Why buy maintenance?

Maintenance is a vital facet to any commercial product, especially where your organisation relies on it on a daily basis and on the services it provides. Pulsonix is no different, which is why our maintenance charges are exceptionally low within the EDA industry.

At Pulsonix we understand the need for our valued customers to achieve maximum benefit from the investments made in acquiring and implementing Pulsonix software products. We are eager for you to get the best from Pulsonix and accordingly we offer a comprehensive maintenance package which enables you to protect and improve upon that investment.

The Maintenance package represents the most cost effective way of ensuring you and your engineering teams have access to help and assistance when you require it, together with regular software updates to ensure you are always at the technological edge of PCB design.

So what does maintenance provide?

Pulsonix Customer Support

Pulsonix maintenance package includes:

  • Telephone hotline technical support
  • Email technical support
  • Pulsonix software updates for major versions
  • Service patches within each version
  • On-line access to technical resources within the customer login area of our web site

Additional services may also be available from your local sales office, including:

  • Product and design training
  • Special library creation
  • PCB design services in Pulsonix format
  • Design/system methodology and system consultancy (where available)

Technical Support

Your local Pulsonix office has experienced application specialists waiting to take help-desk calls, answer any product queries and to help resolve any design problems you may encounter. These specialists are supported by the software support team based in Tewkesbury, UK.

The primary support route is via the local sales offices’ customer help-desk who can take your calls by telephone or e-mail. When a request for assistance is made it is logged and you are transferred to an applications support engineer who analyses the query. If the engineer cannot resolve the query immediately it will be passed to Pulsonix software support for analysis.

Also, where required, technical support may use an interactive remote web-based technical support system. This means support staff are able to connect to your remote PC using an interactive link. They can then view your desktop and directly interact with it to diagnose a problem or answer a technical question using your own design environment.

Help Desk Definitions

Your call to the customer help-desk will be one of the following:

  • Product Query
    If you have a straightforward query in the use of Pulsonix and the answer can’t easily be found in the Users Guide or Online Help (and these form the majority of our calls), the support engineer will be pleased to offer guidance and the call will be classified as closed.
  • Product Defect Rectification
    If you discover a possible defect in Pulsonix then in most cases the support engineer will be able to suggest a workaround enabling your design work to continue. Depending on the impact this has on the design process the defect will be classified by Pulsonix as: low, medium, high, or severe.

These are defined as follows:

  • Low
    This type of defect would have no impact whatsoever on the design process. Most customers would probably not even notice this level of defect. The defect will be logged and will be fixed at some stage.
  • Medium
    This type of defect would have no impact on the design process and would be more of an annoyance than a genuine defect. The defect will be logged and will be scheduled to be fixed the next time we have a software engineer working in that area of the Pulsonix code.
  • High
    This means a defect has been discovered with a practical workaround and the design process can proceed. Pulsonix will log the defect and a software engineer will be scheduled to fix the defect for release in the next customer service patch.
  • Severe
    This means a defect has been discovered with no practical workaround and the design process cannot proceed. In such an instance, Pulsonix will dedicate software resources to resolve the matter. Our target is to fix a severe defect and issue an immediate fix within 24 hours for European customers, and within 48 hours for the rest of the world. We cannot guarantee that a fix can be completed within these target timescales but since release of Pulsonix in 2001 we have only a handful of instances where we have not issued a fix within 24 hours, and in these cases the cause was finally detected as being outside of Pulsonix.
  • Enhancement Requests
    Customer suggestions are welcomed by us at Pulsonix. These are evaluated on a regular basis and, depending on technical and commercial feasibility, they are included in the Pulsonix development plans.

Pulsonix Users Group Forum

The Pulsonix Users Group forum is available as an Internet-based discussion group for users to actively get involved in the Pulsonix community. Independently moderated, the Pulsonix Users Group forum is an additional resource available to your design engineers at any time of the day. As the forum is an International resource, users are always on-line somewhere in the world, offering advice and ideas 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Pulsonix Version Updates

Your Pulsonix software is under constant development with new version updates being planned up to three years ahead. Product marketing and technical support for Pulsonix are constantly evaluating feedback from our customers, our Distributors and our general recognisance of the electronics marketplace to formulate and adapt our plans for future version updates.

Under normal circumstances there is one major and one minor new version update per year.

New Version Contents

These new version updates contain:

  • New features
    These would be new features and functionality in Pulsonix that did not exist previously. We attempt to include at least 6 new major features in each major version update. The minor release may contain major features that for some reason were excluded in the major version update.
  • Enhancements to existing features
    These are changes and modifications to the Pulsonix product based on feedback from customers, changes in market requirements, and where product marketing have determined there would be a superior method of implementing a given feature.
  • Documentation
    On-line documentation is enhanced with each product update to include new functionality and improve existing text. This would include the Online Help system and product Users Guides.
  • Defect fixes
    All software patches available at the time of the update release are automatically consolidated and included.
    On major releases we aim to include a combination of 20 -30 new features and enhancements. However, during major version updates it is frequently necessary to modify the underlying product data model. We guarantee that each new major version update will be compatible with previous versions of Pulsonix, meaning customers can load Pulsonix designs and libraries created in previous versions into the latest version. However, designs and libraries created in the latest version can not be loaded back into previous versions.
  • Revision updates within a version
    The Pulsonix support team issue regular revision updates within the currently released version and these contain all the latest fixes and patches that have been issued, this includes all previous consolidated fixes. These revision updates are available to download immediately and auto-install from the Pulsonix web site.

On-line Access to the Customer Login Area of Pulsonix.com

Users with a valid maintenance contract will have access to our On-line customer Login area of the Pulsonix web site. This contains all service patches for the current release, service tools, additional documentation, technical notes and a knowledge based section. Access to the location of the web site is protected via a unique customer login system which you will have access to.

Another feature of our On-line Login Access is the ability for you to receive priority notification of new patches, updates and important news. This removes the need for you to remember to check the web site; it automatically informs you when a release or service patch is available.

Value-Added Services

Your local Pulsonix sales office can offer a comprehensive range of additional services which are not included within the standard maintenance package, including:

  • Customer Training
    A comprehensive range of training courses to suit the requirements of all users, from product training to design, methodology and product management. Effective skills training provide an opportunity for customers to learn new techniques in a planned and structured way.
  • Library Creation
    Though Pulsonix contains comprehensive library creation tools plus we have the forthcoming on-line library, on occasion customers may require assistance in creating more complex devices or a range of components; your Pulsonix sales office will be pleased to quote you for library creation.
  • Design Services
    If you have a design overload situation and require external services to either undertake complete design projects in Pulsonix format or need modification work on existing designs then your local sales office or Distributor may be able to assist you. Depending on the requirements your Distributor may be able to undertake the work themselves or put you in contact with a design service provider.

Contact us if you have any queries about maintenance
Locate your nearest Pulsonix distributor
View the new Pulsonix V7.6 features here
Read the V7.6 Update Datasheet