Working Remotely with Bentley Applications

In these challenging times when COVID-19 is imposing signiﬁcant disruptions to day-to-day activities and affecting

normal business ﬂow of our much-valued users and employees, we at Bentley are mindfully committed to ensuring

smooth transition of work from ofﬁce to remote location or home. Our innovative software and services are all geared

for working from home or remote locations and do not impose the need to be in an ofﬁce set-up.

To ensure smooth transition of work and effectiveness of your daily workﬂows with Bentley software, we have

assembled information that you can refer to while working remotely or from home. We are working hard to deliver

high levels of customer service, and welcome feedback, questions, and ideas on how we can serve you better in a

remote work environment.

MACHINE REQUIREMENTS

What can we do to ensure our users’ workﬂows are uninterrupted?

There are several options to work remotely. You may decide to install the software on your home computer. Please click here to see these

minimum machine requirements for MicroStation.

Processor

Intel

or AMD

processor 1.0 GHz or greater. MicroStation is not supported on a CPU that does not support SSE2.

Memory

4 GB minimum, 16 GB recommended. More memory almost always improves performance, particularly when

working with larger models.

Hard Disk

10 GB minimum, 10-25 GB depending on additional installations such as Companion Features and Companion

Products.

Video

See the graphics card manufacturer for the latest information on DirectX drivers. 512 MB of video RAM or higher

is recommended. Should there be insufﬁcient video RAM, or a graphics card supported by DirectX can’t be found,

MicroStation attempts to use software emulation. For optimal performance, graphics display color depth should be

set to 24-bit or higher. When using a color depth setting of 16-bit, some inconsistencies will be noted. For more

information on recommended workstation proﬁles for MicroStation, see MicroStation System Requirements

and Hardware Recommendations.

Screen

Resolution

1024 x 768 or higher

INTERNET CONNECTIVITY

Internet Access

Internet access is required for downloading, installing, and licensing the software (unless the machine concerned has a checked-out license).

As the MicroStation installer is almost 8 GB, it might take some time to install over a low bandwidth connection. Ensure the connection used

has sufﬁcient data allowance if it is not an unlimited data package. Many CONNECT Edition products are installed from a small installer

ﬁle that pulls the rest of the installation ﬁles from our servers. If you encounter problems with this installation route, please refer to the

DOWNLOADING SOFTWARE section below for links to full software downloads or guidance on the use of Deployment Images to take home.

Internet Proxy Settings

MicroStation will try to obtain your Internet Proxy Settings from Internet Explorer browser. If that is not feasible, you can ﬁll in the details

manually as described in this page

located here.

Connecting to Your Organization’s Network via VPN

Virtual Private Network enables organizations to provide secure connection to their network over the internet so their employees can connect

remotely or from public places.

Click here to follow these instructions to connect to Windows VPN. If your organization uses a

different VPN software, contact your IT administrator to help guide you with the steps.

MicroStation Features that Require Internet Connectivity

The following features of MicroStation may not work properly in the absence of internet connectivity.

• Bing Maps

• CONNECT Project

• CONNECT Licensing

• CONNECT Advisor

• Web Map Service

• Component Center

• Issue Resolution Service

• Reality Context Share Service

• User Feedback Service

• Send as Email

• Google Earth and Google Map integration

• Social interaction (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)

• Online Help

• Publish iModel and PDF to ProjectWise Share

• CONNECT Notiﬁcation Service

• RSS Feeds

VIRTUALIZATION and VIRTUAL MACHINES

Virtualization enables organizations to create virtual machines from a single physical machine and administer them to their employees on

demand. MicroStation is certiﬁed on Citrix XenApp. Follow the steps below to set it up. Bentley is exploring other virtualization providers like

VMWare Horizon and Azure Virtual Desktop. If your organization uses any of these, please reach out to us with your questions, and we’ll try

our best to assist.

Virtualization with Citrix

• Citrix XenApp Supported:

7.15 64-bit on Windows Server 2012 R2

• Setup Instructions

Install Conﬁgure

Application Groups Manage

• MicroStation Virtualization FAQ

Virtual Machines

Virtual machines are a great way to manage operating systems and work remotely with a running Remote Desktop Connection, login

credentials, and a valid IP address. Installing virtualization software allows one or more virtual machines to share one physical computer.

Your IT administrator can create VMs with a readymade image of Windows operating system that includes MicroStation and any other

necessary software. When such a VM is provisioned to you, you can directly launch MicroStation and start working on your project.

You can create a new VM and install its operating system by

following these simple steps located here.

You can export and import existing VMs in Windows Hyper-V Server by

following these steps located here.

REMOTE DESKTOP CONNECTION

Remotely Accessing Ofﬁce Computer

If you work on a heavy-duty desktop machine that is difﬁcult to carry or if your organization does not allow employees to move computers off

ofﬁce premises, Remote Desktop Connection offers a great way to log into that machine from your personal computer. You will require your

computer name or IP address.

Click here to follow the instructions on this page.

SHARING CONFIGURATIONS AND PROJECT DATA

When you’re working remotely, you are still part of a team and therefore sharing project data is crucial. This is where the Conﬁguration

system shines. No matter where you are, you can be sure you are using the correct CAD standard with server-based Conﬁgurations. If your

system has already been conﬁgured to use server-based resources virtualization, and remote desktop access results in a similar experience to

working in the ofﬁce, there may be some graphic latency, but the system will be identical.

Attempting to connect to a conﬁguration on ofﬁce-based shares via VPN may be possible, depending on your IT systems, but is likely to be

subject to signiﬁcant latency, especially with many more VPN users than usual. Working with a local copy of the network conﬁguration

may be more appropriate.

Common Network Storage

One of the simplest and effective ways of work sharing is by storing the project data in a common network location and pointing every user’s

conﬁguration to that location by setting MicroStation’s _USTN_CONFIGURATION conﬁguration variable. In addition, we recommend mapping

a drive letter to your organization’s network server path. For example, in ConﬁgurationSetup.cfg, the variable should be set as follows:

_USTN_CUSTOM_CONFIGURATION = Z:\SharedStandards\

To point to your WorkSpaces and WorkSets (if in another location) use the WorkSpacesSetup.cfg ﬁle and uncomment and set:

_USTN_WORKSPACESROOT = P:\ProjectsRoot\

It might be worth expending some effort.

Storing Your Project Data on ProjectWise Share or OneDrive

Store your project data on ProjectWise Share or Microsoft OneDrive, which allow high levels of control. Easily manage and transfer without

the need for additional software.

Collaborating on Projects with ProjectWise

The beauty of working with ProjectWise is that work sharing is built-in and the concept of being tied to a location is foreign. In a

Client-Server architecture the client can be anywhere. By storing standards and work ﬁles on a server you can ensure proper access by

anyone. By establishing a digital environment for all project information, you can give access to people regardless of location and device type.

However, ensuring the correct access is the key to success. So, setting up ProjectWise Explorer locally is key.

To install ProjectWise Explorer, click here.

DOWNLOADING SOFTWARE

• Software Downloads

• Portable Deployment Images

We recommend that CAD/BIM administrators create Deployment Images to use as the source for multiple installations in

normal circumstances. In this situation either an existing or a new Deployment Image can be copied to removable media and

taken home to use as the installation source where internet availability/speed is limited (note: Internet access is still essential

to sign-in to licensing services). The step to create a Deployment Image for MicroStation CONNECT Edition are explained here,

MicroStation CONNECT - How to create a Deployment Image. Creating a Deployment Image for other products is very similar.

ACCESSING PRODUCT DOCUMENTATION

• Online Documents

• MicroStation CONNECT Edition Update 13

• PowerDraft CONNECT Edition Update 13

• Bentley View CONNECT Edition Update 13

RESOLVING LICENSING ISSUES

• Licensing Wiki

• Subscription Entitlement Service

• Bentley User Registration

• Ofﬂine Usage

• How to ensure usage from only one user on a shared workstation

• How remote usage is recorded with Subscription Entitlement Service (SES)

• How to check out licenses from Entitlement Management (how to run ofﬂine)

• How to bulk checkout licenses from Entitlement Management (extended ofﬂine scenarios)

HOW TO GET HELP

• Service Request Manager

• Bentley Communities

• MicroStation Community

• CONNECT Center

• Bentley LEARNserver

• License Manager

• Entitlement Management

• User Management

• Roles and Permissions

USEFUL ARTICLES ABOUT WORKING REMOTELY

• Super Evil Megacorp

• Suddenly Remote? Here’s How to Regain Your Productivity in Record Time

• The Ultimate Guide to Remote Work

V8i SUPPORT

• Software Download Instructions

• Working from Home using Bentley Licensing

VIDEOS

• Check-out a license: Click HERE for video training

• How to Connect to ProjectWise Remotely

• ProjectWise and the Distributed Workforce

TIPS

Printing

At home, set your default printer to PDF to avoid sending prints via a VPN to an unattended printer.

© 2020 Bentley Systems, Incorporated. Bentley, the Bentley logo, MicroStation, ProjectWise, and ProjectWise Explorer are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems,

Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. 03/2020