406 — The engineering round trip

Sending panels out to a lift engineer, and bringing their answers back in.

Note

This lesson also exists in the browser. Work it in ConstructiVision on the web — same steps, same values, so you can follow either and end up with the same panel.

Two halves of one job

File → Export engineering file	what you send out
File → Import engineering file	what comes back

Unlike the other exports, this one is not an archive or a drawing — it is a question you are asking someone outside the office, and the import is their reply.

Going out

The export dialog takes a full address, not just a name: Lift firm, Company, Contact, Street, City. The file is addressed work, and who answered is part of the record.

Coming back

The import accepts .pdx and .txt, and says exactly what it is for:

Reads a Dayton/Richmond .pdx back into panel geometry — the reverse of Export Engineering. Select several files to update a batch.

Two things worth taking from that. It reads the formats Dayton and Richmond actually send, rather than one they would have to produce for us. And it takes several files at once, because a reply usually comes back per panel, not as one bundle.

Then it reports how many panels it applied to. Read that number against how many you sent. If fourteen went out and the reply applied to eleven, three did not match — and you want to know that now, not when the wrong panel is on the bed.

Why the count matters more than the file

An engineering reply that silently matched fewer panels than you sent looks identical to one that matched them all. The count is what distinguishes them, and it is the reason this dialog reports rather than just succeeding.

What to take away

Out with a named firm, back as .pdx or .txt, and check the applied count against what you sent. That number is the acceptance test for the whole round trip.