12d Synergy vs. Bentley ProjectWise

12d Synergy and its ability to handle all file types really suited the engineering industry.

ProjectWise is good for really large projects with many team members. I would not recommend it for small projects or those with a small team of people working on them. It is best for technical people and those who plan to use it daily. There are better FTP options out there if you just want to use them for file sharing.

• Manages multiple files in a folder, while allowing file sharing (AutoCAD, xrefs, etc.)
• Delivers HUGE (2, 3, or 5GB) files with minimal bandwidth

• Maintain an audit trail of all documentation.
• Integrate title blocks with the ProjectWise database.
• Keep documentation for all projects in a single application that anyone with the appropriate authority can access.

Incentivized

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• 12d Synergy could provide additional analytical reporting on user behavior and usage out of the box.
• Improved speeds when referencing shared files from other 12d model projects.

• It's worse than a virus, it WILL get into every part of your system, with the only way to get rid of it is to do a full system format.
• Integration is dependent on if Bentley wishes to support your software.
• DMS system, it just makes it incompatible with native programs unless you have integration, which is at Bentley's discretion for support, exporting to your system is a work around, though this takes significant time to export and to re-teach PW linked file locations when you reimport it.
• Clunky user interface, if you want to work on more than 1 file at a time expect to be at least 50-80% slower.
• a Labyrinth of forms that are prone to user error.
• Interface straight out of Windows 2000, and that's generous.
• Inability to delete or even "Recycle bin" files, this is more an admin issue but most PW instance lock out deleting files, which makes it impractical for general use.
• Encourages unnecessary and convoluted workflows, This comes down to the Pro of "The backend is customisable," it may be customisable but this encourages system admins to write convoluted and time consuming workflows just because they can.
• Seems to require an IT team to manage it - this probably relates to the highly customisable component.

It is simple to use once users become familiar with it & it has a familiar Windows-like interface.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

The 12d Synergy team is always ensuring our issues and needs are resolved promptly. Whether it be on the forum or phone, they are kind and helpful

Hands down prefer 12d Synergy. Bentley ProjectWise is overly complex, expensive and has a very cluttered interface.

I think ProjectWise is better for technical users than Dropbox, one drive, or SharePoint. It is less intuitive than any of the others though. It is better for restoring files and creating an audit trail than any of the other programs. It is better for sharing large files in a short period of time than SharePoint or one drive. It is also better for larger teams and larger projects than SharePoint or Dropbox.

• 12d Synergy has solved our multiple office syncing issues, adding the ability to have staff from remote offices collaborate together on projects.
• Email saving used to be a nightmare, however, staff finds 12d Synergy's email saving easy to use and are able to search for saved emails quickly.

• Provides a central place for people to store files.
• Incredibly long time to fill out forms to initialise a file. 4 hours to update files instead of about 10mins.
• Significantly longer to open drawings. up to 1.5mins to open vs about 10seconds.
• Can't easily batch script over files, thus making this workflow either ineffective or redundant. Scripts can take 10mins to do an hours worth of repetitive tasks.
• Restricts you to 1 file at a time, so rather than in the morning opening 10-15 files at once and doing other work while they open you have to site their and open via dialogue boxes each and every file. This can take 10-15mins of your morning run.
• People seem to email more documents unofficially now, which kind of defeats the first point.