Applies To
	Product(s):	Bentley MX Products
	Version(s):	All
	Environment:	N/A
	Area:	MX and Projectwise
	Subarea:	Integration
	Original Author:	Simon Pegg, Product Advantage Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MX and ProjectWise

This document is a brief description of the various things a MX user should be aware of when running MX with ProjectWise. It is meant as an aide memoire rather than a training document.

Starting MX

Start MX as normal i.e. using the Desktop icon or the Start menu.

(Note that in this document, the screenshots were taken on a Windows Server 2008 machine, with Classic panels.)

If MX has been configured to run with ProjectWise (with the ‘pw.cfg’ file in the “.\Program Files (x86)\Bentley\MX V8i\MX\config\appl” folder), you may see the ProjectWise login dialog. This depends on the system set-up in use.

 

                       

 

 

• If ‘Use Windows Single Sign-On for authentication’ is turned on, the user does not get a chance to see the ProjectWise login dialog. It flashes by very quickly – but I would assume that most people would want it that way anyway, unless there was more than one datasource available to them e.g. different projects on different ProjectWise servers.

• For MX, the setting is changed using ‘Control Panel > ProjectWise v8i Network’, iDesktop Auto-Login > Global Settings… Allow automatic login. MX does not get a ‘proper’ entry in the ‘User settings’ section of the panel shown below. However, this type of set-up is not something that a normal MX user need worry about as it will have been done by the system administrator.

 

 

After (possibly) logging into the required ProjectWise datasource, the MX start-up panel will be displayed.

 

 

If you click on the ‘more…’ option in the start-up panel, and you have ProjectWise integration set up, you will be given the dialog as shown below, allowing you to download a previously loaded MX project from ProjectWise to your local machine. This will list all the projects that you have permission to see, using the permissions that were set up for you on ProjectWise.

The ‘Local Copy Working Folder’ is given by selecting the ‘…’ button.

 

 

It asks if you want to overwrite the selected folder if it already exists – THIS REMOVES EVERYTHING THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY THERE! This is NOT a Delta only operation.

If you select ‘Cancel’, you get a standard Window dialog, allowing you to go to a local MX project that is not (yet) on ProjectWise.

If the project has already been put on ProjectWise, the ’.mmd’ file may not be in the folder anymore. However, this has to do with the following ProjectWise settings, which once again would be set up by the ProjectWise administrator.

 

 

Note that in the screenshot below, the ‘road.dpw’ was saved on ProjectWise, which is why the ‘Current

 

 

 

Drawing Name’ reads “PW:road.dpw”.

ProjectWise ‘messes’ with the initial size of the MX application window, as the default screen appears as shown below. It also seems to remove some toolbars occasionally, such as the ‘Primary’ and ‘Attributes’ ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Project

There is nothing special about working in MX at the start of a project.

• Create the new project on your local machine

• Add your survey / design data to the model file etc

 

However, at some stage you will want your MX data to be put on ProjectWise, so that it is stored in the managed environment. You will use the following tools in the Task Navigator.

 

 

From left to right, they are:

1. MX ProjectWise Integration

2. Upload MX Project to ProjectWise

3. ProjectWise Explorer

4. Local Document Organiser

 

Option (1) MX ProjectWise Integration

If you have opened a MX project from ProjectWise, this option opens a MX ‘plug-in’ that shows the project as follows. Note the various colours depicting the current state of the project.

 

 

With a new project, selecting option (1) MX ProjectWise Integration or (2) Upload MX Project to ProjectWise will display the following dialogs for the uploading process.

 

 

 

Select ‘New Folder’ if you need to create a new folder to store your data. Note that you cannot create a folder at the top level i.e. under the ‘Documents’ folder in ProjectWise Explorer. I had to use ProjectWise Explorer to create the folder ‘MX Projects’ in the screenshot above, so that I could then use it as the storage folder for my MX project folders.

    

 

Select ‘OK’ – the new folder is added to ProjectWise

 

Select ‘Next >’

 

 

Select the data to be uploaded. In this case, I am doing my models, and input file, but not the drawings.

Select ‘Next>’

 

 

Select ‘Next>’

 

Select ‘Finish’

 

Select ‘OK’

The following MX ProjectWise integration dialog is now displayed. This can be docked and/or tabbed to the side with the Task Navigator if required.

 

 

Selecting and ‘right mouse button’ on one of the entries will give you a pop-up menu with the available ProjectWise options, as shown here. Only use this MX ProjectWise Integration plug-in to check MX models in and out.

If you have a local drawing, i.e. you did not load it up onto ProjectWise (as in my example above) the ProjectWise Integration panel shows you a message ‘Active drawing NOT managed’ – clicking the message will allow you to ‘Add to ProjectWise’. What happens in the background is the drawing is loaded onto ProjectWise, deleted from the local folder, and then put into the DMS folder. (See the ‘MX Workflows’ section below for a further information.)

 

 

The ‘Virtual Folders’ entry is used to store ‘shortcuts’ to other non-MX folders on ProjectWise. Click the right mouse button and ‘Add Virtual Folder’. This will display the data on the ProjectWise server that you have access to, and allow you to select whatever folder you want. This is another way of accessing files you may want to quickly reference (such as point clouds in the following example, or Dept. of Transport design manual TD 9/93 that may be on ProjectWise) rather than running ProjectWise Explorer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Option (2) Upload MX Project to ProjectWise

If you are in a new project, you get as above. Otherwise, you are given the option to upload the MX project again to another location on ProjectWise.

 

 

Option (3) ProjectWise Explorer

This open ProjectWise Explorer – giving access to all data that the user has permission to see. This the normal interface to the ProjectWise datasources. The use of ProjectWise Explorer is not the subject of this document.

One very important point to remember is NEVER use ProjectWise Explorer to check in/out MX models. They are listed as if they are separate ProjectWise documents, but this is not the case. Only use the MX ProjectWise Integration plug-in in MX (Option 1 above) to check models in and out.

 

Option (4) Local Document Organiser

This panel will show you ALL the documents that you have checked out – regardless of the MX project that they are in, or if they were checked out in ProjectWise Explorer. In the example below, there are four ‘documents’ checked out (in reality, 2 models and 2 drawings).

 

 

In the following section, I mention ProjectWise DMS folders. Note in the screenshot above, the DGN files from two different MX projects are stored in two separate DMS folders, as managed by ProjectWise. MX workflows

File > New Plan Display

Creating a new drawing will bring up the following dialog. Give the name and description that you want the file to have.

 

 

Select ‘OK’

The existing, open drawing can be checked back into ProjectWise, updated on the server or freed. This is up to the user. Personally, I would normally check it back into the server.

 

 

Select ‘Check in’

The new drawing will be displayed, so add the models to it as normal. From a MX point of view, nothing different is done from this point on, with the following proviso.

As ProjectWise is now managing the drawings, they are NOT put into the local MX project folder but in the ProjectWise DMS folders. In my virtual machine, the DMS folders are stored under the ‘Admin’ folder as seen below. MX users should not need to go looking for the DMS folder, as the current drawing name will be shown as ‘pw:MyNewDrawing.dgn’ in the titlebar. This is another setting that is normally set by the ProjectWise administrator.

 

File > Open Display/Drawing

The standard ProjectWise dialog opens, allowing you to select the required drawing.

 

 

Select the file and then ‘OK’

As normal, you get given the options of what you would like to do with the currently open file.

 

 

Select ‘Check in’

Shutting MX

From the MX menu, use ‘File > Exit’ to close down MX. You are shown the panel above, to allow you to decide what you want to do with the current drawing. [With my virtual machine, I am having problems, but that could be due to the way it is set up, as MX was not part of the standard VM.]

There is some help in the ‘MXROAD Suite Online Documentation > MXROAD > Help > Project > ProjectWise Integration’, which explains all the options on the right mouse button click (for example).