sisNET ProductID 3172 automatically used with Update 7 - set only the sisNET domain

Since the early days of sisNET, there have been different sisNET flavors for different network commodities: electric, heat, gas, water, wastewater and multi-utility. Their pricings were and are related to their network types and if you can edit more than one network type at the same time. sisNET Electric, Heat, and Gas are priced the same. sisNET Water and Wastewater have another price. sisNET Multi allows you to edit more than 1 network at a time and is therefore the most expensive.

With the release of Update 5 a new ProductID has been introduced that covers all 6 old sisNET flavours, including Multi. With the new ProductID, sisNET usage will be licensed and monitored with a so-called feature-string which indicates the network “domain”. The feature string has 3 possible settings:

• “energy” for electric, gas and heat networks,
• “water” for water and wastewater networks, and
• “multi” for use with multiple networks.

The license costs and SELECT costs of these licenses are identical to those of the corresponding old sisNET Products.

The advantage is that sisNET users who had a mix of electric, heat and gas licenses do not have to worry anymore about which license to use for any of these networks. They can all be done with the “energy” license. Similarly, sisNET users working with a mix of water and wastewater networks can now do both with the “water” license.

The distinction with the “multi” license remains, in that “energy” and “water” can handle only 1 network type at a time, whereas “multi” can handle multiple network types in the same sisNET session.

For a schematic overview see the table below:

Some notes to this:

1. All sisNET users now have the new ProductID in their SELECT contract. The old ProductID's are removed from all contracts at renewal. This means that all users can and must switch to the new ProductID before their next SELECT renewal.
2. Starting with sisNET CE Update 7, sisNET reports usage only with the new ProductID 3172 to the Bentley license server. This happens automatically. The only setting left to be done by the administrator is to configure the right domain: Energy, Water or Multi.
3. There is no difference in functionality or capabilities when running sisNET with the old or new product ID's. These are applied to the same executable software.
4. Since Update 5, switching from sisNET with the old product ID's to the new ones no longer requires a software upgrade. Since Update 7, the administrator only needs to set the appropriate sisNET domain.
5. The new ProductID applies only to sisNET, not to sisFLOW, sisVIEW or sisIMS. These products retain their previous ProductID's.

When and how to apply the new ProductID with sisNET CE Update 7

Since sisNET CE Update 7, there is only one environment variable that controls which sisNET domain is reported to the Bentley licensing server:

SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS
This variable specifies which sisNET variant (commodity) is used. This variable has existed since the first versions of sisNET CE. Normally this variable is set in the configuration file datenbestand.siscfg.

Aspects to be considered:

1. Do not set the environment variable SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS to 3172. Always set this environment variable to one of the old sisNET ProductID's.
2. You do not need to set SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS to one of the ProductID's of sisVIEW, sisFLOW, sisIMS. There are no changes in their ProductID's.

Two minutes after the start of a sisNET session, the name of the product which is being logged to the Bentley license server is visible in the top bar of the sisNET window. See the example screenshots below:

Where to set the environment variables SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS

The place where you set this environment variable depends on whether you want to open DGN files with the OpenUtilities sisNET PowerPlatform functions or not:

1. If you want to use the OpenUtilities sisNET platform to open DGN files and do not want to use a sisNET multi-license, then you must set the SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS variable at the operating system level.
2. If you are not using the OpenUtilities sisNET platform to open DGN files, then the configuration file dataset.siscfg is the correct place to set SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS.

If you set this environment variable at the operating system level, you can differentiate between Windows users if you set the variables at the user level. (See screenshot below):