Frustrating Issues with Bentley's Community

Hi,

I do not mean to negate the effort that has been put in to create and maintain this Bentley's Community, but I do really need to vent/rant on how un-user friendly this Community is (user interface).

  1. There is no quick references/links on how to properly use the community. It may be that I am missing on some documentation/tutorial, but a write up of how to access each menu item, how to post discussion/question and other common forum tasks would be very helpful.
  2. The forum interface differs when you open the different forum (case in point: Staad vs Autopipe forum, refer to Figure 1)At this age, this shouldn't be the case and the forum should be the same, to encourage consistency.
  3. Now I noticed that the "ask" section does not come up automatically on every forum. It definitely did not show up when I go to the structural analysis forum direct from the link at http://communities.bentley.com. There is no intuitive way to post a question, when you are in the forum. There is no "new post" button or something like that. This is very frustrating. The only consistent way that I find worked to create a post is to click on an existing post, and clicked on the "+new" button to come to the page where I can put in my Question/Discussion.
  4. Once I posted a question, there isn't any link that brings me back to the forum page. Refer figure 2.
  5. When you arrive at a particular product forum, I cannot reach the bottom links (where it has the Communities/Support & Services/Training & Learning/Social Media links) when I scroll down. It keeps on loading previous posts. Very frustrating.

I think there are more frustration from my end that I forgot. I will be sure to post this as soon as I remember it. However, I do sincerely hope that anyone from Bentley could guide me to a write up on how to use the forum, so that I can benefit even more from Bentley.

 

Thanks.

 

Parents
  • Thanks, a few of these things I've never seen or heard before, let's go through the list.

    1. I never really looked, but I'll take your word for it regarding our lack of general documentation. Navigating our communities is not that easy so most people either save favorites or just use search.

    2. Interesting. I'll tell the site admin that those links (Welcome | Products | Support | About) are missing from the Pipe Stress page. I never actually use those links, but we should be consistent.

    3. I get the Ask button on all the forums. It's worth noting that the Ask button won't show up if you are not signed in. The same goes for the download button on file pages. 

    4. Yes, like item 1, I find that relying on the communities navigation to go back and forth is painful. I keep a favorite/bookmark for the main forum pages that I constantly use to return to the list of posts. 

    5. This is the one I've never seen. In my tests on various forums, there is a Page Forward and page backward arrow at the bottom of the list just above the footer with various links, like secure file upload. This part does not more around on me. What browser are you using?



  • 1. If there is indeed a page/site/wiki that guides me on how best to utilize Bentley Communities, please let me know.

    2. Thanks for looking into it.

    3. I noticed that the "Ask" button indeed did not show up again. See below image. I used the drop down list on Bentley Communities front page (http://communities.bentley.comI used Google Chrome (version 47.0.2526.106 m) for this image below. Note that on the top right of screenshot, it shows me as signed in.

    4. Is keeping favorite/bookmark then a recommended method? I would appreciate if this is kinda mentioned some how. It's really not intuitive. My thoughts: Bentley Communities is the only forum that I have visited, that does not have a way (at least what i have encountered to date) to navigate back to the original forum where the post was posted.

    5. Again, i'm using google chrome and the issue still exist. It is a minor quirk, but sometimes, you do need to access that bottom links.

    Thanks.

    -Morgan-

  • On point 3, your image looks like you are on the Structural home page (communities.bentley.com/.../structural). That page features a news feed of the sub-community activities, but won't ever feature the Ask button. That will only appear on the Forum pages themselves (communities.bentley.com/.../5932.aspx).
    By the way, the Structural page, parent to the Structural Analysis page is a bit wasted. We used to have "Structural Analysis and Design" and "Structural Drafting and Detailing" both under the Structural umbrella, but we have now moved the latter to it's own top level. There are a few items remaining in the parent structural page, like ISM, that need a new home before it can be cleared out.



  • on point 3: Appreciate that you pointed out the mistake i made. However, the page was reached via a drop down list selection to "Go to Structural Analysis Community for...STAAD". One would imagine that this is indeed the page related to STAAD, and not just general structural page. On another hand, even if I arrive at the Structural home page (this home page on the screenshot), there is no link to the forum or any wikis. You would need to click on the title of the post to go to the post itself and then you'll see that there is a link for the "Structural Analysis Forum". I can't reiterate enough that I think the whole thing is extremely cumbersome to navigate.

    Again, it may well be that it's only my preference, but these quirks really made my experience in Bentley Communities really bad.

    Thanks.

    -Morgan-

Reply
  • on point 3: Appreciate that you pointed out the mistake i made. However, the page was reached via a drop down list selection to "Go to Structural Analysis Community for...STAAD". One would imagine that this is indeed the page related to STAAD, and not just general structural page. On another hand, even if I arrive at the Structural home page (this home page on the screenshot), there is no link to the forum or any wikis. You would need to click on the title of the post to go to the post itself and then you'll see that there is a link for the "Structural Analysis Forum". I can't reiterate enough that I think the whole thing is extremely cumbersome to navigate.

    Again, it may well be that it's only my preference, but these quirks really made my experience in Bentley Communities really bad.

    Thanks.

    -Morgan-

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