John@OnyxTheaters

I just started working with Schematic drawings. Just messing around right now to see if it would be useful.

Any suggestions for best practices?

Does anyone use these a lot? Have they helped your installs substantially?

I don't want to waste my time creating all of these inputs and outputs into all of my items unless it's worthwhile.

Thanks in advance for any input.

gvoyzey

I tend to add ins and outs after they're dragged to the visio page if they're missing from the item. This saves me having to do all items in the product data matrix.

Built in schematic drawings was one of the reasons I moved to D-Tools. Being able to drag items onto the visio page and they automatically get added to the project is a very useful feature.

I don't do schematic drawings for every job though as it still remains fairly time consuming.

ekalpakoff

Schematic drawings are useful for many reasons. When we migrated to D-Tools from Quickbooks estimates, once of the biggest selling factors of D-tools was the ability to keep track of all of the parts required to build a successful project. I know there are a lot of us that believe that we can build these systems in our head so its easier to cost estimate a project without all of the design work, but D-tools has helped us keep a better eye on the little details that were commonly missed, (i.e. connectors, adaptors, etc.). IMO The "detailed" schematics should really only be done once you have been awarded the project though. Otherwise you run the risk of giving away a lot of design labor for free. If you are just using the basic line diagrams for estimation, that is a great way to go. The completed schematics help your technicians in the field accomplish the installation faster and troubleshooting goes faster if they have a complete picture of the system without having to trace wire. I think we all know that you can give the same 10 AV components to two different technicians and get completely different results. It also can help prevent return trips because of a missed adapter or wrong cable. You take a lot of the guess work out for them. Also, with all of the EDID and digital signal management that needs to happen these days, some projects we have worked on would not have been possible without the schematics.

That's my two cents.... well maybe three cents.

John@OnyxTheaters

Great feedback, thank you!

After messing around with schematics a little bit, I agree, it does take a lot of time. But the end result looks great. I think I may start doing these for our installers if I have the time...

Thanks again!