Bentley ProjectWise vs. GeoHECRAS

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.

It is well suited to determining the capacity and flood levels for existing structures and sizing proposed structures based on the existing flood levels. In cases where we do not have sufficient information for proposed developments that need to be included in terrain for modeling, it can be challenging to modify the terrain, however, I think this would be the case for most software.

Incentivized

• It works for collaboration
• The backend is customisable to do work that other document management systems just cannot do.

• Ease of use - functionality
• Accurate results
• Considers all types of scenarios and structures etc.

Incentivized

• many users cannot be in the same file at the same time
• files are not automatically freed upon closure
• copying files to another ProjectWise folder is complicated. There is an option to copy, another to copy to, etc.

• When dealing with large files, the interface can be slow at times

Incentivized

Bentley ProjectWise from a user perspective just does not stack up to even something as simple as Dropbox. ProjectWise is powerful, it is capable, it has a ton of features. The best implementation I have seen from Projectwise is where the admins unlocked everything and let the users do as they please defeating everything it stood for and using it as a big Dropbox account, though even then the user interface couldn't be improved still causing significant workflow delays. I would reluctantly leave a good company if they implement ProjectWise, I respect that it's powerful for system admins but it sucks for users. This means 2-10% of what it is used for is well designed while the other 98-90% of its functions are just bogged down by a lack of development in its user interface and I say this as someone who has periodically used it over the last 10 years and seen no effective improvement in usability. Bentley ProjectWise was one of the first I believe to do this type of system, but as is common with being the first is you don't keep up with the times and bring a lot of baggage with you.

Other software not on the list includes HEC-RAS and SWMM / PCSWMM. Initially, we had to use multiple software before going to HEC-RAS to complete projects. Now we are able to complete the entire project on GeoHECRAS alone with so many different features which enable us to analyze various different scenarios with ease.

Incentivized

• It has saved us time in archiving and versioning documents
• It has saved us effort in backing up files and restoring them when mistakes are made
• It has had an overall positive impact on our bottom line by helping with file sharing and collaboration

• Greatly improved timelines for finishing a project as everything can be completed together on GeoHECRAS without having to use other software etc.
• No negative impact thus far.
• Makes working on these type of projects easier.

Incentivized