Bentley ProjectWise vs. Fieldwire

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.

We used Fieldwire to increase our overall productivity for our engineers and for our installers and techs in the field, so our techs could have everything in front of them when needed. Sometimes the software can be dependent on cell service and when in a remote construction area it becomes hard to pull the information.

Incentivized

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

• View the most up to date plans
• Mark up plans

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.

• I wish more trades used it.
• If it was cheaper, I would have more users.

Incentivized

Fieldwire customer service is exceptional. They are always looking to grow, learn and take feedback from users to make their software the best it can be. They have taken feedback from us, worked with us on how to best implement and incorporate our ideas and work quickly with their software engineers to implement the feedback into the software. They are willing to make changes quickly and are not shy in asking your opinion. If there are ever issues with your subscription, software or data, they are very quick to make sure everything is taken care of to the best of their ability.

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.

Fieldwire is a much better value.

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

• Helps productivity
• Decreased return trips
• Saves time and hours

Incentivized