Tom Stogdill Takes on the Topic of Configuration Files in MicroStation CONNECT Edition Session at the Seattle LEARNing Conference

DISCLAIMER: These are my personal observations which may be incomplete due to the fast pace of this session.

In one of the more lively sessions at the event so far (Why the Ribbon: Navigating the User Interface in MicroStation CONNECT Edition) Tom Stogdill, LEARNing Consultant, Bentley, definitely had his work cut out for him as a room full of administrators and managers at the Bentley LEARNing Conference insisted he spend time focusing on the new work environment configuration reorganization in the MicroStation CONNECT edition early access version. This covered all 45 minutes of the lecture.

All good!

The conversation was very “interactive” during the entire session.  Ultimately, it did end on a good note with the attendees walking away with a better understanding of the direction Bentley is going with this reorganization.  Many attendees took interest in Bentley’s ongoing Early Access Program so they research these changes on their own.

Highlights and takeaways:

• MicroStation CONNECT Edition provides a more admin organization capabilities of the working environment. Tom demonstrated the new user versus corporate/project configuration capabilities.
• Personal observation: The configuration files are named different but it appears the configuration variables remain intact (with enhancements).
• Users’ selection of the “no workspace” option in the Open view still imposes configured corporate standards as it should.  As with all “vanilla” installations of MicroStation, the out of the box configuration is simple.
• Tom repeated that the philosophy of these changes are to provide more integration of standards within the corporate needs, the workspace as configured for maybe a department or overarching environment provides another level of standardization and that projects are congfigured beneath this “stack”.  You can have multiple workspaces with projects within.
• This is new and still a work in progress during the software development but the structure (in my opinion) is more logical moving forward but will require a good understanding of the interaction of the various configuration levels involved—but not unlike the current user/project/interface stack.
• The session did end with more understanding of what’s in this early access program version of MicroStation CONNECT Edition which I think, encouraged several present to take part in the Early Access Program.  Tom pointed concluded with a quick list of the many new enhancements in the interface for which there was not enough time to cover and encouraged the attendees check out the online version of the session when it becomes available in Bentley LEARN.

(personal note: I attended this same session in Indianapolis and can verify there is a LOT of additional information in this presentation. Definitely worth reviewing later.)