The MSC Patran Analysis Manager can function as a separately run program but is intended to be run directly from within MSC Patran in a seamless manner when submitting analysis jobs. It is integrated with MSC Patran such that engineers can submit, monitor and manage their analysis jobs directly from within the MSC Patran graphical interface. It provides a user-friendly environment to submit analysis jobs, then monitor and control job execution graphically. It is a distributed, multiple-process application which runs in a heterogeneous network.

There are various modes in which the Analysis Manager can be invoked. Normally, a user will see a seamless integration between MSC Patran and the Analysis Manager. Jobs can be submitted, monitored and aborted simply by setting the appropriate Action in pull down menus available from the Analysis application form in MSC Patran. When a job is being monitored, the monitoring window or form can be put away and recalled at any time. The user can even quit MSC Patran and the monitoring window will remain present until the user closes it.

The full user interface is also available from within MSC Patran simply by pressing a button on the Analysis application form or from the Tools pull down menu on the main form. This gives access to change default settings, submit previously created input files, change the default computer host or queue in which to submit jobs, and many other options which are explained throughout this manual.

The MSC Patran Analysis Manager can also be invoked from the system prompt. This mode of implementation gives the user maximum flexibility to manage analysis jobs.