ProjectWise Integration Server V8i What’s New

Major Themes for Release

• Distributed Projects & Performance– Delta File Transfer– Data Compression

• Web Server Evolution– Replace WEL with Webparts (no more JSP)– Web View Server

• Geo-coordination– Spatial navigation and searching

• Continued Usability Enhancements

Additional V8i Goals

• Better user\group management• Support MicroStation V8i functionality• Enhance managed workspaces• Extend AutoCAD integration capabilities

ProjectWise Explorer

• Usability and User Requests– Quick Search Bar– Photo Preview– Back/Forward Folder buttons in PW Explorer– File Sizes displayed in KB in Content List– Launch PW Network Configuration from tools menu– Multi-folder Drag-n-Drop– New Progress Bar

ProjectWise Explorer V8i

• Quick Search– Users have reported frustration with existing search

tools being either too complex (form) or non-intuitive (builder)

– Provide a search toolbar in PWE (Google-like)– Text only – does not support dates– Returns documents, folders, and projects– User controls what is searched through search settings

ProjectWise V8i Digital Photo Management and Preview• Users are struggling with

management and viewing of digital images– Added Photo preview tab for

digital files in the PWE UI– Images preview as users scroll

through the list– To do so, entire files are

downloaded– Also supports Office, PDF and

other (CALS) formats via IE controls / extensions

• Not for large aerial images or non-raster formats (DGN\DWG)

New Progress Bar

• Less impact on performance• User Setting to turn off• Cancellable File

operations!!!!!

Scan References

• Now available from Folder context menu– Right-click folder, choose Scan References

• Either MicroStation V8i, or V8 XM can be used as Scan-ref engine– For those organizations that do not want to have

MicroStation V8i deployed on any of their desktops• New AutoCAD functionality

– Supports Sheet Set Manager relationships– Supports DWG’s with DGN references

ProjectWise V8i Usability Enhancements• Updated UI to look more modern

– Dialogs\toolbars – obvious on Vista – Icons– Progress Bar– File sizes reported in KB

• Reorganized toolbars– Navigation

• Back & forth buttons– Search

ProjectWise V8i Usability Enhancements• New Toolbar Entry

– Network Configuration Settings Panel

• Misc. Usability– Project properties trigger

updates– Autologin\logout of PWA– Document list right-click

actions– New system variables for

document and folder full-PW paths

ProjectWise Administrator

• Usability and User Requests– Datasource Statistics– Select Users by Group– User Login/out Audit Trail– Log-out Command in PW Admin– Environment Format Fields

• Date; Date, Day; Date,Sec– Increased Maximum file size

• Was approximately 4GB (2 ^32)• Now 2^64 (Yikes)

Project Properties Trigger Updates

• Properties defined by a Select statement now can be updated as “key” property is updated

• Prevents stale data being preserved in property values

Document Full Path System Variable

• Can be used to populate environment attribute– $Document.FullName$– $Document.FullDesc$– $Document$– $Vault.FullName$– $Vault.FullDesc$

• Link to titleblocks

ProjectWise V8i Datasource Statistics

• Provides insight into:– Counts of all datasource objects

• Users, groups, user lists• Docs, folders, projects• Workflows, states• Empty folders• Audit trail records• Access control records• Lots more

ProjectWise V8i Datasource Statistics• Admins reported that they wanted

insight into the quantities of datasource content

• Measure datasource growth over time

• Also need more tools for support• Abstract the database itself from

the PW Administrator• Added a tab on the datasource

displaying statistics and that allows for refresh and export

• Numbers refresh every 12 hours or on-demand

ProjectWise V8i User\Group\List Management• Users by Group:

– Counts of group membership– Counts of user list membership– Selection of users by group or

user list• All users• Connected users only• Enabled users only• Sort users to visually indicate the

entire group members– Group actions

• Export properties of group members to Excel

• Bulk-edit user settings

ProjectWise V8i User\Group\List Management• User Audit Trail:

– Added audit trial to user in PWA

– Tracks login and logout date\times

– Configurable using datasource settings

• Added Date Created and Last Login Date to the User dialog in PWA

MicroStation V8i Integration Improvements

• Managed Workspaces– Conditionals(If, then, else) support– UI improvements– Project Macros(relative pathing from PW project root)

• MicroStation V8i support– In-place Reference Activation– Dynamic Views– Improve Performance

• Titleblocks– Update on Export option

ProjectWise V8i MicroStation Integration• Support the last four

versions of MicroStation– V8i– XM– 2004 Edition– V7\J

• Bentley Redline is deprecated, replaced with ProjectWise Navigator – delivered with ProjectWise

• Titleblocks can be updated on export

ProjectWise V8i Dynamic View Support

• New feature in MicroStation V8i– PW Support - requires managed workspaces for

configuration driven workflows– Supports dynamic view workflows from within

ProjectWise environment– Leverages link-set and reference file integration

In-Place Reference Activation

• New feature in MicroStation V8i– Allows for precision edit sessions in references, keeps

current view context (unlike reference exchange)– Check out the reference file when activated– When the “master” is checked on, all activated

references are checked in– Can release the check out lock on an individual

activated reference if desired – checks the file in– Check in dialog lists all files checked out in session

when the master file is checked in

ProjectWise V8i DGN File Management Improvements – MS & AC•Now use a local storage mechanism that tracks reference file, model, and link set changes•Use an XML file in the working directory of the file checked out of ProjectWise •XML file is stored in a subfolder named “dms”•On Update Server Copy or Check-in the xml file contents are uploaded to the server•On free xml file is purged•Dms folders can persist (empty)•Provides more secure management and performance benefits

ProjectWise V8i Managed Workspace Improvements

• Dynamic project configuration assignment• Conditional Support• Improved CSB editing tools

ProjectWise V8i Dynamic project configuration assignment• Admins need a scalable solution

for adding new managed projects to ProjectWise that does not require manually adding new CSBs

• Standardize project configurations using relative paths

• Use new configuration expression to determine project at run-time:– $(dms_project(_DGNDIR)) =

moniker of project– $(dms_parentproject(_DGNDIR)

= moniker of project’s parent

• All projects load with same configuration – pointing to the correct project

ProjectWise V8i Conditionals Support

• In XM, there is no support for conditional arguments in CSBs (if, elif, else, etc.)

• Added to V8i, primarily for data driven workflows– %include– %if– %else– %elif– %endif– %error

• Used just as in MicroStation workspaces

ProjectWise V8i CSB Editing Tools

• Now have a large, resizable editing dialog

• Dialog design is based on configuration file structure

• Can now assign managed workspaces to:– Groups– Multiple users at once– Multiple applications

at once

Print Organizer Integration

• New Feature in MicroStation V8i– Replacement for MicroStation batch print– Not available from ProjectWise Explorer (yet)

AutoCAD Integration Improvements

• AutoCAD 2008/2009 Integration and new features:– Datalinks– DGN reference– DWF underlays

• Sheet Set Manager Integration• Session File Manager• Installer support for AutoCAD Vertical apps

ProjectWise V8i AutoCAD Integration Improvements• Problems related to integration, session file

management and new AutoCAD functionality– Sheet Set Manager Integration– Session File Manager– Support for AutoCAD 2008– Support for 2008 data links and DGN reference sets– Support for AutoCAD 2009

ProjectWise V8i Sheet Set Manager

• Allow the sheet set file (*.DST) to be stored in ProjectWise

• Scan ref has been updated to discover and rewrite existing paths to ProjectWise paths

• Export not supported yet (will be)

• Allows for SSM workflows in ProjectWise

ProjectWise V8i AutoCAD Session File Manager (SFM)• Users need better access

to managed documents that are opened or referenced in the session of integrated application

• Provides the user with some of the functionalities from the Xref Manager dialog, the ProjectWise Explorer Local Document Organizer, and ProjectWise Explorer from within the integrated AutoCAD session

• Need .NET 2.0 (ACAD 2004 and later)

ProjectWise V8i AutoCAD Session File Manager (SFM)• The following actions can be performed

on files in the session file manager– Navigation of the content in the SFM– Locate the file in ProjectWise Explorer tree hierarchy– Open– Check-in\ check-out– Update server copy– Free– Display Properties– Display Audit trail– Close – Attach as reference– Sort display by file name, file type, or ProjectWise

folder name– Display the reference files hierarchy– Display thumbnail preview of selected file

ProjectWise V8i AutoCAD Session File Manager (SFM)• The display in the SFM can be filtered to only

show Checked out, Copied Out, or exported files• The reference file hierarchy can also be filtered

to include or exclude the display of referenced images, overlays, or inserts.

• A display filter is provided to temporarily restrict the display to files that meet the display filter criteria.

Data Links

• Introduced in AutoCAD 2008• Links AutoCAD tables to Excel spreadsheets• Store content in ProjectWise as a set

Installer support for Vertical Apps

– AutoCAD Architecture

– AutoCAD Civil 3D– AutoCAD Map– AutoCAD P&ID– AutoCAD Land

Desktop– For all of the above,

each release in the range 2004-2009 is supported.

General Integration Improvements

• Auto-login(SSO) for Integrated Applications– Launch from desktop Icon without login dialog

• Local XML file used to track reference file changes(attach/detach)– Prevents synchronization issues when user modifies a

file by adding/deleting a reference, then chooses to Free the document

Infrastructure changes

• IPV6 Support• Datasource discovery changes

– More efficient– Work better in very complex/large scale networks

Performance - Prior Capabilities

• ProjectWise Integration Server has always supported the ability to manage files in a distributed manner, across multiple file servers. – However, files only existed on one file server at a time.

• ProjectWise Integration Server also provides file caching to speed download of files– Cached copies of files could exist on multiple servers

Performance - Prior Limitations

• Caching configuration does not address the time it takes to check-in/upload modified files– Files are always checked back into main storage

location• Downloads, when cache is not up to date, still

limited by bandwidth, especially on large files

DFT Implementation (simplified)

2. User checks out file rev 1.0

3. User edits file (rev 1.1) and selects check-in

5. Client determines which sections of local file differ from server file

6. Client sends those sections to server8. Check in operation is completed

1. Storage Area has file rev 1.04. Server executes checksum

procedure on server file rev 1.0, results sent to client

7. Server merges sections sent from client with server rev 1.0 to produce rev 1.1 on server

PW ExplorerStorage Area

DFT – 21MB file times @100mbit

100 Mb 100 Mb 100 Mb 100 Mb 100 Mb 100 MbAdd Line Delete Line Compress

LineAdd Parcels Delete

ParcelsCompress

Parcels

00:00

00:01

00:03

00:05

00:06

00:08

Time-InTime-Out

DFT – 21MB file times @10mbit

10 Mb 10 Mb 10 Mb 10 Mb 10 Mb 10 MbAdd Line Delete Line Compress

LineAdd Parcels Delete

ParcelsCompress

Parcels

00:00

00:04

00:08

00:12

00:17

00:21

00:25

00:30

00:34

00:38

Time-InTime-Out

DFT – 21MB file times @T1 (1.5mbit)

T1 T1 T1 T1 T1 T1Add Line Delete Line Compress

LineAdd Parcels Delete

ParcelsCompress

Parcels

00:00

00:17

00:34

00:51

01:09

01:26

01:43

02:00

02:18

02:35

02:52

Time-InTime-Out

Special Note on AutoCAD DWG

• DWG 2007 (and later)– Lots of recent news about DWG 2007 not working with

industry standard network optimization technologies– Caused by AutoCAD essentially re-writing entire DWG

file regardless of magnitude of changes• ProjectWise Delta File Transfer

– Our (limited) testing shows DFT does NOT provide significant advantage for DWG 2007+ files

• DWG 2006 (and earlier)– DFT achieves similar results to other file types

Performance - Data Compression

• Compression of the “database” information sent to/from ProjectWise Explorer/Admin

• Significantly reduces the size of the data sent– Potentially upwards of 90% reduction

• Examples:– Display large folder(100/1000s of documents).– Log in process– Search results

ProjectWise V8i USS Optimizations• Four optimizations activated via system registry

– [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PWAutSrv]

• "AdaptToAccountSidChanges"=dword:00000001• "RecheckDeletedAccounts"=dword:00000000• "CreatetEnumeratedSubGroups"=dword:00000001• "IgnoreAccountsByRegExp"=".*$“

– Contact Support before messing with these

Access Control Cache

• Continued optimizations:– Improvements to copy/move/delete of folder trees in

datasources with large numbers of Access Control Records(dms_acce table)

– Optimizations introduce incremental updates of memory cache vs reloads of entire table

Performance - Hardware Implications

• Process of calculating checksums and determining differences between files is impacted by:– Disk I/O performance– CPU performance

• This is the case on both server and client machines

• Current generation hardware typically sufficient

ProjectWise Web Clients Goals

• Provide a replacement for existing ProjectWise Web Explorer Lite– Web Explorer Lite (WEL) is not delivered with V8i

• Support either:– SharePoint 2007 Web Servers– Standard IIS Web Servers (with ASP.NET)

• Provide a platform for customization• Provide read-only web interface

ProjectWise Web Clients – Web Parts

• ProjectWise Web Server– Read-write type of actions allowed– Server Right-to-Run license required– Passport required for clients

• ProjectWise Web View server– Allows read-only access to the PW system, but no

editing/redlining– Server Right-to-Run license required– Passport NOT required for clients

ProjectWise Web Server

• V8i Web Parts Capabilities– Check out/in– Document/Folder creation/deletion– Multi-document operations– Export/Send to Folder– Component Display/Navigation– Short-cuts to documents/folders(URLs).– CAD files viewing– Design Compare

ProjectWise Web View Server

• V8i Capabilities– ProjectWise Web View Server provides unlimited

Browser-based access to view ProjectWise managed content.

– Target Audience• Infrequent / casual users• Who need to consume rather than create/collaborate on content

– Thus, no requirement for a user to possess a ProjectWise Passport

• Essentially, licensing is per-server

ProjectWise Web View Server

• Highlights– Leverages the same web parts (as Web Server), just

limited to read-only actions– Supports both SharePoint and standard IIS

environments– Requires a server Right to Run license. Does not require

Passport for client access– Requires PW Publishing Server for viewing of DGN/DWG

data– Possible to deploy both read-only, and read/write sites

on same physical server

ProjectWise Distribution Service

• Added support for rendition of Word and Excel documents– InterPlot Organizer added support of Ghostscript to be

the processing engine for Word/Excel to PDF

• Adobe Acrobat is still available as an option for normal InterPlot Organizer client side use.

ProjectWise V8i Auto-login

• Users have reported desire to use SSO when launching integrated applications from the desktop– Auto-login supports SSO and non-SSO datasources– Allows users to register a datasource with an

application family, and by-pass login dialog from the application

– Can register different datasources with different application families

– Uses local registry to manage settings– Can be disabled by machine administrators

ProjectWise V8i Spatial

• Purpose of ProjectWise V8i Spatial• What is ProjectWise V8i Spatial?• Spatial overview• Benefits

ProjectWise V8i Spatial Goals

• Provide ability for users to associate spatial locations to:– Documents, folders, projects

• Provide ability to visualize spatial locations on key maps

• Search mechanism to find documents, folders, & projects based on their location.

ProjectWise V8i Spatial overview

• Feature highlights:– Background Map display in ProjectWise Explorer and

Spatial Web Part– Assigning spatial location to documents, folders, and

projects– Document scanner for automatically assigning spatial

locations– Spatial search of document and folder– Thematic display of spatial locations– Coordinate systems support– SHP file support without need of ESRI license

Background maps

• Vector background maps can be created without PW Publishing Server

• Not supporting raster streaming, can use raster at one resolution only – unless using ProjectWise Publishing Server

• Static CAD, dynamic CAD and DPR type of layers supported

Background map layer options

• Static CAD layer– Generates DPR file automatically during layer creation– To update background map DPR file have to regenerate

it from CAD file manually– Uses/requires Microstation to generate DPR file

• Dynamic CAD layer– Generates DPR file on first background map access– Automatically regenerates background map DPR file if

CAD file was modified– Uses/requires ProjectWise Publishing Server

• DPR layer– Uses prefetched DPR file

Assigning spatial locations

• Assigning custom spatial location manually• Using spatial location scan tool:

– Using Auto-scan for CAD files feature– Using Spatial Location Scan tool manually– Using “Extract extent” feature

• Calculating spatial location for a folder• Assigning spatial locations for a set of

folders/documents using SLF technique

Spatial locations display• Displays location of

documents or folders on background map

• Metadata-driven symbolization with legend control

• Display as points, polygons, lines, and with raster backdrops

• Can re-project documents on-the-fly

Spatial Web Part

Spatial Searches

• Locate documents/folders/projects in a spatial area

• Easily find information by location using search builder and search form extensions– Allows user to select specific/custom background map

to be used for search

What is ProjectWise V8i Spatial?

• Derived from ProjectWise Geospatial Extension V8 XM– 90% of the ProjectWise Geospatial Extension V8 XM is

now becoming ProjectWise V8i Spatial• ProjectWise Spatial is now standard functionality

of ProjectWise Integration Server– No additional software charges– However additional services required to deploy

What ProjectWise Spatial is Not?

• ProjectWise Geospatial V8 XM functionality NOT included in ProjectWise V8i Spatial:– Feature indexing (Spatial Components Indexing)– Geo-coding by attributes– ArcMAP iDesktop integration– Advanced background map content

• These features still require purchase of ProjectWise Geospatial Extension

What is ProjectWise V8i Geospatial Extension?

• ProjectWise V8i Geospatial Extension is an add-on ($$$) extension to ProjectWise

• Advanced GIS functionality:– Better/faster background maps– GIS-like client– Linear referencing support– Web Services support– Geo-coding by attributes– ArcMAP iDesktop integration

Changes to Datasource Discovery

• UDP only used for initial server discovery• Server Conf details requested via TCP• Better support for larger configurations

– Lots of name resolution settings– Lots of routing configurations

• client only caches the address of the first hop• Better flexibility with public/private addresses

V8i - Upgrade Path

• Must upgrade both clients and servers– Previous clients will not work with V8i server– Previous servers will not work with V8i clients– Caused by infrastructure changes like DFT/Compression

• DMSConvert required– Fast process for XM datasources– Drops tables and recreates them– Mime type conversion needed due to new support for

Photo preview

ProjectWise IS V8i Compatibility

Databases:Oracle 9i

Oracle 10g

Oracle 11g

SQL Server 2000

SQL Server 2005

SQL Server 2008**

Server Operating Sys:Windows 2000 Server

Windows 2003 Server(32 and 64-bit)

Windows 2008 Server(32 and 64-bit)**

.NET 3.5

Client Operating Sys:Windows 2000 ProfessionalWindows XP ProfessionalWindows Vista (32 and 64-bit)

Applications:MicroStation 8.11, 8.9.x, V8.5.x,

V8.1, V7.1.xPowerDraft 8.11, 8.9.3, V8.5.x,

V8.1, V7.1.xProjectWise Navigator 8.9.5AutoCAD 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006,

2005, 2004, 2002, 2000Microsoft Office 2007, 2003, XP,

2000Project 2007, 2003, 2002, 2000Visio 2007, 2003, 2002, 2000

*subject to change**Support Deferred until SELECT Update post commercial release

Parallel Installation

• Side-by-side PW Explorer and Admin installations supported with:– ProjectWise V8 XM Edition– ProjectWise V8 2004 Edition– ProjectWise V8.1

• Requires use of versionswitch.vbs• Addresses many of the limitations of previous

parallel installations– Network Config Applet version specific