Bentley’s ProjectWise 365 Has Gone SaaS—Brings Broad Market and Platform Appeal to AECO Industry

CHANCES ARE GOOD AS AN AEC USER, you have heard of Bentley’s ProjectWise collaboration solution for the AEC market. That’s because ProjectWise is used by over 80 percent of the top 50 and over 70 percent of the top 250 design firms in the ENR (Engineering News-Record) composite rankings.

However, there is an even higher chance you have never used it yourself. That’s because the traditional version of ProjectWise descends from the pre-SaaS era of technology, and the more significant majority of architects and engineers in the AEC world work in small to medium-sized firms. Bentley Systems aims to fix that.

ProjectWise 365—For Smaller Firms

To address this issue, Bentley has created ProjectWise 365, an entirely SaaS (software as a service), web browser-based solution for AECO digital project delivery. However, specific market targets are not the only reason why ProjectWise 365 exists. It turns out enterprise-sized AE firms—who are ProjectWise users—are also utilizing the same cloud services included in the new ProjectWise 365 solution.

 

 

 

 

“The nature of ProjectWise 365 is that it can scale from very small workgroups of four or five people up to large projects and enterprises,” says Victor Alvarez, Director of Marketing Programs, Bentley Systems. In fact, Robert DeFeo, ProjectWise 365, Product Manager, Bentley Systems, also noted that for enterprises using the traditional version of ProjectWise, they often use ProjectWise 365 for subcontractors, project owners, and other external stakeholders. That being the case, ProjectWise 365 is primarily targeted at small to medium engineering and design firms. And as a result of the pandemic, subscription fees are waived until September 30 to help AEC users adjust to remote work collaboration challenges.

ProjectWise 365—CDE Basics and What It Does

ProjectWise 365 enables a “common data environment” (CDE) for AECO customers and can provide a single-source of truth for building and infrastructure projects. Importantly, the cloud-based solution is accessible from any modern web browser on any OS. There is also a mobile field app that is used to manage and access data in ProjectWise 365; you can also use your iPad’s web browser (Safari) to access the cloud services through the web.

For design professionals, the field app for ProjectWise 365 works with cellular data connections and does not require a WiFi connection. “As long as the app is configured to use cellular data…” says DeFeo. “We are leveraging technology from our SYNCHRO construction mobile application, to enhance the ProjectWise 365 field app with the ability to download content, comment/markup in the field, even if disconnected and upload once reconnected.” In a nutshell, ProjectWise 365 is built around an anywhere, any-time, any-device development philosophy.

 

 

 

 

Out of the box (an expression for sure in a cloud app), ProjectWise 365 offers all project stakeholders a secure place to store, find, and share project information, including metadata like audit-trail information. Contractual exchanges like RFIs, submittals, and transmittals are all supported. And most important, ProjectWise 365 generates issues, handles issue assignment, resolution, and reporting. Contractors, for example, can create an RFI (request for information), assign it to an individual on an AE team, attach markup PDFs, and explanatory text information. The architect or engineer then gets notified through email produced from ProjectWise 365, or the software’s extensive dashboard user interfaces, many of which are customizable.

And speaking of “markup.” ProjectWise 365 has multi-user concurrent design review capabilities, and PDF compare functionality. “You can create an issue as part of the markup,” says DeFeo. “And we just released PDF Compare. With all of this integration with Microsoft Teams, and our ability to have a live session, we think this will allow users to substitute Bluebeam Studio with ProjectWise 365.”

DeFeo noted that most Bluebeam users primarily leverage their markup capabilities. “We feel that the primary use for Bluebeam is the live design review session, which can be substituted now with our PDF markup tools inside a ProjectWise 365 live session.”

Bentley and Microsoft have a partnership around ProjectWise 365, but DeFeo said that it is not exclusive. “Any live session where two different teams can have a PDF document up, and they can talk about it, review it live online … whatever collaboration service they want to use will work.” It means teams could use ZOOM or GoTo Meeting or something else, but Microsoft Teams has integrations that add levels of seamlessness.

next page: ProjectWise 365—3D and BIM Viewing

ProjectWise 365—3D and BIM Viewing

As a global leader in infrastructure design and engineering software, Bentley’s executives sometimes use terms like 3D models where other companies might use BIM. ProjectWise 365, like its predecessor, is designed for both building and infrastructure projects. In addition to marking up PDFs, it can also provide a markup collaboration environment for BIM or 3D CAD model data via the new iTwin Design Review—Ad Hoc workflow, which is a cloud service that is included with ProjectWise 365.

To use the iTwin Design Review Ad Hoc workflow, model data must first be converted into an iModel. As we mentioned during the Year in Infrastructure 2019 Conference, Bentley created iModel Bridge for IFC to get IFC geometry data into its iModel format. Robert DeFeo reassured me that most of the major 3D and BIM tools in AEC can now create iModels. A complete list of software that produces iModel files from Bentley isn’t easy to find on their website—but any format supported by Bentley’s MicroStation can be output as an iModel.

Inside ProjectWise 365’s iTwin Design Review Ad Hoc workflow, a concurrent, multi-team review and markup session can occur, as long as the data is in iModel format. Markups live with the review session, and presumably, these markups in 3D review sessions can also be turned into “issues” and assigned to individuals in the system.

BCF, BS 1192, and ISO 19650

ProjectWise 365 is not fully BS 1192 compliant nor compliant with the ISO 19650 standard. However, DeFeo stated ProjectWise 365 is flexible enough to set up a workflow process that supports the BS 1192 process of WIP (work-in-progress), Share, Published, and Archived.

“We don’t currently support WIP (work-in-progress) on the ProjectWise 365 platform, but when we do it in the future, we will definitely support any of the standards that are required,” says Robert DeFeo, “including BS 1192 and ISO 19650 standard.”

“We are not only going to be supporting standards like BS 1192 and ISO 19650—and really what that means is providing a template, so the user doesn’t have to build it themselves—if someone wants to do a modification on the BS 1192 standard they can,” he adds. “There are different regions in the world who are adopting parts of the BS 1192 standard; they don’t necessarily follow it to the letter—like in South East Asia and even Latin America.”

As for BCF (BIM Collaboration Format), a buildingSMART and Open BIM standard for data exchange between BIM applications, ProjectWise 365 today cannot produce one or ingest that format and the data that comes with it. However, Bentley’s BIM applications can. “That’s more at the application level,” DeFeo says, “but the BCF files can be shared through ProjectWise 365.”

Closing Comments

In some ways, the most exciting aspect about ProjectWise 365 is that a leading staple technology in the AEC industry, and a brand with high recognition and trust, is now much more attainable for small and medium-sized architecture, engineering, and AE firms. It is likely significant that Bentley takes on this smaller sized part of the market as well because the barrier to entry for a SaaS-based CDE tool is low from a technical point of view. Anybody could come along and quickly grab a lot of thunder.

Moreover, Bentley’s CDE competitors are literally in every corner of the AECO market, across all regions. Bentley will need technology that is flexible enough for all AECO participants so that the company can, ultimately, defend its leadership in this sector of the CDE market. Its iModel.js technology seems smart being open source, including connections to IFC. But to win in the CDE space, you also need flexibility with workflows, with capacities for standards like BS 1192 and all AECO participant needs.

“I would put up our workflows against anybody’s workflows in the industry,” says DeFeo. “They are just extremely advanced; they provide a lot of flexibility and allow users to do just about anything they want within their workflow.”

Availability and Pricing

Bentley ProjectWise 365 has currently been free since Bentley’s Covid-19 pandemic response to remote work needs. It is free until 30 September 2020. For further information on pricing after this period, readers can contact a Bentley representative on this page here. For more information, go here.

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