed CAD designs in a dozen states and a couple foreign countries. These designs have included parking lots, city streets, state highways, sanitary sewers, a racetrack/dragstrip combination in Topeka, Kansas and roadway relocation for a water supply dam in Arkansas. I am a registered professional engineer in Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas.

MST: What is your official position? What are some of the problems that you encounter in your position?
Frank: My official position at Burns & McDonnell is Project Manager.

Putting together a set of plans for a state highway department always requires an inordinate amount of quantities tables, drainage area/storm sewer tables, design data tables and miscellaneous tables. In one particular set of plans for a highway improvement project for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT), there was a multitude of these tables and the scope of the project was continually changing (depending upon which ODOT manager had last reviewed it). Consequently, the tables were continually changing. I knew there must be an easier way than the old-fashioned way of copying parallel lines and entering text, then having to revise the entire drawing with every change. When I looked into importing the design spreadsheets, instead of drafting them into the drawing, I found that the spreadsheet import capabilities of MicroStation and Excel were entirely inadequate for the size of spreadsheets that the Oklahoma project required. Since Burns & McDonnell had Axiom’s MicroStation Productivity Toolkit, I decided to try Microsoft Office Importer. I was surprised and pleased. After I learned how to use Microsoft Office Importer, I could import our huge drawing-size spreadsheets with ease. The spreadsheets could be easily updated in Excel and Microsoft Office Importer’s linking capabilities would automatically update the table in the drawing. Additionally, if you took the time to set the spreadsheet up in a professional manner by formatting the cells, rows and columns, the result would be a sharp, professional looking table in the drawing. I was so pleased with the results that I presented a session on Microsoft Office Importer’s capabilities at our user group’s (MCMC) summer conference the next year.

The CAD gurus at Burns & McDonnell taught a course on FileFixer. Using FileFixer to put the data back in the right places saved my sanity. It was extremely frustrating to have worked many hours on a design drawing in MicroStation and GEOPAK and having it “crash” on you. You can see the hours that you and your other designers have spent on that drawing flash before your eyes and can only imagine how the loss of this drawing will impact your project deadline. Fortunately, the CAD gurus at Burns & McDonnell did get FileFixer for us and taught us how to use it.

I have begun using FileFixer for V8 on DGN files before I export them to the DWG format. Likewise, I use FileFixer for V8 on DWG files that I have imported into the DGN format. It is nice to have a tool like FileFixer for V8 that cleans up the loose ends that “get lost in the translation.”

Another Axiom product that I have used to solve a problem is LearningBay’s MicroStation V8 Essentials. This self-paced, computer-based learning program has increased my productivity in V8 by teaching both the basics, as well as some good tips and tricks for using V8. MicroStation V8 was relatively new when I first went through the program. I also plan to go through Axiom’s LearningBay courses on GEOPAK Drainage and Site.

As a project manager, I am also concerned about our design and detailing staff’s productivity on my projects. Most of them know how to use Microsoft Office Importer and FileFixer. However, there are many other tools in Axiom’s MicroStation Productivity Toolkit that could be of great benefit to our company if the staff were aware of them and knew how to use them. This August, we were fortunate to have Axiom’s Mr. Greg McKinney come to our MCMC summer conference. The day before the conference, I invited Mr. McKinney to come to Burns & McDonnell and give us a brief overview of all of the other tools in Axiom’s Toolkit. The luncheon session was packed. In addition to Greg’s interesting and informative presentation, the attendees were enthusiastic about the potential uses for these new tools. We appreciated Greg’s visit and his presentation. He also provided copies of Axiom’s excellent brochure “Time-Saving Tools for the Overworked MicroStation User” for all of the attendees.

Frank Nelson speeds up projects with FileFixer and Microsoft Office Importer.

MST: Where would you like to be in ten years?
Frank: Retired. Maybe teaching and playing with CAD and dabbling in design on a part-time basis.

MST: What do you predict will be the “next big thing” in CAD?
Frank: What I’d like to see as the “next big thing” in CAD is for Axiom to put together a self-paced, computer-based LearningBay program on MicroStation Productivity Toolkit and other tools. It was nice to have Greg come to tell us about all the tools, but unless my staff can get trained on them, odds are they won’t use them to their fullest potential, if at all. Like every tool, whether it’s a simple claw hammer or a multi-million-dollar jet fighter, the productivity increase that the user gets from that tool is directly proportional to the user’s capability to use that tool. Training increases capability, which in turn increases productivity.

MST: Thanks, Frank.

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Increase productivity with Axiom training.

Wednesday, 7 November 2007

By Fredrick R. Kenniston III
Clearwater, Florida, USA — You hold your tongue as you say, “How many times do I have to tell you how to locate what library a certain cell is in?” to a somewhat bewildered co-worker. I know, you probably never get impatient, but this is the third time he has been back, almost begging you to tell him, again, how to locate this same cell.

It starts off simple enough. You take a co-worker or member of your design team aside, you start explaining how to do a particular thing and you get very polite indications they are following what you are saying, like “I see, yeah, okay.” You know, despite his reassurance, that he does not really understand what you are saying. Sure enough, after a period of time, that same person is back – asking how to do that same thing. This chews up very valuable time for you, the person you are attempting to train, and your company.

Almost every profession, skill or job requires some form of training to ensure one is proficient enough to utilize the tools and do the actions. This holds especially true when it comes to the general subject of computer training. The more specialized the subject, like learning Bentley and Axiom products, the more important it is.

When I started working at Axiom twenty years ago, I had good basic electronics, computer and communications training and skills, acquired during my enlistment in the US Navy. However, when I started working in the very technical field of computer-aided design, it was like learning a foreign language. Fortunately for me, I also had some very knowledgeable and experienced people around me, like David Greenbaum, CEO of Axiom, that made learning this field a lot less painful than it otherwise might have been.

Since then, I have had to train many others on their computer basics and also on MicroStation and Axiom products. Over the years, I learned one very important thing: If I only told a person how to do something with Bentley or Axiom product, they wouldn’t retain the information. I would have to train them on that very same thing again at a later time. You have probably experienced this yourself.

Axiom’s Frederick Kenniston uses his wealth of experience to deliver online training straight to your desktop.

Online training
About five years ago, Axiom started offering its Axiom Maintenance Plus service. This includes support, updates and other benefits, like online training for the Axiom products covered. (Note: Contact your Axiom MicroStation Consultant for exact details on what Axiom Maintenance Plus covers).

Axiom’s online training covers the basics of Axiom products. It also gives you and your design team answers to questions like:

  • How do I use RefManager to turn the reference file display off, in views four through eight, in all my master files?
  • How do I set the scale factor for text in an Excel file that I am pasting it into a MicroStation file using Axiom’s Microsoft Office Importer?
  • How do I set up a timed execution of FileFixer to run after normal business hours?

Each online training session is designed to cover the basics of a particular Axiom product. Because it is live, we can tailor the training on the fly to cover the things you want covered. This makes Axiom’s online training much more effective overall. Here is what one supervisor said about their group attending one of our online training sessions:

“Everyone on our team was very impressed with the training. I work within a team of five, and out of that, one team member had no background in MicroStation. He was very happy with how easily he could follow.”

Suite 16
Most of you are probably already familiar with Axiom’s MicroStation Productivity Toolkit for V8. However, have you ever counted up how many products are actually included in our MicroStation Productivity Toolkit for V8? Well, if you haven’t, this suite of time-saving MicroStation tools consists of sixteen separate products! Learning even the basics of each product on your own would not be a light undertaking.

Catch 22 resolved.
Axiom’s programming department works very hard to help make our programs as intuitive and easy to use as possible. Based on success stories and feedback from our customers, our products are intuitive and easy to use. A great majority of our clients successfully utilize our products every day. However, you do have deadlines to meet and time-sensitive production requirements, leaving you precious little time to sit down and run through, for example, the FileFixer for V8 Quick Start on your own. You know that Axiom’s products will help you and your co-workers, but you are so swamped you haven’t had time to learn them. So, what do you do, given the lack of time you have for learning such things? You call Axiom and get scheduled for online training! Do it now, right away!

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Your wish is our command (or macro).

Tuesday, 7 August 2007

Customer-driven enhancements in every Axiom product release

Clearwater, Florida, USA — It’s no surprise that the world’s most experienced developer of time-saving MicroStation software solutions is also the most responsive to customer requests.

Despite being the oldest and largest third-party solutions provider for MicroStation internationally, Axiom remains spectacularly youthful and agile. Axiom’s developers have completed more than 150 customer-driven application releases in the last year alone — those releases include more than 1,000 enhancements from our customer-request database!
Congratulations and thanks to all MicroStation users who contributed great product-enhancing ideas and who continue to inspire Axiom developers to excel every day. The entire MicroStation community has benefited greatly from your input. Read on — see if you can spot one of your suggestions.

Like the genie of the lamp, Axiom’s customer-driven enhancements make your time-saving wishes come true.

Microsoft Office Importer
Microsoft Office Importer enables MicroStation users to import and link nearly unlimited quantities of spreadsheet data into MicroStation easily, with proper formatting and reliability. Microsoft Office Importer is a consistent favorite amongst MicroStation users.

Some recent customer-driven enhancements include:

  • Users can now automatically update all of the Microsoft Office Importer links inside the active design with the new “office updateall” key-in command.
  • All of Microsoft Office Importer’s main functions can be conveniently accessed directly from the Axiom menu.

The upcoming release of Microsoft Office Importer will blow your socks off — watch for headlines in MicroStation Today! [Editor's note: After personally seeing demonstrations of the Microsoft Office Importer beta, I can confirm your socks are indeed in danger.]

FileFixer
FileFixer, the sophisticated file analysis and corruption repair utility for MicroStation design files, is arguably the best-known third party application in the MicroStation world.

FileFixer for V8 specializes in MicroStation V8 file corruption. The original FileFixer (for V7) specializes in pre-V8 file corruption.

Both versions of FileFixer are relentlessly enhanced by Axiom’s development team, who are driven to diagnose and remedy corruptions found in design files submitted by MicroStation users from around the world.

FileFixer for V8 is the only application available anywhere that can open and automatically repair the most severe new forms of V8 design file corruption. We use actual customer files, which have been submitted to Axiom for analysis and repair, in the development and testing of FileFixer.

Although FileFixer fixes most forms of corruption totally automatically, sometimes you want to know exactly what is wrong with your file. Axiom realizes the scope and variety of design file corruption can be daunting to the uninitiated. FileFixer’s user’s guide is substantial! When MicroStation can’t open one of your project files, you don’t have time to read the FileFixer user’s guide from cover to cover. You do need to understand what’s wrong with your mangled design file and what FileFixer can do about it. The newest versions of FileFixer have links to precise passages in its documentation to help you understand what you want to know instantly. Schedule a free on-line demonstration to see how this works!

Global File Changer
Global File Changer and its trusty sidekick, the Element Selection utility, pair up to provide MicroStation users with the ultimate batch processing solution. Global File Changer can perform virtually any imaginable modification to one or thousands of project design files in one processing run. If your project consists of more than one design file (and whose project doesn’t), Global File Changer will probably pay for itself before you can peel off the shrink-wrap.

Global File Changer’s Element Selection utility leaves MicroStation’s “Select By Attributes” command in the dust. Using the Element Selection utility, virtually any attribute can be used to precisely select elements for processing by Global File Changer. For example, you can isolate shapes by fill color, number of vertices, range or even perimeter size! Sorry “Select By Attributes”.

Examples of recent customer-driven Global File Changer enhancements include the ability to modify text in tags, dimensions and shared cell definitions. That’s our job — making your work with MicroStation faster and easier.

RefMerge
RefMerge combines a design file and all of its reference files into a single output file — for one or all of your project master files at once. The resulting output files look the same as the originals, but are easier to manage.

Just a few ways RefMerge distinguishes itself from MicroStation include RefMerge’s ability to:

Recognize when a reference file’s color table differs from the master file’s color table and automatically remap attachment colors to the closest color match in each merged output file. This ensures merged output appearance matches the original master file.

Automatically rename merged output files by changing the extension of the merged file to “.mer” (preserving your original master file, leaving it as it was before the merge) and, optionally, adding a prefix or suffix to the output file name. For example, “Sheet1.dgn” becomes “Sheet1_archive.mer”.

(Optionally) move the geometry from each reference file to user-definable levels in merged output files. This allows reference content to be turned on or off (by level) in merged output files as if the reference files were still attached.

And RefMerge for V8 now merges 3D master and 3D reference files!

An on-line demonstration is worth a thousand words.
Shucks — this article has only mentioned four of the applications included in Axiom’s MicroStation Productivity Toolkit! [There are 22 applications in the V7 Toolkit and 16 applications in the V8 Toolkit.]

Words cannot do justice to the productivity-increasing power-boost available to MicroStation Productivity Toolkit owners.

Take a Toolkit test drive on-line without leaving your desk! Our friendly, knowledgeable technicians will answer your questions and advise you on how MicroStation Productivity Toolkit can catapult your projects forward! How much is a free on-line consultant worth to you? [Go ahead — try to stump the instructor.]

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With MicroStation Productivity Toolkit, help is there when you need it.

Thursday, 7 June 2007

Clearwater, Florida, USA — Sometimes there’s not enough time in the day to resolve MicroStation issues and get your design work done. That can mean working nights and weekends to make deadlines. That’s bearable once in a while, but it’s no way to live, is it? Well, in case you hadn’t heard yet, there’s a suite of software products specially designed to provide you the MicroStation help, speed and efficiency you need, when you need it — Axiom’s MicroStation Productivity Toolkit.

Design file corruption emergencies? Violations of CAD standards? Deadlines threatened by time-consuming tasks? With MicroStation Productivity Toolkit, you will have all the tools you need to quickly handle MicroStation emergencies.

Axiom has versions of Toolkit available for both V7 and V8 MicroStation users. The tools contained in each Toolkit undergo continuous updates and improvements so that they can meet your changing needs. Here are some of the breakthroughs achieved in just the past 100 days:

It’s not possible to describe all the new releases and enhancements in the space available here. (So call for an online demonstration!)

  • FileFixer for V8 now handles all major categories of V8 design file corruption discovered in customer files. FileFixer for V8 is the only application available anywhere that can open and repair files containing the most severe forms of V8 corruption.
  • Microsoft Office Importer enhancements continue relentlessly. Recent user interface improvements make it easier than ever to use. It’s no surprise that Microsoft Office Importer’s ability to flawlessly import spreadsheets of any size, with flexible formatting (unachievable with MicroStation), has made it one of the most broadly used MicroStation third-party utilities of all time.
  • RefMerge for V8, the software that automatically merges a design file and any or all of its reference files into one design file, now supports 3D files.
  • Global File Changer’s Modify Text command now allows MicroStation users to make batch changes to text in tags and dimensions — impossible with MicroStation alone. These are just two of the eight recent Modify Text command enhancements.

The facts behind the legend
If you haven’t witnessed it yet for yourself, you’ve probably heard legends about Axiom’s MicroStation Productivity Toolkit speeding up projects, saving time and increasing profits for MicroStation shops around the world every day.

“I love RefManager — I wasn’t looking forward to changing 1,300 reference file attachments manually,” says Chris Seymour-Smith of Capita Percy Thomas.

Here are the benefits that every MicroStation site will get when they own Axiom’s MicroStation Productivity Toolkit:

Jean-Paul Pors of Philips Medical Systems reaches new automation heights with CellManager.

  • Free product enhancements. Toolkit owners with Axiom Maintenance Plus receive all product enhancements (such as those described earlier) for the version they own (V7 or V8) at no additional cost.
    “[With CellManager for V8], we already reached a higher automation level than we dared to dream of,” exclaims Jean-Paul Pors of Philips Medical Systems.
  • Unlimited support. Toolkit owners with Axiom Maintenance Plus are eligible for unlimited support at no additional cost. The entire Axiom team is available for help.
    Jason Cosgrove of Volkert & Associates tells us, “All of my experiences with Axiom and the staff, especially technical support, have been outstanding. The technical support staff that we have worked with deserve a special recognition for helping us work through some very difficult problems. Thanks!”
  • Free online training. With Axiom Maintenance Plus, you and your colleagues can participate in online training, scheduled at your convenience, without leaving your desk! Axiom professionals can deliver training to you and your colleagues on any or all MicroStation Productivity Toolkit applications.
    “The Axiom training was more than enough for my employees to get started using RefManager. RefManager works very well and the training provided us with the knowledge to use its full capabilities,” says Jorge Serrano of Ameren.
  • Purchasing the full MicroStation Productivity Toolkit saves you money — it’s by far your best value. For instance, if you’re planning to purchase a single-computer license of FileFixer, RefManager and Global File Changer (just three of the applications in Toolkit), you can pay just ten dollars more and receive the entire MicroStation Productivity Toolkit (rather than individual applications). If you think that’s a good deal, the savings are really astounding for site and corporate licenses! If you plan to purchase a site license of FileFixer, RefManager and Global File Changer, pay just ten dollars more and receive a site license of the entire MicroStation Productivity Toolkit!

The savings are similar regardless of the individual Toolkit applications you are considering. If you already own Axiom tools, you can upgrade from one, two or three individual applications to the full Toolkit and save a bundle. Hard to believe? Axiom MicroStation Consultants stand ready to answer any questions you might have.

Even if you can’t immediately envision fully utilizing all of the 22 applications in Toolkit for V7 or the 16 applications in Toolkit for V8, pay just ten dollars more and you’ll have the full Toolkit arsenal available whenever you need it.

“I want to thank you and your staff for your exceptional service in getting the V7 and V8 Microsoft Office Importer to me at the drop of a hat. It made a big difference and the job went out on time. Great tool,” declares Richard Odum of Ghyabi & Associates.

That’s why Axiom wants MicroStation Productivity Toolkit at your site.

MicroStation sites around the globe use MicroStation Productivity Toolkit to save time, reduce costs and increase profits.

Add up free on-line training, free enhancements, the entire Axiom team that is available to support your projects and you have compelling reasons why you should own and use MicroStation Productivity Toolkit!

Take it from Bill Stout of Atlantic International Consulting Engineers who said it best, “The only piece of software that I use more than Axiom’s MicroStation Productivity Toolkit is MicroStation itself. This software [Toolkit] has saved me thousands of hours of work.”

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