February 3, 2007
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Design It! ®?
Design It! ® is a multi-user automated database application that manages all the components in an industrial design that require electrical connections or are part of an electrical design. This includes Motors, MCC, PDC, starters, cables, cable terminations, PLC I/O, instrument index, instrument spec sheets, etc. Design It! ® manages the Cadd objects for schematic and loop diagrams. It draws the cadd drawing based upon the content in the database Design It! ® is a client server application that supports many projects, many users, and up to 6 separate sites linked as a common project. Design It! ® includes user defined tag formats, catalog libraries, drawing symbols and modifiable report formats to achieve a custom design solution for your project.
How can I benefit by using the Design It! ® in on a project?
Design It! ® will benefit your organization is a number of ways. As a highly automated tool, it completes all the design associated with a motor or instrument circuit accurately and quickly. Typically the design is completed in minutes rather than hours or days. Schematic and loop diagram Cadd files are created entirely by Design It! ® using information contained within the database. This virtually eliminates the discrepancies between drawings and documents that occur with traditional drawing methods. Companies seeking or are ISO certified will appreciate this feature. Project engineers will appreciate the ability to define project standards, rules and design philosophy once and be assured that the entire design will be consistent with these criteria. A Design It! ® managed project will save 75 – 85% of the time normally required for a design. Design It!® save money and equally as important it reduces the time to complete the task. Your projects will be completed sooner at less expensive.
What database does Design It! ® use?
Design It! ® uses Microsoft’s SQL Server database. This database is both powerful and cost effective to organizations. SQL Server databases run within NT Server operating systems and support systems ranging from one to hundreds of users. Design It! ® makes extensive use of stored procedures and triggers within the SQL Server database. Stored procedures and triggers are software code that executes whenever information is added, deleted or modified in the database. They provide a extra level of security to ensure the integrity of Design It! ® data.
What is the database and is it open architecture?
Yes, SQL Server is ODBC compliant and fully accessible using other ODBC compliant products. Individuals familiar with their favorite ODBC product may continue to use that product rather than learn a new tool to access SQL Server data. User modifications through ODBC interfaces will be managed and protected through SQL Server’s triggers and stored procedures.
Is the database using an open architecture?
Yes, SQL Server is ODBC compliant and fully accessible using other ODBC compliant products. Individuals familiar with their favourite ODBC product may continue to use that product rather than learn a new tool to access SQL Server data. User modifications through ODBC interfaces will be managed and protected through SQL Server’s triggers and stored procedures.
Can I use Microsoft Access to populate and access Design It! ® Data?
Yes, Microsoft Access is the suggested alternative to manage Design It! ® information. While Design It! ® contains a full set of tools to manage electrical and instrument design the occasional need does exist to mass modify or create custom reports. Access is the recommended tool to use for these situations.
Is the tagging format user definable?
Yes, Design It! ® supports a variety of user definable tag formats. This includes tags for drawing numbers, motor numbers, cables, wire numbers, equipment numbers, loops, etc. Tags may be created using combinations of existing fields, or by sequential numbers or by combinations of both styles.
What security is available within Design It! ®?
Design It! ® supports five levels of security. The security levels are Administrator, Electrical Admin, Instrumentation Admin, Electrical user, and Instrument User. These levels are integrated within the Windows NT security model as global groups. This simplifies the user account management for the network system administrator. These groups combined with project or department security access provides a comprehensive model for managing users and access to information.
What training courses are available? What is the duration?
Blue Heron Software offer training courses for both the user and administrator of Design It! ®. Training courses may be held at your site, at Design It! ® distributor and training centres or at Blue Heron Software in Sechelt BC Canada. The user training course is typically 1.5 days. It covers all aspects of the use of Design It! ® for both electrical and instrumentation users. Customized courses may be requested to focus on electrical or instrumentation. The setup and configuration course is 5 days in duration. This course briefly touches on the content of the user course and then explores the process and concepts to fully configure all aspects of Design It! ®.
Is assistance available to integrate Design It! ® into our organization?
Yes, Blue Heron Software is available to assist your organization to realize the full potential of Design It! ® through its integration with your existing systems.
Do we need special computers?
No, the standard desktop computer in use within most offices is quite adequate for Design It! ®. Our minimum recommended computer is 586/133 with 32MB of memory. The server computer size is dependent upon the number of users and applications running on the machine. As a minimum consider using a 586/133 with 64MB of memory.
Can we use our Cadd drawing libraries?
Most definitely! The success of Design It! ® is its ability to use yours, or your clients’ libraries to complete the drawings.
Does it work with Autocad?
Yes. Design It! ® uses Visio Technical as the drawing tool to create schematics, loop diagrams and block diagrams. The stencil and template libraries are directly imported from Autocad for use by Design It! ®. Visio Technical will save files in Visio format or Autocad DWG formats. A new module is being developed that will use Autocad release 14 instead of Visio Technical for Design It! ®’s drawing engine.
Is it cost effective for small projects?
Yes, Design It! ® is cost effective for both large and small projects. Any project will benefit by using Design It! ®.
Is it multi user and multi site capable?
Yes, Design It! ® will support hundreds of simultaneous users per site and it supports 6 remote sites all actively participating in the same project.
Is there a limit to the database size or number or users?
SQL Server supports 32,767 databases at a maximum size of 1 terabyte. 2 billion tables per database, 250 columns per table and 32,767 connections per database. For comparison purposes, a Design It! ® database managing 1,000 motors, and 6,000 instruments and all the associated cables and connections will require approximately 100MB of disk space.
Is Design It! ® customizable?
Yes. Design It! ® may be customized by the user. This includes the ability to customize the catalog items, tag formats, drawing libraries, reports, drawings and datasheet layouts.
Do you have trained staff available to work with our project team?
Yes, Blue Heron Software has staff available to work with your project team or on your project. They are available to quickly integrate Design It!® on the project or to work with the project team during the course of the project.