Bentley ProjectWise vs. Oracle Primavera Submittal Exchange

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.

[Oracle Primavera Submittal Exchange] is very easy to train new users on it and have everyone on the same page. The daily reminder emails can be a pain but if there are documents needed from a trade it is a great way to remind the the it is in their ball of court to act accordingly and get the documents uploaded because there might be other trades waiting on them.

Incentivized

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

• It is very easy to navigate the site and find what you are looking for.
• They have a great support team.
• It is easy to remind different trades via notification of there are documents or submittals needed for them.

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.

• The daily reminder emails can quickly keep filling up your inbox.
• I can't think of anything else because it is very easy to use.

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.

Procore is a bit more expensive but I think it brings more to the table.

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

• It has allowed us to manage our submittals better and get the back in a timely manner to schedule projects accordingly and keep the flow going.
• It can be a little time consuming to get the project data entered but if done right, it is worth it.

Incentivized