This document contains frequently asked questions related to the Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) release.
The FAQ is divided into a number of different sections:
| Question | Answer |
| What is Bentley Utilities Designer? |
Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) is a desktop product to design, manage, and analyze the GIS representation of electric, gas, water, wastewater, or district energy networks using MicroStation-based editing tools. It also includes the ability to do on-the-fly cost estimation that lets designers quickly refine designs and has built-in workflow management to assign, track, and manage work, as well as interfaces to enterprise GIS and Workflow Management products. |
| Where do I find the Bentley Utilities Designer readme? |
The readme for Bentley Utilities Designer (SELECTseries 3) is delivered with the installation package as a Windows help file (CHM). A single-document version of the readme can be found at the Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) Readme page. |
| What is Bentley Utilities Workflow Manager? |
Bentley Utilities Workflow Manager V8i (SELECTseries 3) is a desktop product that offers built-in workflow management to assign, track, and manage work, as well as interfaces to enterprise Workflow Management products. It works with Bentley Map, Bentley Map PowerView or any other MicroStation-based desktop product. |
| Where do I find the Bentley Utilities Workflow Manager readme? |
The readme for Bentley Utilities Workflow Manager (SELECTseries 3) is delivered with the installation package as a Windows help file (CHM). A single-document version of the readme can be found at the Bentley Utilities Workflow Manager V8i (SELECTseries 3) Readme page. |
| Question | Answer |
| What Operarating Systems are supported by Bentley Utilities Designer? |
Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) supports Windows Vista and Windows 7. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of these operating systems are supported. Bentley does not support its software running on Microsoft operating systems versions that Microsoft has "retired". For more information see Microsoft's Windows lifecycle fact sheet and the Bentley Application Support Lifecycle. |
| What is the minimum recommended workstation profile for installing Bentley Utilities Designer? |
Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) requires: • Intel© or AMD© processor 3.0 GHz or greater |
| What are the database requirements for Bentley Utilities Designer? | Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) can be implemented using number of different persistence models, including models that leverage Oracle and SQL Server databases. |
| What are the requirement for implementing Bentley Utilities Designer with Oracle? | Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) supports Oracle 10g Release 2 and 11g Release 1 and Release 2 servers. On the client, it requires a full client 10g or 11g 32-bit client installation. |
| What are the requirement for implementing Bentley Utilities Designer with SQL Server? | Bentley OpenUtilities V8i (SELECTseries 4) supports SQL Server 2008 R2, and 2012 databases. |
| What are the requirements for adjusting or enhancing the industry standard data models that come with Bentley Utilities Designer? | Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) data model definitions and macro routines used to generate a working Bentley OpenUtilities Map setup are stored in Microsoft Excel 97-2003 Worksheets. Adjusting the standard data models delivered with the product, or creating new data models, will need a working version of Microsoft Excel 97 or higher. |
| Does Bentley Utilities Designer support integration with FME by SAFE Software? | Yes. Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) offers FME Desktop integration with FME Desktop Versions, 2010, 2011, and 2012. |
| What are the network requirements for Bentley Utilities Designer? |
Bentley Utilities Designer V8i (SELECTseries 3) will typically be configured in a LAN or comparable setup when implemented with Oracle or SQL Server persistence. Minimum network requirements are: |
| Question | Answer |
| What is going to change? |
Bentley Electric, Bentley Gas, Bentley Water, Bentley Expert Designer Electric, Bentley Expert Designer Gas, Bentley Expert Designer Water, Bentley Expert Designer Server are going to be merged. There will be a single Bentley product for Utility Network Analysis and Design: |
| What does this mean for Bentley Electric, Bentley Gas and Bentley Water V8i users? | These applications will be replaced with Bentley Utilities Designer. All electric, gas, water data models and functionality will be included in the product. Bentley Utilities Designer will also include a wastewater data model and functionality. Further, on-the-fly cost estimation, workflow management, and interfaces to enterprise GIS and Workflow Management products previously found in the Expert Designer products will also become available. |
| What does this mean for users of Bentley Expert Designer Electric, Bentley Expert Designer Gas, Bentley Expert Designer Water, and Bentley Expert Designer Server? |
These applications will be replaced with Bentley Utilities Designer. On-the-fly cost estimation, workflow management, and interfaces to enterprise GIS and Workflow Management products will be included in the product. Further, all electric, gas, water data models and functionality previously found in Bentley Electric, Bentley Gas, and Bentley Water as well sa the new wastewater data model and functionality will also become available. |
| What does this mean for Bentley Water 2004 and Bentley Wastewater 2004 users? | These applications will be replaced with Bentley Utilities Designer, which provides similar functionality in water and wastewater. A data migration project is required to move from Bentley Water 2004 and/or Bentley Wastewater 2004 to Bentley Utilities Designer. |
| What does this mean for licensing? |
A single Bentley Utilities Designer license will cover all functionality previously licensed separately. When upgrading, portfolio balancing will be used to bring forward licenses from previous products to Bentley Utilities Designer. Please contact your Bentley representative for more information. |
| Why is a MicroStation license no longer needed? |
Bentley OpenUtilities Designer includes all the capabilities of MicroStation. In addition, it also includes all of Bentley Map's capabilities. |
| What does this mean when updating an Bentley Electric, Bentley Gas, or Bentley Water implementation? | For Bentley Electric, Bentley Gas, and Bentley Water users, the update to Bentley Utilities Designer no different from upgrades in the past: it requires an installation of the new product. The data models used previously are compatible for the data models used in Bentley Utilities Designer. |
| What does this mean when updating an Expert Designer implementation? | For Expert Designer users, the update to Bentley Utilities Designer is no different from Expert Designer upgrades in the past: it requires an installation of the new product and a migration of the project to the new version.. |
| When will Bentley Utilities Designer English be released? | A first OpenUtilities English release was released in Q1, 2013, as a V8i (SELECTseries 3) release, based on Bentley Map V8i (SELECTseries 3) that was released at the end of Q4, 2012. |
| When will Bentley Utilities Designer be released in other languages? | Bentley Utilities Designer will be released in English only. In 2015, Bentley Utilities Designer was replaced by Bentley OpenUtilities, which is expected to have non-English releases. |