Customer Getting

Started Guide
 Table of Contents

Section 1: Software Download Center (SDC)........................................................... 3

Introduction to SDC ................................................................................................................... 4
Login and Accessing SDC ............................................................................................................ 4
Email Preferences ...................................................................................................................... 5
Adding New Users (admins only) ............................................................................................... 5
Section 2 : SimCompanion ...................................................................................... 7
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 8
Accessing SimCompanion .......................................................................................................... 8
Creating an Account .................................................................................................................. 8
Signing into SimCompanion ..................................................................................................... 10
Searching Content ................................................................................................................... 12
Discussion Forums ................................................................................................................... 13
Will questions always be answered? ....................................................................................... 14
What are the rules? ................................................................................................................. 14
Cases........................................................................................................................................ 15
Providing Feedback.................................................................................................................. 15
Section 3: Product Documentation Center (PDC) ................................................... 16
Logging in to the PDC ............................................................................................................... 17
Using The Engagement Action Bar ........................................................................................... 18
Providing Feedback.................................................................................................................. 19

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 Section 1:
Software Download
Center (SDC)

3
Introduction to SDC

MSC Software is delivering software exclusively through electronic download at our Solution
Download Center (SDC). SDC provides you easy access to the latest versions of your licensed
software and helps you manage the update process. You will receive an email notification when
there is a new release or upgrade available for any of your licensed products, regardless of
whether you actually download the software.

Login and Accessing SDC

Click here to access SDC: https://mscsoftware.flexnetoperations.com/control/mnsc/login. Use

your current account to log in.

If you don’t have an account, you must create one by either (a) following the instructions below,
or (b) asking your SDC Admin (if known) to create one for you (see “Adding New Users (admins
only)” section).
1. Click on the Registration Page to request a login.
2. Add all the requested information on the Electronic Delivery Administrator page:
a. Update your profile information.
b. Provide your MSC Agreement Number.
Note: If you do not know your MSC Agreement Number, feel free to request this by
sending an email to [email protected].
Access to your Software Download Center account will be set up once MSC receives and verifies
this information. This process may take up to 2 business days.

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Email Preferences

The download service provides members with personalized proactive notifications within 24
hours of a product release. Update Notifications alert you that a new major or minor release,
bug fix or patch, for your product is available to download. Notifications are personalized to
the products you own, so you only receive relevant notices.

Adding New Users (admins only)

Under the Administration section, click on Account Members. This will bring up a list of active
members on your specific account, along with their existing permissions. Admin privilege lets
you: update Membership privileges, create New Users, de-activate/reactivate Users, and change
User Permissions.

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6
 Section 2 :
SimCompanion

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Introduction

SimCompanion is the MSC Software customer portal that provides the following benefits:

• Search and browse across all Knowledge artifacts, such as articles, discussion forum
threads, and MSC-Sponsored YouTube videos
• Ask questions to the MSC Software user community through peer forums
• Create and manage your support cases

Accessing SimCompanion
You can access SimCompanion in the following two ways:

• Directly from the SimCompanion page: https://simcompanion.hexagon.com/

• From the MSC corporate webpage.
a. Go to: https://www.mscsoftware.com/

b. Under Support, select SimCompanion Knowledge Portal.

Creating an Account
If you are a new user and want to create an account in SimCompanion, do the following:
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1. Go to SimCompanion homepage https://simcompanion.hexagon.com/
2. Click on Register

3. Enter the required details in the Create Your Login Details and Provide Profile
Information dialog box.

You have to provide your corporate or university email address. Generic

email addresses such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. will not be accepted.

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 4. Accept the terms and conditions and click Create Account.
5. You will receive a confirmation email, at which time you must click the activation link
within 24 hours. Upon clicking the activation link, you will (a) be directed to the
Registration Confirmation page, and (b) receive a registration confirmation Email.

Signing into SimCompanion

You can sign in to SimCompanion from the homepage https://simcompanion.hexagon.com/
1. On the SimCompanion page, click on Customer login on the right drop-down menu.

It will take you to a Login page as follows:

2. Login using your Email address and password.

a. Note that you may be directed to the Technical Support activation form, where you
should enter the CEID number, Agreement number, and Desired account type:

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 Access to SimCompanion will be granted once MSC receives and verifies this
information. This process may take up to 1 business day.
b. You will receive an email from MSC Technical Support indicating that your account is
fully validated for SimCompanion.

3. After signing in, you can see your profile information as follows:

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Searching Content
When performing a search in SimCompanion, you can then filter search results using the left
side of the window. Search filters are also known as facets.
A facet is an item in a taxonomy that allows you to limit or filter search results by selecting
terms or attributes from each of several types/aspects. They allow you to navigate content
hierarchically, thus allowing you to filter search results to find what you are looking for. This is
also referred to as Guided Search.

Search results will present you with one or more of the following items or facets:

Facet Name Examples

• MSC Nastran
Product • Actran
• Adams

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 • Article
Content Type • Discussions
• Video (YouTube)
• FAQ
Article Type • Known Issue
• News & Product Updates
• English
Languages
• Japanese

Discussion Forums
We encourage you to use the Forums as an opportunity to engage with other users and
exchange ideas on how to use our products. There are several different ways users can post
questions/comments to the entire user community. You will find products/topics of your
interest within the “Forums” menu.

If you cannot find the answer to your question by searching SimCompanion, choose a specific
product from the “Forums” tab and click the “Ask A Question” button to post your question to
the community.

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Will questions always be answered?
Most questions are answered by users with experience in the question's field of application.
And some questions are answered by specialists at MSC. However, there is no guarantee that all
questions will result in one or more responses. If your question is not answered by the user
community, and if you are eligible for technical support with MSC Software, you may submit a
case by clicking on the Cases menu item.

What are the rules?

Registration as a User implies acceptance of the following terms and conditions:

• Authenticity is the basic step to trust. Misleading appearance is strictly prohibited.

• Participants shall not post any material likely to cause offense, that is protected by
copyright, trademark, or other proprietary rights - without the express permission of the
owner of such copyright - or that contains personal phone numbers or addresses.
• Participants should not use the MSC Communities to post or transmit advertisements or
commercial solicitations of any kind.
• MSC Communities Moderator has the right to edit, censor, delete or otherwise modify
any posted message.
• This website does not verify or guarantee the accuracy of the material posted to the
MSC Communities or bear any responsibility for any loss, damage, or other liabilities
caused by any posted message.
Additionally, following common etiquette regarding public forum communication should be
observed.

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 • Do not use all caps or SHOUT (!) in your posts. In addition, one exclamation point is
enough. Civility is expected.
• Do not Post personal, identifiable information or content embarrassing to others.
• Do not post empty or useless responses, such as just lol or cool. Only post responses
when you have something to contribute.
• Do not use words like urgent or important in your subject line, be patient.
• Do not chastise newbies, use vulgar or offensive language and refrain from personal
attacks.
Please refer to the SimCompanion Code of Conduct webpage for further details.

Cases
To provide a seamless experience, we have embedded personalized technical support in the
SimCompanion to help you first navigate via knowledge base and if you don’t find an answer,
log a case with technical support. You can log a case via the cases section from the top menu.
To view your already logged cases, simply click on the Cases menu to display the list of cases
with the details associated such as subject, statuses, etc.

Providing Feedback
MSC leverages all the user feedback received to improve the knowledge-sharing experience of
our global community. You can provide feedback on an article by simply completing the Article
Feedback from when viewing an article:

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 Section 3:
Product Documentation
Center (PDC)

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Introduction to the PDC

Documentation is now available at https://help.mscsoftware.com/

where we have made it easier to read, search, and navigate across
all products. Click on the image below for an intro video
highlighting PDC functionality. Product Documentation Center
(PDC) is available at https://help.mscsoftware.com/ where we have
made it easier to read, search, and navigate across all products. Click on the image below for an
intro video highlighting PDC functionality.
The PDC contains documentation of release 2020 and later releases. Earlier versions are
available SimCompanion.

Logging in to the PDC

Much of the content on the PDC is available without logging in, but logging in with your MSC
Customer credentials will grant you

• Access to additional customer-only content

• Ability to use the personalized features of the site.
• Ability to add content to a watch list where you can be notified of changes to the
content
The personalized features include personalized search preferences, MyDocs functionality where
you can select content to be included in personalized documentation collections that can easily
be viewed and printed to PDF. The login link is available on the upper right of the PDC.

Accessing Content in the PDC

The PDC is organized to make it easy to access help content from all products whether by
searching or browsing. A search bar appears at the top of the page and allows you to search
across all product documentation.

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If you prefer, you may refine your search based on facets that include product, version, and
document type. If you scroll down further, the next section shows a list of products, which are
buttons that allow you to navigate to the latest version of each product’s documentation.

Once you are browsing the content for a particular product, you may search within that
product’s documentation using the search box on the upper right. The third section of the PDC
homepage lists the solution types that our products address. This groups product help in a way
that lets users discover which products are of most interest to them.

Finally, the bottom of the page allows specific content pages of interest to be highlighted and
shown with direct links to the content.

Using The Engagement Action Bar

This action bar allows you to perform a variety of functions from any topic page.

This Allows you to:

Navigate to the topics before the current topic

Navigate to the topics after the current topic

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 Create a set of topics of interest

Watch topics of interest to be notified when they are updated

Share URLs of topics with others via email

Generate and download PDF files of the topic or the entire publication

Send feedback about the content from the page you are currently viewing

Providing Feedback

As you use the PDC, you can send us your feedback in one of the following two ways:

• Writing to us at [email protected].

• Clicking the Send Feedback button in the engagement action bar on any content
page.

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