While the power of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is well understood and leveraged by most users, there are a host of tools within the platform that can be used for day-to-day activities by anyone within an organization. Productivity can be greatly enhanced by using these tools within your teams.

This article will examine a few of these tools and how they increase productivity.

Before diving into these tools, let us consider a simple use case...

Use case: A manager wants a couple of his team members to work on updating a document.

The above use case is so universal that it is applicable to any department in any Industry.

Situation 1: Not leveraging 3DEXPERIENCE platform

Typically, such a task is done using a variety of tools such as emails, face-to-face communication, telephone conversations, sticky notes etc.

In the scenario, the manager pulls out the document, attaches it to an email and sends it to the targeted people to work on. If the recipients needs clarification, they will reply back with their questions. Undoubtedly, there will be several back and forth exchanges between the sender and the recipients. Sometimes, many other folks are copied on this string of email exchanges..

Pros: This needs little to no training for the users.

Cons:

1) Imagine if this exchange of emails goes back and forth 20 times or more. Every time, the attachment gets into the person’s email disk space clogging it.

2) With numerous email exchanges, there is high likelihood of key information being lost. Users have to read each and every email in the thread to understand the full context.

3) The attachment is not saved in a database and is likely to be duplicated on every user’s computer.

4) The manager is clueless about the progress being made.

5) History of the changes is lost once emails are deleted.

6) Limitations in file size of attachments that go with emails

7) If the data that is being worked on is CAD, the users have to open it in a separate viewer.

8) Whenever changes are needed to be carried out, this procedure repeats and gets very cumbersome.

Needless to say, all other types of communications mentioned above (face-to-face, sticky notes etc) have more cons than pros associated with them.

Situation 2: Using 3DEXPERIENCE platform

Now let’s take a look at how the users can leverage the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for the same scenario.

Kindly view the attached video titled ‘Collab Task Ease of Use.mp4’.

Benefits of this methodology...

1. The data that is being updated is available in the platform. As a result, it does not get duplicated on individual laptops.
2. No more email clogging.
3. Easy to track history of changes.
4. Instant communication between users.
5. Through the subscription mechanism, manager gets instant updates on the progress being made.
6. Dependencies can be created between Collaborative Tasks, which would make the workflow highly efficient.
7. Target dates can be set which will ensure adherence to schedules and notify automatically if the target date is missed.
8. Easy to go back in history and audit the changes made without having the need to browse thousands of emails.
9. Easy for users to launch native applications from directly under the Tasks.
   
10. Built-in viewers will take the efficiency to the next level.