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Smarteam vs pro/intralink

K

ksboo79

New member
has anyone here heard of or used smarteam? developed by IBM claimed to have the same capability as intralink and much more as in viewing files from other solid modeling packages. i've never used intralink before, but the company is pushing us to improve on project colaboration. i'd like know how well this software handle proe files compared to the one offered by ptc. i've gone through some of the threads on intralink, pretty same things the sales person was telling us what this thing can do. any comments or comparisons about these softwares available??
 
I 've seen a small demo on Smarteamand it looked nice. I'm waiting to have a demo on Intralink.

The one deciding factor so far is a $1000.00 difference in price.



Smarteam $3000.00

Intralink $2000.00



I don't know about maintenance
 
If you're strictly a Pro/E shop then I'd stay with Intralink. A single site license is included with most Pro/E seats. Also, you don't actually need an Intralink client license for every seat of Pro/E (although it would be nice). You only really need to tie up a license when you are are accessing the common space.



One reason for staying with Intralink is that it can read/write parameter information directly from Pro/E files. I don't think Smarteam can do that.



However, if by collaboration you're looking to involve people in other parts of the company like purchasing, sales, etc. then Intralink won't get you very far. You'd be looking at some version of the Windchill product line which PTC seams to reinvent with new bundles and product names about as often as most people change socks.



-Bernie-
 
Stay away from SmarTeam!



I'm presently working with Smarteam/SmartENGINEER and we have a lot of HUGE problems. I lost so many hours trying to debug this program. Smart/ENGINEER (a java program) which is the interface between the Smarteam database and Pro/E is a chaos. I never ever saw a worst program like this one.



SmarTaem could be usefull if you want to manage Office documents. But Stay with INTRALINK if you want to manage your Pro/E files. This is my advice.



-Hora.
 
i've just gone through the first demo of the smarteam... also yet to arrange one on intralink.. i really have doubt that this 3rd party program can handle proe files as good as PTC's... will surely look forward to the presentation on intralink..
 
ksboo79,



Do no thrust the DEMOs. The marketing guys will sell you stories. And usualy their demo uses parts and not assemblies. And if they are using assemblies, usualy there are minor assemblies with few components. But in reality you will need to manage huge assemblies between several designers. There is no day here without problems working with SmarTeam. At the end of a day you have no ideea which part has been changed. All our designers hate this program which slows us down dramatically. And just mentioning here that SmarTeam-Smart/ENGINEER does not support suppressed features or components. If you have a family table or an assembly family table, you are stuck with this. If you did a restructure of your component and erased some components you don't need anymore, Smart/ENGINEER will see the old structure and will refuse to check-in the parts. You are stuck again. All you have to do is to recreate the entire assembly structure of from the begining. And so on...



I worked with both programs, Intralink and SmarTeam. Intralink is far ahead than SmarTeam. Go with Intralink for Pro/E files. I'm not saying that Intralink is perfect. But if you use it correctly you have no major problems. Which is not the case of SmarTeam-Smart/ENGINEER.



Ask questions, many, many questions to all these marketing guys and take your time to understand what both programs can do for you.



Good luck,



-Hora
 
think you'll find that it will not handle nested fam tables and external sim reps amongst other things....dont listen to the salesmen!





go ilink....
 
I looked at smarteam a few months ago and I came to the following conclusions.



From what I can gather, Smarteam was originally developed for Solidworks and the Pro-engineer interface was an after thought. If was developed for Solidworks, why does Solidworks come with its own standard file management system and not Smarteam as standard.



IBM develop CATIA and have major shares in DASSAULT systems (Solidworks). Why would they want improve Smarteams functionality with Pro-engineer?.



I can imagine that if you have any problems accessing files etc. Smarteam support would blame pro-engineer and vice versa.



My main concern is, If you signed up with Smarteam it wouldn't be too long before IBM start to push CATIA or Soildworks inorder to impove smarteams 'Work flow and Integration'.



You only have to see what has happened to RAND. RAND were PTC's major international reseller, as far a RAND were concerned Pro-engineer was the only engineering package to use. Now, IBM has major shares in RAND and CATIA is the only system to use as far a RAND are concerned.



Although Smarteam is cheaper compared to Intralink. If something goes wrong or you lose some pro-engineer functionality (family tables, supressed features etc.). Then the intial cost saving quickly evaporate.



Get the Smarteam salesman to arrange a free days process consultation. This will give you a full process flow chart of your company's production system. You can then use this to help implement Intralink.



One last thing to check with your smarteam vendor is the licensing arrangements. In the UK the licensing is grouped together, therefore you may pay for licences you don't need. i.e 25 when you only need 20.



Anyway I'm bordering on a rant and rave message.
 
saymo, chivers



thanks for the input. actually we are in the progress of the implementation of ilink. i kinda like the features.
 
Just tested last week SmaTEAM V5 R11 Service Pack 11.



An assembly with 290 compotest takes 25 minutes to be saved in SmarTEAM !!!!!!!



Chivers, no offense, but not only that is cheaper than Pro/INTRALINK and lost Pro/E functionaliy, but is the worst PDM I ever saw.



Even with CATIA is not working properly.



-Hora
 
There is one simple way to find out if any of these third party programes do the job. Ask the sales rep to provide you with a time limited license (30 days). If they are not prepared to accomodate you then tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. Intralink is a very good product and if used properly will serve you well. I have used this product to manage assemblies in excess of 20000 parts without any problems at all and have absolutely no problem recommending it to anyone. Intralink will also manage any kind of 3rd party file with no problems.



MaxWeston.

Solid Model Design
 
From what I have heard <?:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on">RAND</st1:place> have developed a new integration between SMARTEAM and Pro/E and it looks good. Performance, which was one of the big problems before has been dramatically enhanced both in the current integration and in the new integration deployed by RAND (who are very familiar with the proe/proi products)<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />


The SMARTEAM product as opposed to proi will give you the ability to manage your data with multi CAD systems and will provide you an organizational solution rather then a data management tool for engineering department.


I would advise you to benchmark both before coming to a decision


Best regards


-Vinch
 
I did typed something here, but it appear to be a blank post... is this a bug??


i was saying that i had been on intralink for about 2 months... everything's fine except for the time needed to save big assemblies which sometimes takes up to 15 mintues to get a 400 objects assembly saved. i have been checking back in my work into new workspace to minimise my save time as i was told to be the database updating time... its does give noticable difference but is there any other way around?


winxp on p4 1.8, proe2001 2004090, ilink3.3 m021


rgds... ksboo
 
Is it saving from ProE or checking in?


Is your workspace on local workstation or on network share?


Regards


Jnoval
 
i had problem with the time while saving on my workspace... it is in my local workstation...


don't have any problem with the speed of checking in... server is running server2003... quite a new one...
 
Have you try to save the save assembly outside intralink?


Are the system setup to runn modelcheck when you save?


Normal ProE will only save the models that have been changed, And if it takes 15 minutes than you must have make a lot of changed. Or you have a very slow workstation, or maybe it can be antiwirus software.


Regards


jnoval
 
jnoval,


how do i check if the system run modelcheck when i save? is it in the config? we are running norton antivirus, i'll need to check if it's running background save during the save...


thx for the input...


ksboo
 
If possible: Ask the cad-administrator

Normal you will se in the proE messages lines (info - session info -
message log) when modelcheck is running. It is not only a config.pro
option. If is control from the modelcheck config files when modelcheck
should runn.
 
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