New to Dynamic Managed Workspaces.. Getting workspace standards to load?

Do you have a link to what's in the Predefined 1.7 CSB?

I have some rules I try to follow in my setup:

1. Don't try to make one workspace that automatically chooses between v8i and connect. Just keep them completely separate.
2. Don't try and import an existing non-projectwise configuration. You end up doing more editing than not.
3. Keep CSBs as simple as possible and do most work in cfg files stored in ProjectWise.
4. Avoid needing to create CSBs for every project.

I think 3 is key for us. For example, the predefined CSB I use in my basic-used-for-experiments workspace is:

I set 2 main variables - the root location of my configuration in the datasource and _USTN_CONFIGURATION. The root location is set as a ProjectWise folder with a string appended to it. 99% of my variables are built using the root location variable, i pretty much never use the ProjectWise Folder or File types in setting variables in CSBs after this one.

Because I set _USTN_CONFIGURATION in this block, ORD will auotomatically load the WorkSpaceSetup.cfg in the folder that _USTN_CONFIGURATION points at. I don't need to manually %include it in the CSB, ORD does it automatically. I put all my real workspace setup in that WorkSpaceSetup.cfg file.

I pretty much repeat this same process for Organization, WorkSpace and WorkSet CSBs. Set the pointer variable in the CSB and let ORD automatically load the correct cfg file from projectwise.

I work for a consulting firm so we have to plug in a lot of different DOT/municipality/federal standards for different projects. That's a little more complicated as support for the Civil Organization isn't built into ORD natively and I do have to do a manual %include to get the right cfg file. I handle that at the ProjectWise Customer level.

To add to Kevins reply, the "WorkSpaceSetup.cfg" for OpenRoads defines a variable called:
CIVIL_ORGANIZATION_ROOT
which is pointing to "$(_USTN_CONFIGURATION)Organization-Civil/" by default.

If you define that variable in your CSB it should help solve the issue.

what is the actual definition of MS_DGNLIBLIST_TEXTSTYLES, not the exapnsion?

when you point a variable at a projectwise path, projectwise maps that to the working directory dms location of that folder.

If you point a CSB variable at a projectwise folder, the managed workspace uses that folder's GUID to identify the folder. If you delete that folder and replace it with a folder of the same name the variable will still point at the older folder value.

Example:

With that setup, if I delete the Feature Definitions folder, and create a new Feature Definitions folder, the csb variable will be wrong.

To work around this, point the CSB variable at one folder up from folder you want, and add the folder name in the string value to append:

Now if you delete the Feature Definitions folder and replace it, the CSB will point to the new folder without any adjustments.

This is the reason I only define 1 ProjectWise Folder variable and all other variables build off it as strings.

in that example, BASIC_ROOT is a ProjectWise Folder variable i would create in PreDefined. Now because everything is built from strings instead of GUID, it will point at the correct folder.

Are you doing anything with the "WorkSets" portion of ORD? Not sure if there is a benefit in moving the projects to the "Work Sets" folder???

In our managed workspace we do use WorkSets, however we do not locate our projects in the "worksets" folder (also I renamed everything).

Our workspaces our are office locations, we call worksets "projects" (it was such a perfect name in v8i).

I insert a level called "Clients" and insert at the ProjectWise Managed WorkSpace Customer Level.

Our layout is like so:

Datasource
    CADDLIB
        Connect
            _Configuration          => WorkSpaceSetup.cfg
            Clients
                Client_Name         => Client Standards.cfg
                    Client_Standards
            Organization_Standards  => OrganizationStandards.cfg
            Offices                 => Office_Name.cfg
                Office_Name
                    Office_Standards
                    Projects        => Project_Folder.cfg
    Office Name
        Project_Folder
            CADDLib
                DGNWS

So I renamed "WorkSpaces" to Offices and "WorkSets" to Projects. We put the Project.cfg files in the folder Office_Name/Projects folder, but the actual files go down in the appropriate Office name folder off of the datasource root. Project specific standards (the dgnws file plus some cell libraries, plotting stuff, etc...) goes in sub-folders under the project data file location CADDLib folder.  

This greatly simplifies permissions for us. I just put a blanked "*Everyone" read on the datasource CADDLib folder, add some user lists to open up specific folders to people who we allow to edit them (usually just a specific client or office folder). (We do have some folders for proprietary stuff just for employees, but I left those out for simplicity). Project permissions are restricted to just project members per our normal setup.

Because I use cfg files for all my settings I only apply 4 CSB to each project. 2 are identical for every single project, the _predefined and our workset name CSBs. The workset name grabs the work area name as the workset name so we just have to match that up with a cfg files in the office's projects folder with the same name.

I could probably figure out the office name automatically, but it's not worth the effort I just create an office csb as needed. same for client configurations. the Customer CSB's Is setup for those are all identical, I just set the client name and include the cfg file from the client file to handle actual variable settings.

By the way, I found this entire setup to work so nicely for us, I backported it to our V8i managed workspace setups as well, just in a completely separate tree under CADDLib. I have to manually do the includes for some of the cfg files as it isn't built into MicroStation V8i but I really like it. Fortunately we had just started working with managed workspaces at a large scale so I don't have to redo those old managed workspaces.

Thanks so much for your efforts.

I got this solved and it was rather easy once I got help from Fred Babin. Thank you very much to Fred Babin.

So the working solution for this setup is as follows:

First:

I had to create a Predefined CSB:

Important part is to make sure to use the variable "_DYNAMIC_DATASOURCE_BENTLEYROOT" when including the "Common_Predefined.cfg".  (I was pointing to the file instead of using the variable for the path).

Second:

I had not established a CSB for the Workset. In my scenario I felt like the "Workset" was not needed and it really was, even though it was generic it was needed.

Created a CSB as follows:

After assigning those to the ProjectWise folder things worked as expected. 

Thanks so much for your efforts.

I got this solved and it was rather easy once I got help from Fred Babin. Thank you very much to Fred Babin.

So the working solution for this setup is as follows:

First:

I had to create a Predefined CSB:

Important part is to make sure to use the variable "_DYNAMIC_DATASOURCE_BENTLEYROOT" when including the "Common_Predefined.cfg".  (I was pointing to the file instead of using the variable for the path).

Second:

I had not established a CSB for the Workset. In my scenario I felt like the "Workset" was not needed and it really was, even though it was generic it was needed.

Created a CSB as follows:

After assigning those to the ProjectWise folder things worked as expected.