We’re sorry for our recent web site outage, but we are back up again.

We had some really wild weather last night that put us out of business until just a few minutes ago. Several folks were kind enough to ask nicely what was up and we do appreciate everyone’s patience.

We’re also thankful that it was just a brief weather episode and we are thinking of those who are continuing to endure so much more through tornadoes and flooding here in the US and typhoons and earthquakes in Myanmar and China. 

It’s really nice when someone else does your job for you! Especially when they do it so well.

Lou Gallo, from SolidWorks: Heard!, recently did a great podcast that dissected SupplierSource, described all of our parts and then put us back together again. He clearly explained so much in a short time that I’m tempted to use it as the audio when I present SupplierSource to SolidWorks Users Group meetings.

Thanks Lou, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Folks respond to pictures much faster than to words*, so your profile photos are a valuable tool to tell your story to potential new customers.

Your profile portfolio page now lets your visitor launch a slide show (to encourage viewing more of your photos), as well as the ability to enlarge any single photo that really catches their interest. Northwest Rubber Extruders has a great set of photos that I’ll use to show the changes:

The slide show feature includes your captions and lets the viewer pace themselves through your photos.

Both you and your visitors have the ability to flag any inappropriate photos (or other content), so that we can quickly review it and remove it, if necessary.

In addition to being available in your profile, each photo also shows up on the SupplierSource home page in rotation with other folks’ photos. This can catch the eye of searching visitors and if they move their mouse over your picture your caption and company name will also appear. So, make sure your captions are working hard for you here and in your profile to help inform your visitor.

 SPECIAL PHOTO TIPS:

1- Make ‘em close to the file size limit (1Mb) because we can automagically reduce them to fit, but we can’t increase the size. So, you’ll get better resolution if the files are larger.

2 - When you’re done looking at a photo or slide show you now have to click on the ‘x’ in the upper right corner to close them. Previously, you could click anywhere outside of the photo. A small thing, but potentially annoying if you don’t know.

3 - Check out other profiles and find photos that you like and figure out what attracted you to help you improve your own photos.

4 - Change your pictures when you finish something new or go to a show and want to show folks what it was like.

*5 - We all respond to photos better than words and to photos of people better than photos of things, so show off your co-workers too. Have some fun!

Welcome to SupplierSource! Our whole purpose is to help buyers and suppliers find each other fast. For a little history on how SupplierSource has evolved from the SolidWorks Manufacturing Network check out the blog post ‘Just the facts, M’am, just the facts’.

Following these steps is valuable to all new members, but parts of each step are specifically for new members being welcomed to SupplierSource from the SolidWorks Manufacturing Network. Be sure to also check out the ‘3 valuable things to do as soon as you can’ blog post for additional steps to take.

We’ve started a profile for SolidWorks Manufacturing Network members based on our existing database and visits to your web site. Now it’s YOUR profile. You can makes changes and improvement whenever YOU want to using the easy tools provided. The following steps are meant to provide a simple guide to start getting the most out of your profile right now. Additional posts will provide more ways to add to your profile, but these three steps are the most important.

Sign in - Go to www.SupplierSource.com and use the link in the upper right corner. Then use the email address that you provided for the main contact in your SolidWorks Manufacturing Network application and was used to recently contact you. That email also contained a password. You can use the ‘I forgot my password’ link on that page to create a new password any time. If you did not receive an email or are unsure of the email address to use, please use the ‘Get support’ link in the ‘Helpful Resources:’ column (which is lower on the same page) to contact us and get a quick response.

Immediately check all of your contact data for accuracy - We did our best to use your own web site and our database to get the latest data, but only you know what the correct data is. Use the ‘Edit My SupplierProfile’ link over in the left column. Check the ‘Hello World!’ blog post for information about geocoding and your address data. If the address you enter cannot be geocoded, our distance search cannot find you, so please be sure that it works. You will see an error mesage at the bottom of the address area if there is a problem and you’ll see no message if everything is fine.

Add to your ‘Specialties’ and ‘Capabilities’ - These are the top dogs in the search algorithms which determine your position in search results. Right now you have only one ‘Specialty’, but you can have up to 3 and also 8 capabilities. Check FAQ #9 for how to see all of your service choices, FAQ #10 for special tips, and FAQ #  11 for reordering help. (You can also find the FAQ link at the bottom of all web site pages, except on the blog.)

Since you will be making a number of changes and will want to check the results, be sure to read the ‘Why don’t my changes show up?’ blog post to understand why it takes about an hour for your changes to show up in new searches.

Also be sure to read the blog post with three more valuable steps for all members to take to get the most out of their profiles!

Thanks for being a part of SupplierSource and feel free to send comments or suggestions as you find your way around.

Welcome to SupplierSource! Our whole purpose is to help buyers and suppliers find each other fast. For a little history on how SupplierSource has evolved from the SolidWorks Manufacturing Network check out the blog post ‘Just the facts, M’am, just the facts’.

In the ‘3 important things to do right now’ post we outlined the three most important actions for new SolidWmembers to take immediately. This post will cover three valuable steps for everyone to take as soon as they can and then to do on an ongoing basis to keep their profile fresh and reward the internet bots always looking for new content to scarf up and rank.

Add photos to your portfolio page - Photos are more appealing than text and offer much more information to the potential new customer. They can also have captions, which allow you to point out what is important for the viewer to notice. These photos are cycled through on the SupplierSource home page in the right column. Viewers are drawn to the photos and as they hover over the picture your caption and company name will appear. Clicking on a picture will take the potential customer directly to your profile portfolio page.

Get customer reviews - We all respond best to our trusted friends who give us the benefit of their experience. Share your experiences and help the valuable partners that you work with by adding a simple review to their profile. Check out the ‘Don’t be scared - say something nice!’ blog post. If your suppliers don’t yet have their free SupplierSource listing, then use the ‘Invite a supplier’ link in the ‘Things to do” list. While you’re at it, use the ‘Tell a friend’ link to easily let them know about SupplierSource.

Add facility info - On your ‘Facilities’ page you can call out the manufacturing, testing and inspection equipment that make your operations unique. You can even use the space (the content you enter appears on your profile front page) to embed YouTube videos (like Surface Solutions did) by following some simple steps outlined in the ‘Liven up your profile with YouTube’ blog post. 

You’ve probably noticed that this blog thing is a valuable source of tips, information on what’s new, and even a chuckle or two now and then. So please subscribe to the RSS feeds that easily keep you informed when changes are made (yet another post ‘RSS - better than a fire hose’) and let us help you liven up your profile and your day all around.

Welcome to SupplierSource! Our whole purpose is to help buyers and suppliers find each other fast. For a little history on how SupplierSource has evolved from the SolidWorks Manufacturing Network check out the blog post ‘Just the facts, M’am, just the facts’.

How are people going to find me if they use SolidWorks and want to use a supplier who does too? 

By using the ‘Refine your results’ choices in the left column.

Once a user starts a search, the first set of results also includes the ‘Refine your results’ column, which then allows them to make additional choices to further reduce the set of possibilities.

You can see (in the image to the left) that in the ‘Certifications’ choices, the user can select SolidWorks Manufacturing Network as one criteria.  This means that only network members will be considered as they make other choices; such as service, industries or materials.

The main goal is to help the user define what they want in steps that reduce the number of possible suppliers to a manageable number. The choices that you make on your supplier profile are what determine where you appear on the various lists of choices.

Since searching at SupplierSource can be done in many ways (see FAQ #3 for several different approaches), the ‘Refine your results’ column (also sometimes referred to as guided navigation) is a powerful tool to make any search easier.

 It’s also an easy way for SolidWorks users to find you!

Be sure to check out the blog posts ‘3 important things to do right now’ and ‘3 valuable things to do as soon as you can’ for more help in making the most out of your SupplierSource profile.

We make a big deal about how your profile is yours to edit, treasure, and keep interesting. But when you make your changes, they don’t show up right away. What’s up?

SPEED IS KING!  The whole point of SupplierSource is to help our visitors (including you) find each other in the fastest and easiest way possible.  If you’re doing a search and it takes too long - you’re gone - same with people looking for you.

Any part of your profile that is searchable is held in our search index database. When a visitor arrives and wants to find you, every part of their search query goes into that database to find matches. Based on the results, the visitor may refine their search with even more choices. We’re all hoping that their choices will lead to a short list that contains you.

So, if we keep saying “Excuse me, search index database, I want to make some changes” then the database is busy doing housekeeping rather than giving us the results we want - NOW!

Since speed is king, we only interrupt the search index once an hour. Every sixty minutes, all the changes made are gathered up and put in just the right places in the index. Once that is done, your changes will show up.

Depending on when you put in your changes, you could get lucky and have them show up in just a few minutes. Or it could take close to the full sixty minutes. Since you save often while making your changes (right?); I suppose that, theoretically, some of your changes could show up almost immediately, while others take longer.

So, that is why your changes don’t always show up when you think they will. Your patience keeps the search process speeding along for the visitor, so they can find you faster!

This better not be a jinx, but we’ve been perking right along these last few days and I think we’re back in the regular universe again. If anyone notices ongoing problems, please let us know and we’ll get them fixed.

Thank you for bearing with us!

The pictures are just in case you thought that trucks didn’t have fun! Check out the European Truck Racing web site. It has everything, including some awesome videos. Racing cars looks way safer!

We apologize for the ongoing technical issues that have kept the SupplierSource web site bouncing up and down like a yo-yo over the last few days. I’m not a software or network guy, so I won’t even try to explain the details (which keep changing hour by hour anyway). Moving the servers was intended to increase our up-time, but somehow we’ve ended up in a reverse universe.

I can’t make any promises, but we are all doing our best to resolve the current issues and restore both the site and our reliability as soon as possible.

Thank you for any patience you may still be able to muster.

Thank you for your patience (grrrrrr!!!) as we moved our servers. We do apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused with this outage. It took a lot longer than we expected and only some significant extra effort by the team got us back up by Saturday afternoon.

Several kind folks asked nicely what was up with the site and we (re)learned the importance of having a maintenance page up with an explanation. We’re sorry for that oversight. We did finally get a message up late on Friday.

There are still a couple things that we’re working on, but they shouldn’t affect your normal usage. PLEASE - do let us know if we missed something and you find it.

Now that the servers are in our building and more directly under our control, future incidents can be handled more quickly.

I got some grief because the last giant dump truck picture didn’t have any people in it to show how truly gigantic it was. Well, now you’ve got some people next to and on this GIANT Hitachi AC Diesel-Electric dump. Take that!