Bentley Systems, Incorporated has unveiled ProjectWise StartPoint, an entry-level collaboration tool, based on Microsoft Office SharePoint technologies, for MicroStation and AutoCAD users.
ProjectWise StartPoint opens the power of ProjectWise, the architecture, engineering, and construction industry’s leading system of collaboration servers, to a broad population of new users and teams. Its highlights:
- Provides direct access to SharePoint platform collaboration tools from within MicroStation, MicroStation PowerDraft, and AutoCAD
- Makes SharePoint technologies aware of relationships critical in CAD files, allowing AEC users to use SharePoint for their entire project
- Requires no additional server software beyond SharePoint technologies, so deployment is easy
- Provides a cost-effective starting point for organizations that wish to grow to high-end ProjectWise capabilities
Commenting on the new product, CEO Greg Bentley said, “Information management is perhaps one of the biggest challenges facing infrastructure teams – their work is so necessarily collaborative and distributed. Large organizations have been successful with our ProjectWise system of servers. With the introduction of the ProjectWise StartPoint tool, ProjectWise is now for everyone.”
Kurt DelBene, corporate vice president, Microsoft Office Server Group, Microsoft Corp. said, “Bentley has a wealth of expertise spanning the AEC and operations verticals. By combining ProjectWise with SharePoint-based technologies to manage CAD content, project data, and Office documents, there’s an amazing amount of capability and enhanced productivity that Bentley and Microsoft can together bring to users in the infrastructure community.”
Microsoft SharePoint products and technologies provide all users with:
- File access control using check-in/check-out functions
- Version control
- Fast finding through powerful search features
- Access control with folder level security
- Calendars and Threaded discussion web parts
- Simple project web site and user-level customization
ProjectWise StartPoint extends SharePoint technologies by:
- Providing direct access to SharePoint platform collaboration tools from within MicroStation, MicroStation PowerDraft, and AutoCAD
- Managing relationships for MicroStation reference files and AutoCAD X-Refs
- Supporting MicroStation V8 XM edition link sets between CAD and Office files
- Saving PDF and other plot files from MicroStation directly into SharePoint technologies
- Assigning MicroStation workspace profiles to individual DGN files for standards compliance.
