• Folder Ownership

    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…
  • MCM.CFG to Managed Workspace

    Historically, configuring ProjectWise behavior in MicroStation was done one of two ways:

    1. Edit mcm.cfg
    2. 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…

  • Photo Preview

    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…

  • Moving Index Storage to the New Location (ProjectWise V8i)

    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.

    1. In Windows Explorer, create new location for the index. For example, D:\PWFT-IndexStorage.
    2. Stop the Microsoft Indexing Service.
    3. Stop ProjectWise Orchestration Framework Service.
    4. Open Computer Management…
  • Markup management and configuration in ProjectWise

    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…

  • What are these dmsSystem folders doing here and what can I do with them?

    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…

  • CHKLCLEANUP Utility

    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…

  • Synchronize Active Directory Groups and Subgroups (Nested Groups)

    Here's something I ran though the other day on Active Directory Groups. Let's say you have the following groups in Active Directory:

    1. PW Users = {Team A, Team B, Team C}
    2. Team A = {User 1, User 2, User 3}
    3. Team B = {User 4, User 5, User 6}
    4. 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…

  • Defining the Scale Factor for Background Maps

    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…

  • Dynamic Saved Searches in your Project Template

    When creating the saved search for a project template that is dynamic, meaning it will search for documents based on that project, you can do this:

    1. Right click on your project template folder and select advanced search.
    2. Chose search builder or the form.
    3. Save the search.

    This essentially is an all documents search, but it will be only for documents in that project. If you copy the project (use it as a…

  • Where are my thumbnails?

    Occasionally, users will notice that some of their thumbnails are not showing up in the preview pane of ProjectWise Explorer and of course, a trouble ticket is put in to either the Bentley help desk or their local support team. Then the troubleshooting begins. It usually starts with "Is the extraction process working?"" So the ProjectWise Admin starts looking into the log files and in the ProjectWise Administrator for…

  • Orchestration Framework DB and NT Authentication Part 2: The ArcGIS Connector

    Using NT Authentication for your connection to your Orchestration Framework database? Running the ArcGIS connector? Getting errors trying to run the Job Status Service?

    Following Part 1, you must run the Bentley Connector Job Status Services and Bentley Connector Operational Services under the same Windows account we discussed in Part 1. However, these services are not found in the Windows Services dialog. They…

  • Orchestration Framework DB and NT Authentication Part 1

    Using NT Authentication for your connection to your Orchestration Framework database?

    When you opt to use NT Authentication when connecting to your Orchestration Framework database, the Orchestration Framework will use the Windows account that you are logged in as when the DB Setup utility runs. Typically you would install your ProjectWise modules under a "Windows service account" created by the IT department.…

  • Overlapping Geo Files

    In some ProjectWise environments that use ProjectWise Spatial, ProjectWise Geospatial extension or Bentley Geospatial server the user might end up with overlapping geometries (several documents that have the same geometry, resulting in overlapping on a map). If the geometry is not overlapping then when you double click, right click on a geometry works as expected, but when clicking on a overlapping geometry a list is…

  • Fully Qualified Domain Names

    ProjectWise V8i much prefers the use of machine names, and better yet, fully qualified domain names, (FQDNs) when configuring dmskrnls for caching, gateways, etc. Another blog explains why, so we'll leave that as it is.

    So after you've faithfully utilized the FQDN in the gateway and routing sections of your caching server, double checked everything and caching still is not working, go back to the ProjectWise Storage…

  • Add or Remove Tool in Web Parts

    This blog entry will address how to add/remove toolbars and right click menu items from web parts.  The configurations discussed in this document are not specific to ProjectWise Web Server, ProjectWise Web View Server or ProjectWise Web Parts used in a SharePoint enabled web site.  Web Parts are web parts no matter the framework (i.e. asp.net or SharePoint) used to present them.  When ProjectWise web Parts are deployed…

  • Introducing the IPLOT Command Line

    In addition to the dialog box that operates inside MicroStation, and the ProjectWise InterPlot Organizer interface that operates outside of the MicroStation environment, the product includes the IPLOT command line interface that you run from the command prompt. As with Organizer, using the command line, you can resubmit plots submitted from the dialog box and plot design files without displaying them in MicroStation…

  • Application Changes in the Datasource

    When upgrading from a previous release of ProjectWise to the most recent ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 1) release, you should be aware of two items in relation to the applications stored in ProjectWise. The first is, after running dmsconv, it is a good idea to run dmsconv with the -app option to import any new application types into your datasources that are now supported in the current release of ProjectWise. Here…

  • What’s New with Web Parts

    Here is a quick listing of the changes to Web Parts in ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 1) 

    • When using Web Parts in ASP.NET, the sample page now automatically remembers the last used datasource, and if using single sign-on, automatically logs you in. This can be turned off in configuration file.
    • Site/Zone locking security added to PW Web Parts ActiveX control
    • Items no longer delivered or supported
      • ProjectWise…
  • Folder Security and the ProjectWise Web Server

    When configuring the ProjectWise Web Server or the ProjectWise Web View Server it is important to note the folder security for the directories where you have installed the web server. Clearly IIS security is a major factor to the success of your deployment of a ProjectWise Web Server but be sure to simply add the local machine users group to the install location of the ProjectWise Web Server. For example, if you install…

  • Comparing two document attributes in ProjectWise

    I had a question the other day how to find documents where one of attribute could be compared to the other attribute. I would like to share my "workaround"solution with you.

    I used Office environment which comes with template datasource creation as an example to test. My intention was to find documents which attribute fields Sender is equal to Receiver.

    So I created search using Search Builder to…

  • Celebrating 100th ProjectWise Blog

    Today's blog marks the 100th in a series of ProjectWise related technical blogs. I started this blog last December to communicate technical information about ProjectWise that might otherwise be difficult to obtain. Many of the blogs contain "Best Practices" in the use of ProjectWise. Some explain new features, but one thing is common, they are all technical in nature without the sales pitch. I hope they have added value…

  • Spatial Web Part

    With the new ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 1) we have new enhanced communication between Web Parts in ProjectWise Web Server. Now the "Content" web part is in sync with the Spatial web part. So if we select a document in Spatial web part it is automatically selected in Content web part. We can use all the same commands as "Select all", "unselect all" or holding ctrl button to select few. And everything is synchronized…

  • New ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 1) Settings

    This blog reviews the new permission setting delivered with ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 1). Some of these options have been a long time coming!

    Datasource Properties > Settings > Versions
    Use active version in flat sets
    What it does...This option controls the default status of the new "Always Use Active Version check box" that now appears in the Set Contents window in ProjectWise Explorer when a document…

  • Using the PSET for batch plotting from the ProjectWise Explorer

    Batching printing in MicroStation V8i has been enhanced with a new utility called "Print Organizer". Print Organizer allows you to create plot sets with preconfigured print settings such as paper size, print area, scale, view, and other common print settings. Once you have the designs you want printed added to the Print Organizer and configured to print how you would like to print them, you can save the job as a "pset…