Access to Rockwell Knowledgebase

Do you have access to the Rockwell Knowledgebase?

  • Yes, I/we have full acess.

    Votes: 126 67.7%
  • No, I/we do not have full access.

    Votes: 47 25.3%
  • I/we use someone elses account to access it.

    Votes: 4 2.2%
  • Never heard of it

    Votes: 9 4.8%

  • Total voters
    186

MartB

Lifetime Supporting Member
Join Date
Jun 2005
Location
Pinellas Park, FL
Posts
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A couple of recent posts have made me wonder how many people have a tech connect contract and use the Rockwell Knowledgebase at all.
 
We have TechConnect E-Connect, which is on-line only support. We really have it so we can keep up with software version changes. We may go on the knowledgebase once or twice a year but that's about it. Our Rockwell distributor is pretty good technically so we get most of our info through them.

Keith
 
I think that your poll should include a radio button for having free access to the knowledge base! Most of my use of knowledge base results from lack of basic AB documentation, bugs, patches etc. and that is what majority of articles deal with, this information should be free, unrestricted!
If in fact there was a true app. note where someone had to build a mock up with various devices, code had to be written etc. and real intelectual property above and over the basic required info was provided I would have no problem with having such app. note as part of tech connect, but that is not the case, is it?
I hope that others on this forum feel the same way.
 
Jiri Toman said:
I think that your poll should include a radio button for having free access to the knowledge base! Most of my use of knowledge base results from lack of basic AB documentation, bugs, patches etc. and that is what majority of articles deal with, this information should be free, unrestricted!
If in fact there was a true app. note where someone had to build a mock up with various devices, code had to be written etc. and real intelectual property above and over the basic required info was provided I would have no problem with having such app. note as part of tech connect, but that is not the case, is it?
I hope that others on this forum feel the same way.

Well said. I could not agree MORE!!.
 
I have access to the "Knowledgebase" through our tech support contract. However, it has been rarely useful in solving any problems. If you do not have access to the "Knowledgebase" you are not missing out on very much.

I would agree that much of the information contained therein is not proprietary and that access should be free. You should not have to pay to find out how to use a product that you have already purchased.

AB thinks they are the 800 pound gorilla. With their attitude, they will someday wonder why they are the 8 lb monkey.
 
Last edited:
I used AB tech support to get help installing a PCMK card. The person that was helping me got very inpatient with me while guiding me through their web site. After doing what she instructed me to do I ended up with the "blue screen of death" on my laptop. The PCMK card is still in the original box it came in. I don't want to go through that again!
 
I can speak, a little, to the Rockwell Automation policy on contract vs free content.

For many products, it's basically all free (ie, Activations. Various Industrial Control products, such as buttons and relays. etc.). For others, we follow this breakdown:

Free = Break-fix/patches/firmware/error codes and explanations.

Contract = Applications and training information.

There are always gray areas between the two and documents are sometimes shuffled between the two as one or another argument gets made one way or the other.

We really do believe that the contract level answers in our knowledge base provide a value-add for the customers that use it. Even if you don't personally use it, our usage statistics show that a large number do every day. And the satisfaction surveys we employ show a favorable reaction to it on the whole.

Now, that is not to say that things cannot be improved. In fact, one of my personal duties is to try to improve both the content and the experience folks have with the KB, Forums, online question submission (Ask a Question) and online Chat (a feature that is in a Pilot phase for a few products). If you have trouble finding particular information, let me know. I don't have time to keep up with threads here, unfortunately, so I can't say that I'll see it if you post it publically here, but I do keep on top of messages and I read every post in the Forums at our website (http://forums.rockwellautomation.com).

With almost 60k answers in the current Knowledge Base, there are constantly things that can be improved, from the content of individual answers to the search results for particular keywords. There are things I can do to address both (and other) issues once they are brought to my attention.

We do want to make the electronic support a viable and important part of the support we offer our customers. I think, to a large extent, we do. I also want to get better. So, let me know what can be improved. I'll do whatever I can to make it so.

Thanks for your time,

Joshua Hutchinson
Rockwell Automation Knowledge Base Support
 
faehigkeit1 said:
I used AB tech support to get help installing a PCMK card. The person that was helping me got very inpatient with me while guiding me through their web site. After doing what she instructed me to do I ended up with the "blue screen of death" on my laptop. The PCMK card is still in the original box it came in. I don't want to go through that again!

A properly configured PCMK driver will not result in a blue screen. However, the wrong setting will and I have been there.

I use the knowledge base. We have a full support contract and the only time we call is when we run into a bug/anomaly or to get a case number to return a DOA item to our distributor. I work at an OEM and we are early adopters of new firmwares, so we spend a fair amount of time with bugs/anomalies with new releases. We like to think of ourselves as beta testers! Just trying to do our part...
 
There are always gray areas between the two and documents are sometimes shuffled between the two as one or another argument gets made one way or the other.

In my opinion the gray area should be always resolved in customer's favor.
In fact the more I think about AB's strategy here the more I think that by not making knowledge base free and unrestricted you are actually hurting AB's position.
After all so called app. notes do not really deal with any proprietary information, these notes in fact just help people to use AB's products. Consider the the hypothetical case of a guy who would like to use say AB's 1756-MVI module to communicate to Toledo scale or Vorne display. This guy has never used AB or perhaps only on occasion and does not have tech connect contract. There is an app. note written that explains how easy it is to accoplish this task, however our guy can't view it! He gets turned off and goes to Siemens who will provide completely free app. notes and tech support. I am sure that you can come up with customer survey to justify your decision to restrict knowledge base access, but how do you measure the business lost or never gained because the potential customer gets discouraged?
Don't get me wrong I do understand the wisdom of having the tech connect, I know that it is necessary because lots of people would call in for every stupid question and it takes manpower resources to deal with it. However knowledge base does not require any human intervention so what is the big deal?? Do you really think that your knowledge base has some incredibly advanced and secret information? Please ....
 
JHutch2000 said:
I can speak, a little, to the Rockwell Automation policy on contract vs free content.

For many products, it's basically all free (ie, Activations. Various Industrial Control products, such as buttons and relays. etc.). For others, we follow this breakdown:

Free = Break-fix/patches/firmware/error codes and explanations.

Contract = Applications and training information.

There are always gray areas between the two and documents are sometimes shuffled between the two as one or another argument gets made one way or the other.

We really do believe that the contract level answers in our knowledge base provide a value-add for the customers that use it. Even if you don't personally use it, our usage statistics show that a large number do every day. And the satisfaction surveys we employ show a favorable reaction to it on the whole.

Now, that is not to say that things cannot be improved. In fact, one of my personal duties is to try to improve both the content and the experience folks have with the KB, Forums, online question submission (Ask a Question) and online Chat (a feature that is in a Pilot phase for a few products). If you have trouble finding particular information, let me know. I don't have time to keep up with threads here, unfortunately, so I can't say that I'll see it if you post it publically here, but I do keep on top of messages and I read every post in the Forums at our website (http://forums.rockwellautomation.com).

With almost 60k answers in the current Knowledge Base, there are constantly things that can be improved, from the content of individual answers to the search results for particular keywords. There are things I can do to address both (and other) issues once they are brought to my attention.

We do want to make the electronic support a viable and important part of the support we offer our customers. I think, to a large extent, we do. I also want to get better. So, let me know what can be improved. I'll do whatever I can to make it so.

Thanks for your time,

Joshua Hutchinson
Rockwell Automation Knowledge Base Support

Welcome to the forum Joshua, nice to see someone from the Knowledge Base participating in this forum also.
 
We have it and use it from time to time. We would have a contract even if the knowledge base was free because it pays for itself when we do need support. However, I do think the knowledge base should be free on the web. I try to avoid new products and releases and let others beta test - just call me a coward.
 
Wow! I didn't know that AB (Rockwell Automation) had a forum.
For some reason I thought that it was discontinued.
Maybe that was something else?
 

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