This page provides answers to frequently asked questions about our products. Unless specifically stated, entries refer to both QEI and LinearPlus.

If you have a question which is not listed here - please contact us!

 

Sales and Support

How can I get hold of QEI?

You can always download the latest version of the software from this website

Do you offer evaluation copies of QEI?

When you download the software from our website you will be sent a time-locked license code that will allow you to evaluate the product for 30 days. Email based support is available for prospects evaluating our products.

Why I didn't get a license code after downloading the software?

There are two common reasons for this - the first is the email address you entered in the download request form was either invalid or mistyped. The second relates to the information submitted in the form - all license requests are reviewed individually, and if you have not provided valid information in the mandatory fields, we will decline to send you a license.

What pre-sales assistance can PCF provide?

There is a range of product related literature available for download from this website. We are always happy to visit suitably qualified prospects to give a product  presentation; for prospects outside the UK we can deliver a web based demonstration of the product, which requires a PC with a broadband internet connection, and a telephone line to talk over.

If you have existing data in a suitable format (eg P3/P3E or Excel), we can usually produce a simple prototype or example diagram from your data; this is often the best means of demonstrating the advantages of our graphical approach.

What post-sales support is available for your products?

We pride ourselves on the level of support that we offer our customers. For an annual maintenance payment you get unlimited product upgrades and unlimited hotline support by telephone or email. We obviously also provide support on any customisations undertaken for individual customers, and the rates for these are individually negotiated.

What training is available?

We strongly recommend that all new customers take a basic QEI training course in order to familiarise themselves with the product. We can either train your staff at our offices, or send a trainer to your location. In the UK we charge a flat daily fee for the trainer, with up to 4 students permitted per trainer. For customers or partners not in the UK, there are various options, including operating web based training presentations, sending a staff member to our offices so we can "train the trainer", or sending one of our trainers to you.

In addition to basic user training, we offer advanced level courses on topics such as macro writing or earned value techniques. We can also create courses tailored to individual customer requirements.

General Product Related

Why does QEI use its own database?

The data that QEI operates on is almost entirely hierarchical and consists of trees of many different object types. This is an extremely bad fit for relational database technology - experiments with a prototype system using a relational database backend show a 100x performance degradation in some areas. You will not find any major CAD systems based on relational databases, for the same reason. We are currently working with an object/relational database which we expect to deliver the necessary performance in future releases.

Is QEI a client/server application?

No - the database engine is integrated into the application. However, you can install and run QEI on a remote server in the same way that you can have shared copies of Microsoft Office applications like Word or Excel. It is however possible to create a true client server environment running QEI if it is deployed using Windows Terminal Server or Citrix.

Are there any limitations on QEI database size?

One of our customers builds models which represent a 20 year high level maintenance forecast for a fleet of over 100 aircraft. These contain over 250,000 tasks, each with up to 10 resource assignments. These databases are around 500Mb and represent the practical limit at present.

What graphics file formats can QEI import?

Because QEI is based on vector graphics, we can only currently import vector files. The most common sources of vector data are CAD systems such as AutoCAD or MicroStation. Both of these can generate DXF files, which can be imported into QEI. The alternative is via HP-GL, a graphics language created by Hewlett Packard for driving pen plotters. Many graphics packages can output drawings in this format, and it is also possible to get a 3rd party Windows printer driver that allows any application to generate HP-GL. We are currently looking at how we could also support common bitmapped graphics file formats (eg BMP, TIFF, JPEG).

How do I include QEI data in other documents?

The high level of detail in the graphics generated by QEI means that simply taking a copy of the program window (ALT-PrintScreen) and pasting it into a document at a fraction of its original size will result in a fuzzy unreadable mess. For this reason, QEI can export whatever is displayed in the window in Windows Enhanced Metafile (.EMF) format. This is a vector format that is understood by all Office applications and can be rescaled without losing picture quality.

Can QEI publish data to the web?

You can export both graphical and tabular views to HTML files, using templates and style sheets to define the look and feel of the pages produced. The graphics content can be exported as JPG images, or in the new SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format. This creates images of much higher quality, but at present requires a browser plug in to display the data. We have tried both the Adobe and Corel ones, and currently recommend Corel.

What platforms does QEI run on?

QEI requires a PC running Windows NT4 SP3, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Networked installations require a TCP/IP network.

Can QEI run as a server process?

It is possible to start up QEI so that it does not display any user interface, and simply sits waiting for commands via DDE. This is useful if you want to use it as a "back end" for generating sets of charts as part of an automated process, for example. This type of setup generally requires some custom macro coding.

Installation and Troubleshooting

When I insert the QEI Exec CD-ROM in my PC the Installation Wizard does not start. How do I install the product?

You can install QEI Exec by using Explorer to view the contents of the CD-ROM and then double-clicking on SETUP.EXE.

When I start QEI, I get a message saying "The license for feature Qeiexec on this machine has expired"

You will need to obtain a new license from PCF to be able to run QEI again.

When I start QEI, my machine pops up the Dialup Connection dialog as if it is trying to connect to the Internet.

By default, QEI Exec issues a TCP/IP broadcast message to locate the License Server when it starts up. This may cause your machine to try to open a dialup TCP/IP connection if you have no network card installed. To prevent this from happening, you should define an environment variable on your machine called LSFORCEHOST and set it to NO_NET.

When I start QEI, I get a message saying "No license found for feature Qeiexec on node nnn"

This means that QEI Exec has been unable to obtain a license. This can occur for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being that no license has actually been registered with the system. Please refer to the Installation Guide for details on how to register a license for standalone and networked systems respectively (note that LinearPlus is only available with a standalone licence).

For QEI systems with networked licences, another possible reason is that your network contains bridges or routers which are configured to block broadcast packets; if this is the case then the standard QEI Exec license request will fail if the License Server is on a different network segment. To prevent license requests from using broadcast packets you should define an environment variable on each machine running QEI Exec called LSFORCEHOST and set it to the IP address of the License Server.

When I start QEI, I get a message saying "Access denied due to clock tamper detection"

The SentinelLM License Manager is designed to detect any attempts to "rewind" the system clock in order to bypass the expiration date of a time limited license. If you see this message and no such tampering has taken place, please contact PCF for assistance.

Why does my system now pop up a dialog saying "license expires in nn days"?

This message means exactly what it says - when there is less than one month until the expiry date of a time limited license, QEI will issue a warning message every time you start the application.

My system displays "System Error - abnormal termination" and a Message window containing "Cannot access message file 'QEIDIR:\run\qei.mfl' - File does not exist"

This will occur if QEI is unable to locate the correct set of registry data. If you are comfortable working with the registry, you may be able to use the information in Appendix A of the Installation Guide to determine the exact cause of the problem. If not, please contact PCF for assistance.

My system hangs while displaying a Message window containing "(PML 41) Unable to open macro file - File does not exist - Database no.="

This will occur if QEI cannot find the macro pointed to by the STARTUP variable in the registry. If you are comfortable working with the registry, you may be able to use the information in Appendix A of the Installation Guide to determine the exact cause of the problem. If not, please contact PCF for assistance. Please also note that by typing "quit y" at the database prompt you can exit the system cleanly without having to terminate it.

Can I install QEI from a disk image?

You can copy the QEI CD-ROM to a disk drive and install from there without problems.

How do I tell what version of QEI I am running?

Within the application, click the Help menu and then About QEI Exec. The dialog box displayed shows you:

Interfacing with Primavera P3 and P3E

How do you import data from P3/P3E into QEI?

There is a wizard to import data from both P3 and P3E. Both use ODBC to access the data, although with P3 you also have to export the project (and optionally the WBS) data first so that it is in a form that QEI can read. Note that as you cannot export calendar data from P3, you also need to set up the calendars in QEI to match those in P3.

How do you export data from QEI back into P3/P3E?

At present there are no wizards to carry out this operation, but the standard data export functions within QEI provide a number of ways of achieving this.

Why doesn't QEI use ODBC to access P3 data directly?

The Btrieve ODBC driver on the P3 CD-ROM is specifically licensed for InfoMaker and only operates in "demo" mode for other applications. We have looked into licensing it ourselves, but the driver vendor's OEM licensing terms currently make it uneconomic to distribute it with our products.

How can QEI use ODBC with P3E running InterBase?

Borland do not ship an ODBC driver with Interbase, and end users have to purchase their own copies from the company contracted by Borland to develop it. We have looked into licensing it ourselves, but the driver vendor's OEM licensing terms currently make it uneconomic to bundle it with our products. An evaluation copy of the driver can be downloaded from Easysoft's website.

Why doesn't QEI use the P3E SDK/API?

The original P3E SDK does not support the export of the calendar information which we require, and the new API is written in Java, which makes it very hard for us to integrate it into our current product architecture.

Interfacing with Microsoft Project

How do you import data from Microsoft Project into QEI?

There is a wizard to import data from both MS Project 9x and Project 2000. The former uses the MPX data format, while the latter requires you to have exported your project to either Access or SQL Server so that it can be accessed via ODBC.

How do you export data from QEI back into Microsoft project?

At present there are no wizards to carry out this operation, but the standard data export functions within QEI provide a number of ways of achieving this.

Importing CAD (DXF) Graphics Files

What CAD systems does QEI support?

DXF is an AutoCAD proprietary format, and has evolved with AutoCAD. Most other CAD packages (eg MicroStation) can export DXF data in a variety of versions of DXF; QEI is able to import data in DXF R14, R15 and AutoCAD 2000 formats.

What entities does QEI support?

QEI can only deal with 2D data, and makes no attempt to process any 3D data at all. It cannot handle embedded OLE objects, or bitmapped image files. QEI is also unable to resolve any references to other linked drawings.

My DXF file won't import - what do I need to do?

Here are some tips to improve the likelihood of your DXF data importing correctly:

My imported DXF symbol has circles all over it

This problem occurs when the imported data contains very small ARC objects and the converted control point coordinates in QEI overlap. You can often resolve this by increasing the size of the sheet onto which you are importing the DXF data - try making it 10x larger than normal, via the Sheet Properties dialog box.

 

 

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