In these challenging times when COVID-19 is imposing significant disruptions to day-to-day activities and affecting normal business flow of our much-valued users and employees, we at Bentley are mindfully committed to ensuring smooth transition of work from office to remote location or home. Our innovative software and services are all geared for working from home or remote locations and do not impose the need to be in an office set-up.
To ensure smooth transition of work and effectiveness of your daily workflows with Bentley software, we have assembled information that you can refer to while working remotely or from home. We are working hard to deliver high levels of customer service, and welcome feedback, questions, and ideas on how we can serve you better in a remote work environment.
There are several options to work remotely. You may decide to install the software on your home computer.
Internet access is required for downloading, installing, and licensing the software (unless the machine concerned has a checked-out license). As the OpenBridge Modeler installer is almost 4 GB, installation may take a significant time over low bandwidth connections. Ensure the connection used has sufficient data allowance if it is not an unlimited data package. Many CONNECT Edition products are installed from a small installer file that pulls the rest of the installation files from our servers. If you encounter problems with this installation route, please refer to the DOWNLOADING SOFTWARE section below for links to full software downloads or guidance on the use of Deployment Images to take home.
OpenBridge Modeler will try to obtain your Internet Proxy Settings from Internet Explorer browser. If it is not feasible, you can fill the details manually as described in this page located here.
Virtual Private Network enables organizations to provide secure connection to their network over the internet so their employees can connect remotely or from public places. Click here to follow these instructions to connect to Windows VPN. If your organization uses a different VPN software, contact your IT administrator to guide you with the steps.
The following features of OpenBridge may not work properly in the absence of internet connectivity.
Virtualization enables organizations to create virtual machines from a single physical machine and administer them to their employees on demand. OpenBridge is certified on Citrix XenApp. Follow the steps below to set it up. Bentley is exploring other virtualization providers like VMWare Horizon and Azure Virtual Desktop. If your organization uses any of these, please reach out to us with your questions, and we’ll try our best to assist.
Virtual machines are a great way to manage operating systems and work remotely with a running Remote Desktop Connection, login credentials and a valid IP address. Installing virtualization software allows one or more virtual machines to share one physical computer. Your IT administrator can create VMs with a readymade image of Windows operating system that includes OpenBridge Modeler and any other software needed. When such a VM is provisioned to you, you can directly launch OpenBridge Modeler and start working on your project.
You can create a new VM and install its operating system by following these simple steps located here.
You can export and import existing VMs in Windows Hyper-V Server by following these steps located here.
If you work on a heavy-duty desktop machine that is difficult to carry or if your organization does not allow employees to move computers out of the office premises, Remote Desktop Connection offers a great way to log into that machine from your personal computer. You will require your computer name or IP address. Click here to follow the instructions on this page.
When you’re working remotely, you are still part of a team and therefore sharing of project data is crucial. This is where the Configuration system shines. No matter where you are, you can be sure to be using the correct CAD standard with server-based Configurations. If your system has already been configured to use server-based resources virtualization and remote desktop access results in a similar experience toworking in the office, there may be some graphic latency, but the system will be identical.
Attempting to connect to a configuration on office-based shares via VPN may be possible, depending on your IT systems, but is likely to be subject to significant latency, especially with many more VPN users than usual. Working with a local copy of the network configuration may be more appropriate.
One of the simplest and effective ways of work sharing is by storing the project data in a common network location and pointing every user’s configuration to that location by setting the OpenBridge _USTN_CONFIGURATION configuration variable. In addition, we recommend mapping a drive letter to organization’s network server path. For example, in ConfigurationSetup.cfg, (typical path C:\ProgramData\Bentley\OpenBridge Modeler CONNECT Edition\Configuration) the variable should be set as follows:
_USTN_CUSTOM_CONFIGURATION = Z:\SharedStandards\
To point to your Organization, WorkSpaces, and WorkSets (if in another location) use the WorkSpacesSetup.cfg file and uncomment and set:
MY_CIVIL_ORGANIZATION_ROOT = D:/Configuration/MyOrganization-Civil/
and
MY_WORKSPACES_LOCATION = D:/Configuration/MyWorkSpaces/
See the following article for more information on creating a customized workspace environment: How to create a customized network workspace environment
Store your project data on ProjectWise Share or Microsoft OneDrive, which allows high levels of control. Easily manage and transfer without the need for additional software.
The beauty of working with ProjectWise is that work sharing is built-in and the concept of being tied to a location is foreign. In a Client-Server architecture the client can be anywhere. By storing standards and work files on a server you can ensure proper access by anyone. By establishing a digital environment for all project information, you can give access to people regardless of location and device type. However, ensuring the correct access is the key to success. So, setting up ProjectWise Explorer locally locally is key.
The way to install ProjectWise Explorer can be found here.
At home set your default printer to PDF to avoid sending prints via a VPN to an unattended printer.