Turn Connection Client Sign-in OFF

So far we were installing the free Bentley View 08.11.09.459 (vw081109459en SS3) I'm trying to create a new corporate PC image, with the new View 08.11.09.829 (vw081109829en SS4). The new version has a limited 'free use' (only 7 days) and demands a registration via the login of the Connection Client.

This is a tool for blue-collar workers, or administrative people from all over the company, to be  able to see our CAD files . They don't need cloud-connection or co-operation or file sharing. Some don't even have an internet connection.It should just be a viewer of .DGN-files, and nothing more.

How can I configure Bentley View (with or without the Connection Client) to be able to run for more than 7 days, without having to supply or create a login for every separate user? I need a silent login by default, or no login at all.

As a sideline: I have always been an advocate of using Bentley software all over the company, but if they insist on feeding us functionality we don't need - we will never go into a cloud-based environment - without the possibility of turning it off, I'm afraid that my management is going to turn away from Bentley because it's too much trouble.

Parents
  • Bentley View is offers rich functionality and is offered free of charge. To use it for more than 7 days, it is necessary to be a Connected User, which requires only to create a free profile on Bentley.com and then signing in with that credential. It is not necessary to have an internet connection when using Bentley View, only to connect at least once per week to reset the 7-day period. In order to have a "silent" sign-in, once a user has authenticated with the Connection Client, it will retain the credentials and sign in automatically when an internet connection is present.

    As for the Project Chooser Dialog appearing when a new Workspace is opened, once a Connected Project ID is written to the PCF, it will no longer appear. As pointed out in a link in Jon's post, you can manually edit the PCF, or you can cancel out of the Project Chooser Dialog once it appears and it will write zeroes to the Connected Project ID variable and not appear again on subsequent files.



  • > It is not necessary to have an internet connection when using Bentley View,
    > only to connect at least once per week to reset the 7-day period.

    Can't you see there's a contradiction in what you say? You DO need an internet connection, at least once a week. You take the possibility of internet connection at the workplace for granted. That is NOT the case. How do you cope with employees from high-security plants - eg. nuclear power - or isolated government installations ? Or with people who, because of company policy, cannot have access to the internet ? I am certainly not the only one where such a policy exists.

    That position eliminates Bentley View from being the best viewer in the industry to being an impossible choice for restricted-access situations. I could argue that every user of MS should have internet-access, but I can't do that for every computer user in our company. I can't have 1500 users create a profile and give them all internet access!

    If you are tying my hands, I can no longer push and support Bentley View as THE standard viewer in our company and, as a consequence, will no longer be able to support Bentley products as the standard CAD software.

    Please, give me a trick I can use to distribute BView to all the computers in the company, even to the remotest guard of a lonely water supply, whom I can't give access to the internet, and who only needs to read the plans to know where the valves are.
  • Just to be clear: The newer Bentley View Versions need a Bentley user account for each user to use View? And the (free) licensing must be over Internet to the hosted server at Bentley?
  • That's how it seems to be, yes. I downloaded and installed (test) View 08.11.09.829 (vw081109829en, SS4)
    I am considering returning to the previous version (SS3)
    This behaviour of Bentley software might become a problem when I consider upgrading to a newer version of AECOsim/Microstation/Powerdraft. They should not take internet connection and/or cloud-technology for granted. And certainly not mandatory.
Reply
  • That's how it seems to be, yes. I downloaded and installed (test) View 08.11.09.829 (vw081109829en, SS4)
    I am considering returning to the previous version (SS3)
    This behaviour of Bentley software might become a problem when I consider upgrading to a newer version of AECOsim/Microstation/Powerdraft. They should not take internet connection and/or cloud-technology for granted. And certainly not mandatory.
Children
  • Thank you for the extra color about your user's situation -- it is a clear image of  the "remotest guard of a lonely water supply, whom I can't give access to the internet, and who only needs to read the plans to know where the valves are."

    Maybe there is a way to pre-activate a deployment image, but even were this to work, in View V8i SS4 it would still require internet access once per week.  In SS3 this is not the case, so for the moment you are safe to stay with it (and even when you upgrade to later versions of vertical applications, you're unlike to have issues because the DGN file format is so stable).  I am going to have to do some legwork to see how to help you make this work, and I'm sure there are others with a similar scenario.

    |\/| /\ |< /\ |

    Makai Smith
    Director of Product Management, MicroStation Product Line
    Bentley Systems, Inc.



  • If I may, some questions about your setup: in the case of your colleagues who do not have internet access, do they have any other Bentley products activated on their machine? When you deliver the plans to be viewed to these users, how do you usually do it?



  • Unknown said:
    Thank you for the extra color about your user's situation

    In today's connected world, people sometimes forget that the safest computer is the one that is not connect to the Internet. 

     
    Regards, Jon Summers
    LA Solutions

  • I don't see it's Bentley's Business to collect every individual user data, directly from users, confronting them with rules they are not entitled to agree on. If that changes and Bentley sees this as the new business, we will be out of business soon.

    Trust, that is. Who knows the exact definition of trust, by the way?
  • > Makai Smith

    > Thank you for the extra color about your user's situation -- it is a clear image of the "remotest guard of a lonely water supply,
    > whom I can't give access to the internet, and who only needs to read the plans to know where the valves are."

    [OT] That is a first. Being complemented like that, considering I'm not a native English speaker.
    But it's true. My company supplies water to 2,25 million people, and we get it from the remotest parts of Belgium.

    > in the case of your colleagues who do not have internet access, do they have any other Bentley products activated
    > on their machine?

    Long answer: It is highly improbable - though possible - that Bentley View (BV) is installed next to Bentley Microstation, (BMS) AECOsim (BAS) or Powerdraft. (BPD) Most of the time, BV is either installed stand alone, in a new setup, or as an add-on to an existing config, or is installed as a replacement for BMS/BPD, for people who don't use it any more. So far, as add-on to an existing setup, or as replacement for BMS/BPD we have been installing BV SS3. The problem arises now when preparing a new distribution image for new PCs, and we would have liked to include the latest version of BV, SS4.
    Short answer: No

    > When you deliver the plans to be viewed to these users, how do you usually do it?

    Short answer: Via e-mail, or they simply access them via the network file system.

    Elaboration: The connection to remote sites goes via dedicated lines of our communications provider towards the central site. We have one domain, but several sites, and some are so small - yes, the "lonely guard" example is really not far-fetched - that these don't even have a domain controller or dedicated server. But everybody sees the same directory tree, even if some files are 'local' to non-central servers. (DFS) That way it's possible to present the same structure to everybody, of course access time is not the same, depending of the physical location of the file.

    As an encore: even BMS users do not all have internet connection. (Yes I know, we have a very restrictive internet-access policy) The necessity for BMS to report usage, is handled by letting connection requests to "selectserver.bentley.com" pass through the firewall. A similar concept could be used for BV SS4, if possible and necessary.