Action Needed: Bentley User Registration Requirement

I don't know if this is the correct forum but as we use MicroStation so it seemed OK. Anyway I have just had an email from Bentley with the above in the subject line.

A couple of questions come to mind:

1. What is a 'user' and how do Bentley know how many users we have?

2. Why do users have to register, and how does it "enhance security both for Bentley and for our users".

3. What happens if users don't register?

Parents
  • Bentley has started contacting Account Administrators via email regarding our registration requirements.  The email includes a link to a webpage that Bentley has set up to provide additional information to explain what this is about, along with specific instructions for completing the steps involved.

    Here is the link to the Administrator’s Resource Center: www.bentley.com/BentleyUserRegistration

    We are asking the Bentley User Management Account Administrators that are receiving the emails to review the materials on the webpage and to contact us directly via the Support link included if they have any difficulties completing the requested activities.

    The User Management administrative functions and CONNECTION Client application are not new. Many accounts are already actively using the User Management tools and many Bentley application users have already installed and signed in to CONNECTION Client. We already have some services that require user sign-in in order to access them and others may be added in the future.

    To address the specific questions asked:

    1. What is a ‘user’ and how does Bentley know how many users we have?

    A user is any person that accesses Bentley applications. If a Bentley application user has not signed in to the CONNECTION Client on the same machine running the application, SELECTserver reporting provides only machine name details. We generally infer that each machine represents a user, though some users may use more than one machine. 

    2. Why do users have to register, and how does it “enhance security both for Bentley and for our users.”

    User registration and sign-in enhances security by reducing the risks related to anonymous machines reporting usage under an organization’s activation key. The organization licensing the software or services and Bentley should both be able to know that such usage is being conducted by users who have been approved by the organization’s administrator or a co-administrator. Our user registration and sign-in requirements enable the necessary reporting visibility for this by relating an authorized individual user to a specific machine reporting usage.

    Note that we require only minimum details for Bentley user profile registration:  email address, first name, last name, and country.  The registered users can only be authorized for an account in User Management by the account’s administrator or co-administrator.

     

    3. What happens if users don’t register?

    As described in our Bentley User Registration Fact Sheet (available on the Administrator’s Resource Center), failure to complete the registration of users by the deadline will result in your Bentley activation key(s) no longer functioning. We are proactively managing this to mitigate such risk. For most accounts, the steps outlined in the guide will be very straightforward. If anyone experiences any problems, our support team will be happy to assist in order to ensure any potential disruptions are mitigated. Experiencing problems? Contact the support team in the Need Help link found on the Administrator’s Resource Center.

    Answer Verified By: Tamicca Sellars 

  • Hi Glen,

    I’m not sure why we are being forced down this route, there must be a benefit I’m not seeing.

    I have read the other threads and understand how we can register all our users, I just don’t understand why we would want to

    The connection portal allows for the upload of an i-model, which may help a hand full of people using Navigator Connect

    As yet we aren’t fully using the connect release, so our V8i users will not see a benefit, we as many other companies don’t allow installs to be done on individuals machines, so have disabled the automatic updates within the admin interface, having this enabled would impact the network and allow for software to become out of sync and on different versions

    Having users sign-in will only slow down machines, ProjectWise v8i users will not want to also sign in to yet another interface, nor can we have them update the software

     

    Cheers

    Chris

Reply
  • Hi Glen,

    I’m not sure why we are being forced down this route, there must be a benefit I’m not seeing.

    I have read the other threads and understand how we can register all our users, I just don’t understand why we would want to

    The connection portal allows for the upload of an i-model, which may help a hand full of people using Navigator Connect

    As yet we aren’t fully using the connect release, so our V8i users will not see a benefit, we as many other companies don’t allow installs to be done on individuals machines, so have disabled the automatic updates within the admin interface, having this enabled would impact the network and allow for software to become out of sync and on different versions

    Having users sign-in will only slow down machines, ProjectWise v8i users will not want to also sign in to yet another interface, nor can we have them update the software

     

    Cheers

    Chris

Children
  • Unknown said:
    As yet we aren’t fully using the connect release, so our V8i users will not see a benefit, we as many other companies don’t allow installs to be done on individuals machines, so have disabled the automatic updates within the admin interface, having this enabled would impact the network and allow for software to become out of sync and on different versions

    I agree with this but still they make us register. Most od our users are alos not CONNECT and therefore wont see any benefit. Supposedly it is for security reasons (!!) but more than likely just to send marketing stuff out to users.