Rockwell Software Forums Cancelled

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Thread Starter

Anonymous

The ultimate method of censorship has struck. Rockwell Software has cancelled their forums.

It looks like they want to kill the free flow of information between customers. But, there is another way. Come here to Control.com.

In some ways it would not be so bad if the search engine for the knowledge base worked well. I often used their forum just to find a knowledge base article.
 
I agree –
Earlier this week I fired off the following email to Rockwell explaining my disgust in their removal of the forums (Never heard anything back from them):


I had to sit down and voice my concerns to your company over the new change to its website.

Your company recently dropped the “Software Forums” section from its website. I feel this has got to be one of the worst decisions your company has made.
Your website now directs people to use your “Rockwell Automation Knowledgebase” or “Get Support Now”. I’m sorry to say, but your company’s knowledge base and online support is cumbersome and unreliable compared to what those forums offered.

Those forums helped me and other people quickly and easily find answers to many Rockwell related software issues. Rockwell would rather I sit on the phone or take considerable amount of time typing out a email message in order to find a answer to a issue involving your software? Wouldn’t your company rather have its users be able to find the answer quickly and less difficult than forcing them to go through a much longer process?

As far as support goes - Rockwell has taken one big step backward and has made my life and other end users lives of your software much more difficult. It really boggles my mine as to the logic behind this action –those forums were not only a benefit to end users, but provided a great means of knowledge sharing that your company support department will never be able to match. My work involves using all types of Rockwell software and I’m always under the gun to get things working – now Rockwell has decided to take away one of the best tools I use in my job. The productivity of your end users during a software issue has greatly been decreased because of this action.

I really wish Rockwell would reconsider this decision on this and bring back those “Software Forums” as soon as possible.
 
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Steve Myres, PE

What the heck are they thinking? That was a great resource, probably saved them money on warranty calls, and could only result in their products being used to better effect and thus making those products look better. Probably some MBA got out of the padded ward on the locked floor at AB and started trying to make decisions.
 
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Nathan Boeger

I read this same thread elsewhere. I can only assume it's the same poster. I'm a huge fan of migrating integrators toward control.com!

I'll be posting to other forums promoting control.com. Here are a few: mrplc.com, tek-tips.com, controlon.com. Please post other similar forums and we can frequent them and promote users to control.com!

I'm also working on an open general support forum at my company web site. While parts will be centered around our software, it will be a good alternative platform for integrators to support other integrators. It's currently going up. It will be located at http://www.inductiveautomation.com/forum and soon http://forum.inductiveautomation.com

I'll get a sticky post referring users here! It's great to have a centralized, reasonably moderated forum for controls discussion. Viva control.com!

----
Nathan Boeger - [email protected]
http://www.inductiveautomation.com
"Design simplicity cures engineered complexity"
 
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Eddie Willers

I heard that Rockwell Software closed the RSI Forums because the legal department didn't think much of using Company resources to host attacks, complaints, and public abuse of Rockwell employees. I can't say I blame them.

It's not a matter of censorship, or trying to restrict flow of information.

Maybe if the Forums were moderated, like this one is, they would have been more useful to RSI and to their customers.

Myself, I was getting sick of seeing the forums getting clogged up with public technical support cases from people who won't pay their support contracts. How many "my pic driver dosnet work i tried everything pls hlp" threads can you possibly stand?
 
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Bob Peterson

I was told the other day by someone who probably actually knows that the forums will be back in a somewhat different format in a few months.
 
Eddie,
Do you work for Rockwell Software? I've never heard anyone so blindly defend Rockwell's support policy.

Many consistant "Help, my pic driver isn't working" posts indicates substandard product quality or poor support. Do you really think that there's a high likelyhood that all those integrators happen to be having the same problem and all quit paying their support?

I can say for certain that Rockwell Software Forums WERE being heavily moderated. I had a few specific posts that answered an integrator's technical question and suggested another vendor's product since Rockwell's could not do what the user was asking for. My post was removed the very next day, but I was able to get the user info since he chose to emailed any responses.

Clearly Rockwell is interested in the forum to the extent that they can push their product - not to provide a service to the customers who buy their products.

Nathan
 
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Curt Wuollet

I agree, but only to the point that the flames were undeserved. And when you sell and sell and sell a product as so simple to use that anyone can program your nuclear power plant, you _richly_ deserve the questions you get when anyone does. I should repeat that last statement for emphasis. We see a lot of questions here that _seriously_ worry me. And for that matter, I'm certain the flames and occasional raving had AB/Rockwell teetering on the brink. Most people reading the fora can easily seperate the clueless and nut cases from the germaine. It's been my experience that no amount of infelicity, averice or oppression will steer AB shops from their path, they can afford a little thicker skin.

Regards
cww, who will now admit to having one partially successful AB support experience.
 
What really disappointed me about reaching the "no longer available" page was the lack of explanation. After touting the value of the forums (see below), you would think there would be more than just a curt apology.

Here is a cached web page from Rockwell:

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...e+Forums"&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7&lr=lang_en

"The Rockwell Software forums are for user-to-user communication and assistance with our line of software packages. Our customers and partners have an understanding and knowledge of our products built from real-world, “in the trenches” experience we cannot match, and the Rockwell Software Forums provides a place where users can talk to one another, sharing experience and knowledge."
 
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Michael Barb

I just hope that the new forums have a good search engine.

About one third the postings were newbie questions that could be found simply by opening the manual. Another third could be found in the knowledge base. The Rockwell
Software knowledge base is really an excellent resource if you could find what you need. The final third were really difficult questions or pointed to bugs. Often many people including myself had the same problems. I think this is about the same for any technical support forum.

In total I am sure that the forums eliminated about 90% of my calls to tech support. With over 25 years of PLC and HMI experience my questions often stump tech support, lead to escalations, and I expect cost a lot time and resources. If this was done for cost consideration I think someone used the wrong equation.
 
I suspect when they are back they will be moderated in some way to remove the newbie questions, the references to competitor's products, and complaints about AB and Rockwell products.

Since it is their forum they have a right to do this.
 
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