“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, then starting on the first one.” ~ Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
This great quote can be applicable to anything. Even when it comes to MicroStation. Let’s say that you are a CAD manager. You have the responsibility to provide a trouble-free working environment that adheres to your company’s design practices and standards. Now you are tasked with upgrading to the latest version of MicroStation, the MicroStation CONNECT Edition. As with anything in life, careful planning and due diligence are going to dramatically increase your success in achieving your goals and endeavors.
Now with regards to the MicroStation CONNECT Edition, there are many items to consider and decisions to be made when planning a successful migration. It is important to put in place a successful migration plan that includes discovery, planning, configuration, development, training, user acceptance, deployment, coaching, and best practices.
Completing a Pilot Project should be considered prior to full deployment. Pilot Projects provide robust testing of the new configurations on real-world projects, allowing for easy adjustments to configurations and workflows prior to full production.
When all the testing, configuration, training and a Pilot Project have been vetted, you arrive at the point where V8i projects will be migrated. One migration path is to move directly from your current MicroStation version to MicroStation CONNECT Edition. However, flipping a switch may be easier said than done.
In some cases, the recommendation is to maintain some V8i projects on the current version and migrate the other V8i projects forward over time. The reason that this incremental approach will be successful is that for one, there is not a file format change. There is no need to upgrade a DGN file to be opened in the MicroStation CONNECT Edition. This, of course, goes without saying for other types of resources that a DGN file relies upon. For example, design and cell libraries, which are essentially DGN files with a different file extension. Simply put, all the file types that were used in V8i projects will work just same in the MicroStation CONNECT Edition.
Furthermore, with this workflow of an incremental approach, it is assumed that any new projects started after MicroStation CONNECT Edition has been green-lighted for production, would be utilizing the MicroStation CONNECT Edition. Those new projects started with the MicroStation CONNECT Edition would not encumber any issues referencing dgn files from V8i projects that have yet to be migrated.
With Update 11 for the MicroStation CONNECT Edition, came the Configuration Assistant (Technology Preview). This automated tool is meant to help a CAD Manager to quickly create MicroStation CONNECT Configurations from V8i workspaces. It can be accessed from the WorkSpace menu on the Work Page.
So, that all being said, MicroStation CONNECT Edition presents no big filter or great hurdle that requires the conversion of these file types. V8i generated DGN files are no different that MicroStation CONNECT Edition generated DGN files. Hence, there is not a great need or rush to migrate all projects in the V8i workspace in one go.