The PTC/USER Technical Committees convened for two days in June prior to the PTC/USER conference in Orlando, Florida. Over 150 committee members met with PTC’s product managers to discuss future product enhancements. The “Meet Your Technical Committee” breakfast at the conference then provided conference attendees a chance to learn more about each committee’s activities and to bring specific issues to the forefront. Based on the comments from a number of participants, this event was a great success.

Each Technical Committee also hosted a Product Update Briefing during the conference, summarizing their activities over the past year. PTC product managers then had the opportunity to go into greater detail about recent enhancements to the specific functionality covered by each committee.

Looking forward, PTC and PTC/USER will be reviewing PTC’s Product Development System by forming cross-functional groups comprising members of the current Technical Committees. This will enable us to address the business process issues that are the focus of the Product Development System.

Highlights from the June Technical Committee meetings include:

• Customization. Committee members discussed working with PTC by addressing functional areas rather than individual API functions, a process that would start with the requirements definition through the implementation phase. Many changes were made to Pro/TOOLKIT to support feature and user interface changes in Wildfire. The committee also reviewed PTC's plans for changes in the version after Wildfire, and discussed the need to customize Pro/ENGINEER when interfacing with Windchill-based products. Customization is an open committee and would welcome a user proficient in J-Link.
• Data Exchange and Archiving. Topics under discussion included Meshed Data Transfer and its requirements, two new exchange processors, GD&T functionality, and Cross-Release Interoperability (CRI) and capability planning. The committee also looked at AutobuildZ as well as Distributed Services. The Data Exchange and Archiving TC has some white papers currently in the works, and is currently looking for new members.
• Data Management. The Data Management Technical Committee conducted several webcasts during the year to improve the effectiveness of the face-to-face meeting in June. Members are enthusiastic about PTC's new Product Development System and its potential for increasing the stability and reliability of installations. The committee also had discussions with the developers of Pro/INTRALINK about attributes with limited sets of legal values.
• System Administration. The System Administration TC held its fourth meeting of the year in June, including two face-to-face and two web-based sessions. It was a very productive meeting, with great participation from both PTC product managers and committee members. Discussions centered on support of the Wildfire 2.0 release. Topics included OS support, FlexLM support/reporting, mass deployment issues, and installation changes. Pro/INTRALINK administration and administrator training was also covered.
• Visualization. While still looking for additional members, the Visualization TC was well represented by a diverse group of people. Discussions focused on both Division ProductView and Windchill Visualization. The committee is in the process of dividing members into different subject-matter groups, each focusing on specific areas of the visualization tools.

If you are interested in participating in these or other PTC/USER Technical Committees, complete information on joining is available at ptcuser.org. If you have any questions, please contact Evan at evan@ptcuser.org.