CTC Access User Guide

This guide will provide you with information about using the CTC Access application.

The CTC Access application is similar to the Autodesk Access application. Its main purpose is to alert you when new versions of applications from CTC Software become available, and to make it easy for you to download the installers for the latest versions of CTC applications.

When new versions of CTC applications become available, an update notification will appear for a few seconds in the lower right corner of the main screen, such as this one when an update is available only for one product:

or this one when multiple applications have updates available:

Clicking on the “Click here to see all available updates” text will bring up the main dialog, which will show you all the information about all the latest versions of products available from CTC.

IMPORTANT: You must be signed in to the CTC ecosystem in order to see any update notification popups.

The automatic notification system will check for updates not more often than once per day. If a newer version of an application is available than you currently have installed, you will be shown a notification about it as soon as it is known, and you will be reminded the new version is available not more often than once every two weeks.

The CTC Access application does not have a regular desktop icon. Instead, just like the Autodesk Access application, it exists as an icon in the System Tray in the lower right portion of your main screen.

You may see the CTC Access icon either directly in the System Tray (especially when it first starts) or, more commonly, you'll see it in the icon panel that pops up when you click on the “up arrow” in the System Tray:

If you right-click on the CTC Access icon in the System Tray, you will see the following options on the resulting pop-up menu:

The “Open” choice displays the main dialog, where you can see all the information available regarding CTC products.

NOTE: Simply clicking on the CTC icon in the System Tray will also open the main dialog, without having to bring up the right-click popup menu first.

The “Check for updates now” choice will check for any updates that have become available since the versions of CTC tools you have installed were released. If any updates are available, the popup notification will appear.

IMPORTANT: In order to successfully check for updates, you must both have an Internet connection and be logged into the CTC ecosystem.

The “Quit” choice will shut down the CTC Access application. When shut down, it will no longer check for updates or be able to alert you if any new updates become available. The CTC Access application will automatically restart the next time you login to the computer, or you can start it again manually by using the CTC Access icon in the classic Windows Start Menu.

If you use the default Windows 10 and 11 interfaces, simply type “CTC” in the search box and choose it from the list:

As seen in the above section, when you right-click on the CTC Access icon in the System Tray, a popup menu will appear. To manually check for updates to CTC applications, select the “Check for updates now” option. In order to check for updates, you must both have an Internet connection and be signed in to the CTC ecosystem.

If you are not signed in, it will prompt you to sign in:

If you select No, the check for updates will not proceed. If you select Yes, but cancel the sign in process, the check for updates will not proceed. You must successfully complete the sign in process for the check for updates to proceed.

Once signed in, one of the following messages will appear.

If no updates are available, the following message will be displayed:

If there are updated versions of CTC products installed, Access will pop up an alert indicating the are one or more updates available:

When updates are available, you will be shown information about which updates are available in these popup dialogs, even if you've previously seen notifications about these updates within the last two weeks. This is because you manually requested a check for updates.

The main dialog can be used to:

• See if any newer updates are available for all installed CTC Software applications
• See the latest versions available for other products from CTC Software
• Manually refresh the lists of updates available or products available
• Download the installers for the latest versions of CTC Software applications
• Sign in to the CTC ecosystem
• Sign out from the CTC ecosystem
• Access your CTC Account, if signed in
• Access this online help
• Contact the CTC Support team
• See the information about this CTC Access application
• Switch between light and dark mode

You can access the main dialog in one of the following ways:

Simply click on the CTC Access icon in the System Tray:

Right-click on the CTC Access icon in the System Tray and select the “Open” choice from the resulting pop up menu:

Click on the link in the pop up notification window that appears when an update is available:

This is what the main dialog looks like if you're not already signed in:

You must sign in to see what updates may be available. Clicking the “Sign In” button in the middle of the screen will begin that process.

IMPORTANT: This will sign you in to ALL applications from CTC Software, including addins for Autodesk products such as Revit and Civil 3D, as well as the CMS system.

Once you get successfully signed in, your initials will appear in the title bar as a button that can be used to access information about your account. This is a sample of what the main dialog might look like:

NOTE: You will only see the “View all your products and services” link if you are either an Organization Admin or a Licensing Admin in the CTC Portal.

The Refresh button will rescan your computer for the CTC products that are currently installed and also check to see what the latest products available are, and update the data in the main part of the screen with the results. For example, you may want to click this button after installing an update while this application has stayed open.

Clicking the Help (question mark) button will bring up the Help menu:

The “Online help” choice will open this help document.

The “Contact support” choice will open the Support page on the CTC portal in your web browser. From here you may submit a support request to CTC.

The “About” choice will open the About dialog for this application, which will let you see the version of this application you are using. This could be useful if you are working with the Support Team on a question you may have about this application:

Clicking the User Account button will bring up the User Account menu:

The “Account” choice will open your web browser to your user account page on the CTC Portal.

The “Switch to dark mode” choice will switch the user interface into Dark Mode:

Once you have switched to dark mode, this menu choice will change to be “Switch to light mode” and the next time you run this application it will remember you were last in dark mode.

The “Sign out” choice will sign you out of the CTC ecosystem.

IMPORTANT: This will sign you out of ALL applications from CTC Software, including addins for Autodesk products such as Revit and Civil 3D, as well as the CMS system.

The central portion of the main dialog contains information about the latest versions of products available from CTC Software.

The top portion contains the list of products you have installed, but for which newer versions are available than those currently installed. Buttons exist to download the latest versions available.

The bottom portion contains the list of products you do not have installed yet, and provides buttons for downloading the latest versions available of those installers as well.

For each product listed, the leftmost section displays information about the latest version available, and if it's installed, the version that's currently installed:

Click on the title to see the product page for more information. The product page also has a link to the full history of release notes.

The middle section contains the release notes for the latest version available. This typically contains the information about new features, enhancements and bug fixes. The “Show more” button will display the full list of release notes. The “Show less” button will collapse the list to just the first couple of notes in order to display information about more products on the screen at once:

The rightmost section contains the Download button, which makes it easy to get the installer for the latest version of the software.

The download button will make it easy for you to get the latest installer for CTC Software products.

NOTE: You can only download one installer at a time.

Once you've specified to where to save the file being downloaded, the download will begin. During the download you will see the progress of the download, as well as a cancel button (“X”) which will let you stop the download at any time:

Once the download completes successfully, Windows File Explorer will open and select the file you just downloaded.

From time to time the CTC Access application itself may require updating. If a mandatory update is required, this dialog will be displayed whenever you open the main dialog:

The download button to get the latest version of CTC Access works the same way as the download button for updating other CTC applications.