If you read my blog about Cascading Attributes and found that useful, here’s another way to do something similar, but a bit more complicated. Recently I was asked, “How do I create a SELECT statement to do this?” I have two Project Properties: @"PROJECT_Project_Number" and @"PROJECT_Billing_Type" Here is the logic I want to use: If @"PROJECT_Project_Number" is a NULL then @"PROJECT_Billing_Type"...

A common question I get asked about the ProjectWise V8i SDK training is: “How much programming experience does someone really need to take the class?” The course description has the following requirements and recommendations:” Recently a ProjectWise Administrator asked me this familiar question, but with a new twist: “Someone told me that they had ZERO programming experience, went to the PW SDK class and started developing...

With ProjectWise SelectSeries3 release, there is an easier way to set Project/Folder and document security. You no longer need to open the folder properties dialog to set its permissions. As you select each folder, its’ permissions are displayed on the ‘Access Control’ tab of the preview pane. You can easily perform the following Identify folder and document permissions (create subfolders, read, write and no access, etc.) If the...

When a user is a member of the Administrator group, he or she will have full access to every node under the datasource (Applications, States, Environments, Users, etc.). Now with ProjectWise SELECTseries 3, each node has a “Granular Security” tab allowing the ProjectWise administrator to define who should have access only to a particular node. There is also a new group called “Restricted Adminstrator” that works along with...

Group and User List Membership Groups and user lists are two different ways of grouping users together in the datasource. Groups are typically created by the administrator as a way to group together users who need the same access rights to folders and documents. Once a group is created, you can then assign that group permission to a folder, rather than assigning each user permission to the folder, one at a time. User lists provide a way to group together...

Is there a way to use Project Properties conditionally in a MicroStation Workspace? There is a technique to do this, simply create a Workspace Variable at the Command Line using the –ws switch. In ProjectWise Admin, edit the MicroStation Application. Modify or create a new Association. In the command line arguments, create a variable with the desired Project Property: Example: -wsCountry=$PROJECT#PROJECT_Country$ The -ws switch creates a Workspace...

ProjectWise Database User requirements ProjectWise can run on both Oracle and Microsoft SQL Servers, it uses a multi-user connection in which the ProjectWise Server has a connection with the database (through ODBC or SQL Native Client). Besides this, users access ProjectWise through their own authorization in ProjectWise. For the Database, there is only one user which is really important and needs to be setup with according specifications. When you...

In all of my ProjectWise deployments, one of the first things I develop is an architecture diagram depicting a structure of the system hardware and ProjectWise components that run on them, showing how the hardware and software components work together. In other words, an architecture diagram should include the hardware for your ProjectWise system; including key specifications such has CPUs, operating system and RAM(memory). The diagram should also...

During ProjectWise training, I am often asked what is the definition of a “Datasource”. In general terms, the name datasource is commonly used when creating a query to the database. More specifically, I define a datasource as a structure that contains specific ProjectWise information, such as users, groups, environments, etc. which is stored in a database. Each PW datasource must be attached to its own database (SQL or Oracle) and contain...

Readme’s have come a long way since the readme.txt files of old. Over the years, table of contents and hyperlinks have been added. The format of the Select Series I readme has a hyperlinked table of contents on the left and the actual contents on the right. Some of the table of contents links are to on-line web pages. Be aware that you can no longer scroll from beginning to end with the format. Nor is there an obvious way to search the readme...

ProjectWise i-model Composer (SELECT Series 1) is a desktop application for generating i-models. An i-model is a read-only container which contains 2D/3D geometry as well as business data. You can publish an i-model which will produce separate i-models for master and reference files or you can publish a package which is a single file containing master and references. With ProjectWise i-model Composer, it requires user intervention to generate i-models...

When working with the ProjectWise Distribution Service, each “job” creates a variety of different files, including a copy of all files selected by the Job (and their Reference Files), any renditions, job history and more. Over time, these files can take up quite a bit of disk space and should be cleaned periodically. If you read the ProjectWise Implementation Guide, it states “It is recommended that you never manually delete files...

If your user setting has been set to allow you to free documents, then traditionally you can only free your own checked out documents or the ones that have been exported by you. You can’t free documents that are checked out or exported out by other users. It is only possible if you are a member of the ProjectWise administrator group. With the release of ProjectWise Select Series 1, there is a new setting in document permission called “Free”...

I'd like to share a configuration available for default ASP.NET page, which is delivered together with ProjectWise Web Server. For example: In order to Auto login into ProjectWiseServerV8i.bentley.com server Datasource using SSO you need to modify the Default.aspx to look like the following: <td rowspan="3" class="partBody" style='vertical-align: width: 25%'> <pw:Navigation ID="navigation" ConnectionId="default"...

In the new release of ProjectWise Select Series 1 (Refresh update) - version 08.11.07.133, users can see document thumbnail in the document list window by enabling View=>Thumbnail. "Preview Pane" can be turned off to recover more screen space. After document thumbnail has been extracted, users can see document thumbnails in ProjectWise Explorer client by enabling "Preview Pane". The "Preview Pane" is at the bottom...

Simple documents check-in dialogs could be enabled for integrated Microsoft Office applications. Here is an example of enabled for Microsoft Office. In order to enable it, you have to create registry strings for each application you want. Set SimpleDialog to True to enable simple check-in. In the Windows Registry Editor, find the registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PW MS Word\ODMA32\Dialogs\CheckIn. Under that, create a string called SimpleDialog, and...

If you remember I made a post about the Document ownership (you can find this blog here ) Beside document ownership, user can own a folder. Usually folder creator is an owner of that folder. So what can you do if you are the owner of a folder? For folders inside your owning folder, you can just as much as Access control lets you do. If you only have right to read documents and folders, you will not be able to make any modifications. For documents...

Historically, configuring ProjectWise behavior in MicroStation was done one of two ways: Edit mcm.cfg Add desired variables to another configuration file Have you considered defining ProjectWise Configuration Variables inside ProjectWise? If you are using Managed Workspaces, then you can define these variables inside ProjectWise. There are several ways to apply do this. You can, of course, create a configuration settings block (CSB) with the appropriate...

Microsoft office documents no longer display by default in the Photo Preview tab in ProjectWise Explorer with the ProjectWise V8i Select Series 1 release. There is a new configuration file (pwviewer.cfg ) that must be modified before those types of documents can be seen in the tab. Viewing Office documents in the Photo Preview tab The Photo Preview tab is primarily designed for image documents, but can also be configured to display Office documents...

Most of the steps are similar to the steps for ProjectWise XM, but I would like you to draw your attention to the registry keys which were not part of previous configurations for defining indexing location. In Windows Explorer, create new location for the index. For example, D:\PWFT-IndexStorage. Stop the Microsoft Indexing Service. Stop ProjectWise Orchestration Framework Service. Open Computer Management, go to Services and Applications> Indexing...

ProjectWise Navigator lets you register your markups to provide a structured approach to creating and preserving comments and status. All markup information is stored in the overlay file and no changes are made to the original file. Upon closing the file you can choose to save the overlay file (.overlay.dgn), which references the original file. Markups are listed in Markup dialog (By default Markups Dialog button is hidden in MicroStation you have...

Starting with ProjectWise XM, we were prompted to create a storage area during the initial setup of a ProjectWise datasource. Most people just looked at this as a convenience because the first thing anyone does after creating a datasource is to create a storage area. But there is more to this than just a convenience. The datasource setup also creates four folders starting with a top level folder named dmsSystem and three other subfolders components...

ProjectWise keeps track of what files have been checked out, copied out, or exported, by username and node name in the dms_chkl table. Many times for various reasons entries into this table can get orphaned. If users share a machine and same ProjectWise Working Directory, this can cause issues with one user seeing "working directory in use". There is a new utility available in 08.11.07.107 that will clean up old or orphaned records in the...

Here's something I ran though the other day on Active Directory Groups. Let's say you have the following groups in Active Directory: PW Users = {Team A, Team B, Team C} Team A = {User 1, User 2, User 3} Team B = {User 4, User 5, User 6} Team C = {User 7, User 8, User 9} By default, if you synchronize the AD group "PW Users" using the User Synchronization Service, you will get the following group in ProjectWise: PW Users = {User 1, User 2...

With the release of ProjectWise V8i, a number of features of ProjectWise Geospatial were moved to the core product. This allows users to search for documents by their spatial location. In order to do this, one of the first things the ProjectWise Admin needs to do is to create a background map with one or more layers. These layers have an option of a minimum and maximum scale. In this example, I have created a background map with three layers created...