Love it for large projects

Rating: 8 out of 10

December 6, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My whole organization uses Bentley ProjectWise. It helps us archive files or create different versions of the same file. Anyone can access any file unless they are locked or blocked. The software is good for helping us organize our projects by discipline and the audit trail gives us a restore point if someone accidentally makes a change they shouldn't have.

Pros

organize projects
create restore points/audit trail
locking files and not providing access to certain users
collaborative files

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

ProjectWise Review

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

June 1, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

There is no doubt that ProjectWise (PW) is powerful, it is probably one of the oldest and most developed file management tools out there.

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you need something more than just a file server, my advice: try it, if you like it use it, if you find it is slowing you down try ANY of the many other products out there.

It is capable, it is highly developed, it is better than a file server, but it is not streamlined and is in need of a major overhaul for an acceptable 21st century user experience. I personally have threatened to quit my job if we changed from our current document management system to ProjectWise, this is not because ProjectWise is not a good product, it is because I just want to be able to do my job without wasting time fighting the system.

Johnathon Page

Senior Drafter - Structures in Engineering at BGE (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

ProjectWise Review

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

June 1, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

There is no doubt that ProjectWise (PW) is powerful, it is probably one of the oldest and most developed file management tools out there.

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you need something more than just a file server, my advice: try it, if you like it use it, if you find it is slowing you down try ANY of the many other products out there.

Johnathon Page

Senior Drafter - Structures in Engineering at BGE (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Bentley ProjectWise Reviews and Ratings

Reviews

Love it for large projects

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Likelihood to Recommend

ProjectWise Review

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Likelihood to Recommend

Reviews

Love it for large projects

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Likelihood to Recommend

ProjectWise Review

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Likelihood to Recommend