My office wants to shift from a traditional physical network server to a cloud service through SharePoint/OneDrive (I don't even know the difference?).
Is there any documentation on MicroStation/Bentley requirements for such a thing?If anyone here is doing this sort of thing already, what sort of issues and pitfalls have you run into? What problems have you had to work around? I'm going to have a meeting with our IT folks (who are essentially CAD illiterate) and I want to have as educated discussion as I can.
We currently have our workspace on the network, pointed to by a custom configuration. In theory, We may need to simply redefine a half-dozen variables from M:CAD to...whatever the SharePoint address would end up. But is it really that simple?
(Yes, Bentley people, I know you want us to use ProjectWise products, but we aren't going to buy another software package when SharePoint is "free". Besides, we don't have anyone who could configure or administer those)
Thank you.
BTW, I currently am testing just putting user preferences in OneDrive and I'm super paranoid about the multiple simultaneous editing thing. Even though I'm not sharing my user prefs with anyone else I do work (frequently at the same time) from multiple machines so this is the folder structure I used to make sure to avoid it as much as possible:
ONEDRIVE\CADDLIB\CONNECT ├───All ├───COMPUTERNAME1 │ ├───MicroStation │ ├───OpenBridgeModeler │ ├───OpenRailDesigner │ └───OpenRoadsDesigner ├───COMPUTERNAME2 │ ├───MicroStation │ ├───OpenBridgeModeler │ ├───OpenRailDesigner │ └───OpenRoadsDesigner └───UserPrefSeed
Then I name the files based on my username and the version of the product (lucky for me since I've seen problems using a Microstation Connect UPF with Microstation 2023). For example my OpenRoads folder files look like:
│ GeoCoordFavorites.xml │ username_10.09.00.docking.xml │ username_10.09.00.RibbonState.xml │ username_10.09.00.upf │ username_10.10.21.DgnTextEditor.xml │ username_10.10.21.dir │ username_10.10.21.docking.xml │ username_10.10.21.explorer-settings.xml │ username_10.10.21.GroupPanels.xml │ username_10.10.21.RibbonState.xml │ username_10.10.21.upf │ username_10.11.00.DgnTextEditor.xml │ username_10.11.00.docking.xml │ username_10.11.00.explorer-settings.xml │ username_10.11.00.RibbonState.xml │ username_10.11.00.upf │ username_10.11.03.DgnTextEditor.xml │ username_10.11.03.docking.xml │ username_10.11.03.explorer-settings.xml │ username_10.11.03.GroupPanels.xml │ username_10.11.03.RibbonState.xml │ username_10.11.03.upf │ username_10.12.02.DgnTextEditor.xml │ username_10.12.02.docking.xml │ username_10.12.02.explorer-settings.xml │ username_10.12.02.GroupPanels.xml │ username_10.12.02.RibbonState.xml │ username_10.12.02.upf │ OpenRoadsDesigner_Imperial.DgnTextEditor.xml │ OpenRoadsDesigner_Imperial.docking.xml │ OpenRoadsDesigner_Imperial.explorer-settings.xml │ OpenRoadsDesigner_Imperial.RibbonState.xml │ OpenRoadsDesigner_Imperial.upf │ webdropSettings.rsc │ ├───dwgdata_10.09.00 │ ShxFontList-UTF8.csv │ ├───dwgdata_10.10.21 │ DwgAdjustedColors.tbl │ DwgDisplayColors.tbl │ DwgSettings.rsc │ ShxFontList-UTF8.csv │ ├───dwgdata_10.11.00 │ DwgAdjustedColors.tbl │ DwgDisplayColors.tbl │ DwgSettings.rsc │ ShxFontList-UTF8.csv │ ├───dwgdata_10.11.03 │ DwgAdjustedColors.tbl │ DwgDisplayColors.tbl │ DwgSettings.rsc │ ShxFontList-UTF8.csv │ ├───dwgdata_10.12.02 │ DwgAdjustedColors.tbl │ DwgDisplayColors.tbl │ DwgSettings.rsc │ ShxFontList-UTF8.csv │ └───prefs ├───civil │ AquaplaningWorkspacePreferences.xml │ CivilManipulatorPreferences.xml │ CivilViewAnnotation.xml │ CivilViewPreferences.xml │ DefaultReportStyleSheets.xml │ SlewWorkspacePreferences.xml │ SubsurfacePreferences.xml │ SurveyToolsWorkspacePreferences_2_0.xml │ ├───civil_commands │ CIVIL DGNLIB UPDATE.xml │ GEOMETRY REPORT GEOMETRY.xml │ └───surveytools
Answer Verified By: MaryB
For the business version of OneDrive files are actually on a sharepoint system in the cloud, but SharePoint itself includes a bunch of other functionality such as web sites and dashboards as well, this includes document libraries that you can store files in. SharePoint document libraries can be sync'd with OneDrive so as far as those go you can probably consider them to be the same thing.
I break down the questions I usually raise for these types of systems into 2 broad categories - questions about the service itself, questions about CADD working with the service specifically.
And sorry for the wall of text, this kind of got out of control.
tl;dr: If the plan is just move the files from a file server to OneDrive you're going to have a bad time. I wouldn't be sure about SharePoint needing less configuration or administration than ProjectWise, configuration and administration from people that understand CADD not something you can just drop any SharePoint expert into. The most important issue is the last one on what happens when 2 people edit the same file simultaneously.
Overall Service Questions
How does it work with non-company people
This is mostly a licensing question, but it sucks to get part way into an implementation and realize something is wrong here. If you don't work with people outside your company (by which I mean actually collaborate, not just file transfer), then this isn't probably a big deal. I personally don't like using these types of systems as just file transfer as that removes a lot of the benefits of having a single source of truth.
Limits on file sizes or number of documents
Years ago SharePoint had some pretty stiff limits on file sizes but the current limit is 250 GB for a single file. Our single biggest file in ProjectWise is 144 GB (and it's a zip file that could probably be broken up). In ProjectWise the limit is more about how long the file will take to transfer across the network, SharePoint is probably similar. (to get the 250GB limit you must use OneDrive sync, even for SharePoint files)
SharePoint has other limits, for example total storage for the organization is 1TB + 10 GB per license (or roughly an additional TB per 100 users). Our total PW store is currently 60TB. With some aggressive archiving we could probably get this within the limits of our currently licensing (although the question arises of where to store those archives...). I'm not sure if extra space can be purchased, I assume it can.
Microsoft's page on share point limits: SharePoint limits - Service Descriptions | Microsoft Learn
Are you under requirement to keep files stored on the local machine encrypted
This is also an issue with ProjectWise. But syncing files locally may mean, depending on your contracts, that you have to ensure all the local copies are kept on an encrypted file system. If you already work with BitLocker enabled on machines then you are probably good here, but if not and you want to use BitLocker as the solution IT absolutely needs to ensure they know what happens when BitLocker won't unlock for a user and how they can make sure they resolve that, and the resolution meets the security requirements.
CADD Specific Questions
Does it support reference file attachments
If you use OneDrive syncing, then yes reference files should be supported, but you'll probably need to either use relative reference paths or make sure you can detect where OneDrive is located on a computer to ensure MS_RFDIR is built to work on all computers.
OneDrive (and ProjectWise Drive) offer the ability to sync files "on demand", in other words you don't have a real copy of the file, just a placeholder file, until the file is accessed in some way. Does MicroStation work with the "some way" OneDrive uses to bring those files local? Also, does OneDrive automatically free up the space files copied locally? If so how does it decide? Raster images rarely get modified but it would suck to have to redownload those every few days because OneDrive decided you weren't actually using them. Microsoft's page on File On Demand: Save disk space with OneDrive Files On-Demand for Windows - Microsoft Support
If a reference is modified while somebody else has it attached to their currently open document what happens when the reference file is changed via the sync? Does MicroStation just auto-update or is the sync blocked until the file is no longer being used?
WorkSpaces
For this I'm assuming you work for a consulting business where the workspace may differ for every project based on who the client or owner is. If you only have one or two workspaces this probably won't be an issue (except for maybe the file on demand issue)
Pretty similar to the references issue but there is also an issue of how you make WorkSpaces available to people. For example, if you plan on setting up each project as it's own sharepoint site with file store, dashboards, etc... do you plan on putting the workspace in that site as well? If so, what happens if you have to update that workspace? Now you have to find every project using that workspace and update it. This does not scale well.
Alternatively you may be thinking of having all the workspaces in a single sharepoint site that everyone syncs. This may work well depending on how many client workspaces you have. Currently I have 35 connect workspaces comprising 15 GB of storage in 38,070 files. While that's not a lot of disk space syncing 38,000 files is not fast (weirdly, syncing a lot of little files can be signifcantly slower than syncing the same file size in one large file) and the vast majority of those files won't be used. OneDrive's File On Demand may help with this, but what happens when OneDrive is busily copying down a couple of hundred files for the workspace? Does MicroStation pause while it does this, or does it just proceed not realizing not all the files are complete.
This issue affects using ProjectWise drive as a solution for WorkSpaces as well. For not needing all the workspaces, currently I'm anticipating using security permissions to restrict people to only syncing workspaces they actually need. Currently in ProjectWise I have our WorkSpaces as read-only to everyone, i'll have to change that. I don't know what happens for the sync on use functions of either ProjectWise Drive or OneDrive.
Same issue as with reference files: If I have a file open and one of the dgnlibs is changed while I'm working in the file, what happens?
How does it handle multiple people editing the same file simultaneously
This is a big issue that people frequently overlook. MicroStation does not support dgn files being edited simultaneously by multiple users. On a Windows file share since everyone is attempting to edit the same file in the same location, Windows file locking can prevent multiple people from editing the file. In a distributed environment where everyone has a copy of the file locally unless there is some mechanism for distributing file locks, then you will run into situations where multiple people edit the same file, even unintentionally, just opening dgn files can trigger something that writes to the file. What happens when 2 people edit the same file?
Here's microsoft's support page on resolving file conflicts: Troubleshoot OneDrive for Business sync issues - SharePoint | Microsoft Learn. MicroStation doesn't have the "Open to Resolve" capability, the options are left to the user to overwrite the other persons work, save a copy or throw away your own.
If you are unlucky, instead of identifying the conflict you'll get a corrupt file. The more people you have on a project the worse this will be.