Item: DraftSight
Rating: 10
Author: Glen Morgan

Overall Satisfaction with DraftSight

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use DraftSight to make furniture details of new designs. I send these to manufacturers that I work for and they are produced in factories in the US, China and Vietnam. It is great for quick and accurate information on how to build new furniture samples and info can be exchanged back and forth.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Works with other .dwg files - AutoCAD
Shortcuts - I seldom even touch the keyboard for anything besides numbers
Simple to learn
Mouse gestures

Cons

CUSTOMER SUPPORT !!!!!!!
Video learning for EVERYTHING .
When I search for a command, more generic terms - i.e. - you call it hatch, but I may be asking for cross-hatching or hatching and nothing shows up.

Return on Investment

It has been free - that is positive even 100 dollars now is great.
Very difficult to access service. That has been very costly and cost me a lot of time at the most inopportune times.
Easily accepted across the world.

Alternatives Considered

AutoCAD

Very capable and at the time, much less computer locking up than AutoCAD. Video introductions with some examples of on-screen commands and how to use them. This was great !!
It was free. The price was right for a one-person business.

Other Software Used

Corel Painter

Likelihood to Recommend

I use DraftSight with no classes or training, and it is much more than capable of doing furniture drafting, which is wood mostly with no mechanical fasteners, reasonably uncomplicated. Anything like that, it is very easy to learn and use. I am sure it can do much more

Using DraftSight

Users and Roles

1 - CAD drafting

Support Headcount Required

Draftsmen

Business Processes Supported

Drafting
Converting to pdf
Printing pdf

Innovative Uses

Printing pdf

Future Planned Uses

Convert imported other files to pdf

Likelihood to Renew

I have got to have CAD program and this is very capable And priced right.

Evaluating DraftSight and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - Auto CAD. PRICE

Key Differentiators

Advisor recommendation

Price

Evaluation Lessons Learned

Look closer at support

DraftSight Implementation

Implementation Rating

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Change Management Lessons

Change management was minimal - Reserve a whole day if I have to re load.

Implementation Issues

Getting everything how I want it
Understanding names of commands

DraftSight Support

Support Rating

Knowledgeable support team, but overnight communication across the world is unacceptable when DS is not working.

DraftSight Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Support understands my problem Support cares about my success	Slow Resolution Escalation required Difficult to get immediate help Slow Initial Response

Premium Support

yes, support is mandatory to have, a few things can be worked thru. But if it dead in the water, in must be fixed Now. Maybe a quick, well defined, easy to locate access point for help is there somewhere, but it always seems that I get the slow process.

I must keep up and going to meet deadlines

Bug Resolution

Yes - yes, Just now reported an issue with DS 2022 SP0. Told it would be fixed later. a link is to be sent so I can go back and download 2021.

Exceptional Examples of DraftSight Support

Yes. I got folks in Virginia to actually help after India was Useless. That was leave message, wait for them to go work. Get reply, start over. Bad thing was they were reading the Help manual which I had tried 100%.