While users of Bentley Structural Analysis software products generally have the option to purchase perpetual licenses of STAAD and RAM software without maintenance, there are specific products and features that require an account to be on Bentley's SELECT program, or a program in which SELECT benefits are included (such as ELS or E365). These situations are detailed below.
Structural WorkSuite
Accounts that own Structural WorkSuite (formerly called Structural Enterprise) perpetual licenses must subscribe to Bentley’s SELECT program and have each license covered by a SELECT subscription. Use of Structural WorkSuite as a node-locked license is not permitted. If an account chooses to drop their SELECT subscription for Structural WorkSuite, they must relinquish Structural WorkSuite perpetual licenses and move to perpetual licenses of the standalone products. In doing so, the account may choose any standalone perpetual license portfolio (only products within Structural WorkSuite) such that the total license value does not exceed the total license value of their previous Structural WorkSuite portfolio. This will generally lead to significantly less product access than Structural WorkSuite.
An account that owns Structural WorkSuite is not permitted to own perpetual licenses of the standalone products that are included within Structural WorkSuite. For example, an account that owns ten Structural WorkSuite perpetual licenses is not permitted to also own a perpetual license of STAAD.Pro, since STAAD.Pro is one of the products included in Structural WorkSuite. Any term license usage of Structural Analysis products by accounts that own Structural WorkSuite will be processed and billed as a Structural WorkSuite term license rather than a term license of stand alone licenses. Accounts that own standalone perpetual licenses of STAAD and RAM may upgrade to Structural WorkSuite, using the license value of the standalone products as credit towards Structural WorkSuite.
Practitioner Licenses and Virtuoso Subscriptions are exceptions to the restrictions above. An account may own standalone perpetual licenses of STAAD and RAM in conjunction with Practitioner Licenses or Virtuoso Subscriptions of Structural WorkSuite.
STAAD Features Available only to SELECT Subscribers
As of January 2019, STAAD products contain specific features available only to accounts that have their licenses covered by a SELECT subscription, or a program in which SELECT benefits are included (such as ELS or E365). This started with the STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition V22 release. These features are referred to as Structural SELECT Entitlements, which is shown in the STAAD.Pro licensing dialog. The following features are SELECT Entitlements:
Accounts using STAAD.Pro through a node-locked license will receive an error message when they attempt to access these features. Certain new STAAD and RAM features in future releases may be offered as a SELECT-only entitlement.