converting V8i Workspace to Connect

Rod, this is a much-needed resource!  Thank you for sharing it with the community.

I have been only partially involved with development of our (Oregon DOT) configuration but it's plainly clear that this is a huge undertaking.  We hired Bentley to do a lot of the heavy lifting and, after 1½ years or so, we achieved a functional configuration.  There is still a lot of refinement required before our IT staff can fully return to their support tasks.

I can't recommend highly enough that new users enlist the help of others to build their configurations.  That could range from borrowing configurations from your clients to hiring experienced consultants, such as Bentley or EnvisionCad , if you have the resources.  The IT staff of your clients should be willing to provide some assistance - they do after all have a vested interest in your success - but be mindful of their time limitations and remember that they are probably experiencing many of the same frustrations with the new software as you are.

I will say that Mary's advice to keep V8i projects in V8i is spot-on.  As Rod suggests, migrating projects is a tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone process.

Also, follow along with this community.  There are many people here who have suffered, or are still suffering, through your pain and are willing to help you work through it.

Good luck with your endeavor and we hope to see you around.

I agree with what Mary and Chuck have said.

There is a migration tool available, but I've never had much luck with it. You will want to create your own ORD Configuration from scratch. To help make sense of the recommended setup download some DOT ORD configurations (here is a list of links https://envisioncad.com/dot-openroads-designer-civil-3d-configuration-downloads/)

Install them and review them to get a feel for where things go. Try Oklahoma, Tennessee, or Alabama as they are not particularly large, do not require a login, do not have a separate installer program, and all follow the same template.

You haven't said what V8i version you're using and if you have your own company civil resources to migrate. That will be much more difficult and time consuming than setting up the configuration.

There are many settings in CONNECT that are different from values that many offices used in V8i. Some of these might be optional, but others seem to be required. We tried making our ORD workspace an evolution of our V8i workspace. We are now having to create a new workspace using the "recommended" settings in order to make sure everything works properly. The original ORD workspace might permit a migration, but we will consider that workspace a temporary kludge. 

The way configuration is organized between V8i and ORD/Connect has changed significantly. Here's an article about considerations that should be made.

Another explaining how the configuration has changed:https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/microstation__wiki/24186/what-configuration-changes-have-been-made-in-microstation-connect-edition

A series of articles: https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/peer_blogs/b/marc_thomass_blog/posts/connect-edition---custom-configuration---part-1-initial-creation-steps

And a whole collection of blogs: https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/b/microstation_blog/posts/configuration-blogs-toc

There's a lot more to it, including the fact that ORD files need to be "branded" to a particular workspace/workset combination.

I would SERIOUSLY suggest talking to the powers that be, and convincing them to keep V8i work in V8i, and start fresh projects in ORD. While it may be possible to view the files in one or the other, it is NOT possible to do any work across versions. Matter of fact, there are certain versions of ORD that aren't even compatible.

There's an entire forum dedicated to Product Administration. While ORD has some specialized requirements, much of the plain MicroStation information is valid.