Our approach to customer and product support comes from your needs — just like our design and development concepts. Today, our support quality is an integral part of the total quality concept we follow: every component of everything we make and sell has to meet or exceed your expectations.
We manage our support program with the same level of attention to your needs and concerns as we exercise over our product development — and in the entire history of our company, we have never left our client without service and assistance.
If you are our current or prospective customer, please review this entire page — it will save you a lot of time, effort and money.
We manage our support program with the same level of attention to your needs and concerns as we exercise over our product development — and in the entire history of our company, we have never left our client without service and assistance.
If you are our current or prospective customer, please review this entire page — it will save you a lot of time, effort and money.
Our customer support includes:
- telephone support
- live on-line support via WebEx™
- regular software updates (on an average, once a week)
- special requests
- data setup, download and recovery
- product documentation
- troubleshooting
The telephone support for our products is provided free of charge to all of our customers and is available 24/7/365 for as long as you own the product.
If you are our customer, and you need to contact us outside of normal business hours, please use our staff's cell phone numbers given to you at the installation time, or simply call our office — your call will be routed to the staff member who is on call (we answer phone calls around the clock, because of our clients abroad).
If you have a high speed Internet access in your office, our on-line support, conducted via WebEx™
(www.webex.com), represents the best support value — your employees can get instant assistance directly at their workstations.During normal business hours, WebEx conferences are instantly available to all of our customers free of charge. If you need WebEx assistance outside of normal business hours, we will provide it, most of the time, within an hour from your call.
A WebEx session is not a "canned" on-line presentation — it is an on-line interactive conference, hosted by our support staff and attended by your employees. Using WebEx, we can run PractiCAM and PractiCAD directly on your computer's desktop, while answering questions and addressing specific issues and concerns, raised by your employees.
Every participant can take control over the running software, presenting to others any necessary information — as if everyone was in the same room and working with the same computer.
Every participant can take control over the running software, presenting to others any necessary information — as if everyone was in the same room and working with the same computer.
Our products are designed under a simple premise: every company — including yours — is different, and while we cannot anticipate every possible aspect of your work, we design our products not only for the highest quality, but also for the flexibility, allowing us to modify them for your company very quickly.
This is how we manage updating our software, on an average, once a week.
Our product releases are not incremental — every release contains a full and complete set of components, which can be installed next to previously installed sets, without overwriting them, and any or all data from previous installations are imported on-the-fly — making our software updates the safest and the easiest anywhere.
For the first year, all updates are free. After the first year, product updates are provided for a small yearly fee (less than 8% of the product cost).
This is how we manage updating our software, on an average, once a week.
Our product releases are not incremental — every release contains a full and complete set of components, which can be installed next to previously installed sets, without overwriting them, and any or all data from previous installations are imported on-the-fly — making our software updates the safest and the easiest anywhere.
For the first year, all updates are free. After the first year, product updates are provided for a small yearly fee (less than 8% of the product cost).
To see the product update procedure, please use the Download link below or the Downloads link on the right, then select a product (on the right menu panel).
You can view the entire list of our updates, with File Size and Features links to feature lists (click on one of this links to get the idea, and click anywhere inside the feature list to close it).
At the top of the update list, in the File Name column, you will see a direct download link for the latest software version. Clicking on it will download the latest product version to your computer.
Easy? This is how our customers get their software updates, as often as they need.
You can view the entire list of our updates, with File Size and Features links to feature lists (click on one of this links to get the idea, and click anywhere inside the feature list to close it).
At the top of the update list, in the File Name column, you will see a direct download link for the latest software version. Clicking on it will download the latest product version to your computer.
Easy? This is how our customers get their software updates, as often as they need.
Where do we get ideas for software improvement? From our clients.
Your requests are not relegated to a dusty file cabinet — they are implemented as fast as possible, sometimes even overnight.
For anything directly affecting your ability to cut metal, we try to deliver a fix or a workaround within 24-48 hours from the time of your report. All important but not critical items go to the top of the list, and generally are delivered to you within 30 days. All other suggestions (anything that you would like to have eventually) gets placed in the general design queue, where suggestions with the highest number of votes get higher priority.
Your requests are not relegated to a dusty file cabinet — they are implemented as fast as possible, sometimes even overnight.
For anything directly affecting your ability to cut metal, we try to deliver a fix or a workaround within 24-48 hours from the time of your report. All important but not critical items go to the top of the list, and generally are delivered to you within 30 days. All other suggestions (anything that you would like to have eventually) gets placed in the general design queue, where suggestions with the highest number of votes get higher priority.
During product installation, we review with your staff everything you may require. All requests for a new customer automatically go to the top of the queue — and you start getting updates containing these enhancements virtually the next day. For many of our clients, we have addressed in excess of 100 requests within the first year of operation.
You can send your requests to us via e-mail (the contact method most convenient for us), both directly from our software and by using your regular e-mail. Please send your e-mail to a staff member you wish to contact directly (if you know the e-mail address), or usemailbox@meta-lab.com to send an e-mail to all of us at once. Of course, you can also contact us using regular mail, telephone or FAX.
You can send your requests to us via e-mail (the contact method most convenient for us), both directly from our software and by using your regular e-mail. Please send your e-mail to a staff member you wish to contact directly (if you know the e-mail address), or use
Installation of our products is very simple and takes, literally, a few minutes. If you already have the cutting equipment, and it is not very old, PractiCAM can be installed over the WebEx; otherwise, PractiCAM requires an on-site installation. PractiCAD products are installed over the WebEx. If you buy an entire manufacturing package from us (both the software and the cutting machine), then the on-site installation and setup of the software and the machine are included free of charge.
If you want to test drive our software, you can download it from the Download section of our site, install it yourself and use it for30 days — it is fully functional (except for the cutting capability, which is limited to a few pre-set test sheets).
If you want to test drive our software, you can download it from the Download section of our site, install it yourself and use it for30 days — it is fully functional (except for the cutting capability, which is limited to a few pre-set test sheets).
Our products come with a pre-set standard database — a vast collection of libraries containing products, fittings, parts, manufacturing allowances, specifications, labels, reports, sizing tables, and many other data items.
During software installation (on-site or using the WebEx), we will assist you in setting up and customizing any additional items (i.e. locks, connectors, joints, seams, notches, accessories, catalog items, labels, reports) you may require (it is very easy).
We will also record any software requests you may have and review any additional products, parts and fittings you may need.
During software installation (on-site or using the WebEx), we will assist you in setting up and customizing any additional items (i.e. locks, connectors, joints, seams, notches, accessories, catalog items, labels, reports) you may require (it is very easy).
We will also record any software requests you may have and review any additional products, parts and fittings you may need.
All your data is as good as... the backups you make of it. Yes — any loss of data today is most likely to happen due to a physical hardware malfunction (a lightning, a power failure, a flood), making your data recovery fully dependent on a timely automatic backup and restore facilities.
While there are many backup utilities available, the extraction of a specific portion of your data pertaining to the manufacturing — so you can re-start fabrication without a delay — is usually cumbersome.
While there are many backup utilities available, the extraction of a specific portion of your data pertaining to the manufacturing — so you can re-start fabrication without a delay — is usually cumbersome.
This is why we provide automatic schedule-driven network-enabled data backup facilities in our software (free of charge). And in addition to this, we also make a copy of your data after the initial installation, and later update this set as opportunity arises.
This data backup (which usually includes all of your libraries at the time of installation, with all custom modifications we have created for you) is stored (may you never need it!) on our server and is available to you at any time, providing yet another barrier to a possible data corruption.
This data backup (which usually includes all of your libraries at the time of installation, with all custom modifications we have created for you) is stored (may you never need it!) on our server and is available to you at any time, providing yet another barrier to a possible data corruption.
We create new manufacturing data all the time. New types of manufacturing allowances and shop standards (notches, connectors, locks, joints, seams), new equipment drivers, specifications, reports and labels, and other items, from fittings and parts to accesories and catalog items.
Inclusion of all these items into each software distribution would be ineffective, drastically increasing the update download times and redundancy of the stored data.
This is why we store this data here, on our Web site, readily available to you via download.
Inclusion of all these items into each software distribution would be ineffective, drastically increasing the update download times and redundancy of the stored data.
This is why we store this data here, on our Web site, readily available to you via download.
You can import this data into PractiCAM and PractiCAD directly, by downloading these files, and then importing them.
You also can add these items to your libraries from within PractiCAM — the software gives you two ways of upgrading your libraries with the new data: by adding the new items to your existing data, and by replacing your existing data with the newly imported items.
This feature also gives you an opportunity to restore items which you may have inadvertently changed and want to re-set.
You also can add these items to your libraries from within PractiCAM — the software gives you two ways of upgrading your libraries with the new data: by adding the new items to your existing data, and by replacing your existing data with the newly imported items.
This feature also gives you an opportunity to restore items which you may have inadvertently changed and want to re-set.
Our support library includes documentation for all of MetaLab products as well as documentation for ESAB cutting machines and other related documents. This documentation includes user manuals, product brochures, pre-installation checklists for software and hardware, installation manuals and other helpful resources.
All of these documents are stored here in the form of .PDF files (you will need an Adobe Acrobat Reader).
