What is changing? 

Previously, the following individual products were offered as focused calculator tools for hydraulic analysis:  

• FlowMaster 
• CulvertMaster 

These products will be bundled into a single product moving forward. Consolidating into a single product line will eliminate the need for users to purchase multiple standalone licenses while enabling us to serve users more efficiently and improve the sales and user experience. 

The following products outlined in the table titled Hydraulic Toolset: Capabilities below this FAQ will be consolidated into a new product license/subscription offering. Please note that as a result of this consolidation, future licensing and usage of the OpenFlows products will utilize the consolidated product lineup effective July 1, 2024. 

All current commercial models (perpetual licenses under SELECT subscriptions; Virtuoso subscriptions; term licensing; and Enterprise 365 (E365), EPS 365, and ELS subscriptions) will continue to be available for the new OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset.

Who is impacted by this change? 

All users on active contracts for OpenFlows FlowMaster and OpenFlows CulvertMaster are impacted by this change. Existing users can continue to use the product versions they are currently using. There is not a need to reinstall products. Depending on your contract, the benefits and timing of consolidation impacts will vary. Please read the response below to the question "How does this change impact existing contracts and license entitlements?" 

These changes will NOT impact users with inactive (non-SELECT) perpetual licenses or users of non-commercial versions such as those available via our textbooks.

Why is this change being made? 

This consolidation is part of a Bentley initiative to simplify our product portfolio and improve the buying and user experience for our products. We recognize that many of our accounts utilize both FlowMaster and CulvertMaster. Consolidating these into a single tool set will enable easier administration and tracking for both Bentley and our users. 

What is the value of this change for OpenFlows FlowMaster and CulvertMaster users? 

After the consolidation, users will be able to use both calculation tools without having to own two separate licenses. 

How does this change impact existing contracts and license entitlements? 

Users with enterprise and term-license enabled contracts will have access to the expanded functionality of the new product line when the administrative change takes place in July 2024. Effective July 1, 2024, all term license and enterprise license usage will be allocated under the new product tiers and pricing. Users of prior version products and discontinued feature levels will be charged according to the product equivalent in the table below. 

All SELECT and Virtuoso subscriptions will be subject to the new product name and yearly price established by the consolidation, effective upon their renewal anniversary. SELECT users may enjoy the expanded functionality of the new product tiers before renewal; however, continued access to the new product tiers will require renewal of the SELECT contract for at least one year. SELECT subscriptions that are not renewed will have perpetual licenses issued only for the originally owned product and feature level and not any additional products or increased feature limits or functionality gained by the consolidated product. Virtuoso subscribers will only have access to the expanded functionality after renewal. 

If you have any questions about this consolidation that aren't addressed in any of our Communities pages linked above, we encourage you to engage with our webchat on www.bentley.com, where a member of our team will guide you through any remaining inquiries you may have.

Does this change impact configuration of OpenFlows license usage alerts and Default Access? 

Bentley's Subscription Entitlement Services allow users to set threshold limits to trigger warnings when you're about to overuse a license. However, following this consolidation, you should reset the threshold limits for this new license based on your new entitlements, even if you had previously set the threshold limits for the individual legacy applications. If you do not reset your threshold limits, your engineers will not be notified when they're about to overuse the number of licenses you're entitled to.  

For instance, users with access to both FlowMaster and CulvertMaster will have a combined license pool under OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset. Instead of two groups of users each sharing one license, there may be a larger single group of users sharing two licenses.  

For more information on how to update these threshold limits in the Subscription Entitlement Service (SES) Entitlement Management center, please visit this Communities page:  https://bentleysystems.service-now.com/community?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0019019

We strongly advise account admins to reset these threshold limits before installing and running OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset 2024.  

Note that because the quarterly term license fees (the overuse charges) are now based on the new OpenFlows product equivalent and license price rather than on the legacy product and the old license price, concurrent usage fees have the potential to affect a larger base of users than in the past (though depending upon your renewal process, your license count will also increase to reflect the total quantities of all subproducts). 

Similarly, if you previously had Default Access set to deny access to all products except for a list of exceptions, your Administrator will need to change this in Entitlement Management to allow access to the new products.

What if I already own both FlowMaster and CulvertMaster? 

Existing users of FlowMaster and CulvertMaster will see each license they own upgraded to a license of OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset. This means that users who license both FlowMaster and CulvertMaster will receive a license of OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset for each license currently active in SELECT or via Virtuoso subscription.  

For instance, a user with one active license for each of FlowMaster and CulvertMaster will upgrade to two licenses of OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset. Since OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset includes the functionality of both FlowMaster and CulvertMaster, this user may decide to keep only one OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset license (if the same person uses both FlowMaster and CulvertMaster and they would not be used concurrently on different machines) or they may decide to keep both.

What happens if I continue to use the versions and feature levels I am currently using? 

After July 1, 2024, any usage of the existing products FlowMaster and CulvertMaster will automatically be recorded as usage of their corresponding OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset.  All users with owned perpetual licenses can continue using those licenses without any upgrade or reinstallation of the product. Entitlements to licenses will also automatically be updated to enable usage of the appropriate OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset. 

If you have access restrictions set in Entitlement Management that only allow usage of owned products, you will need to adjust this to account for the product name change.

If existing FlowMaster or CulvertMaster installations are using an older CONNECTION Client version, you may need to upgrade to the latest version.

Any users in enterprise contracts or contracts using term licensing should be aware that continued use of pre-consolidation product versions will be recorded as usage of the new product line and term license and enterprise pricing will exist ONLY for the new combined product. For instance, a user continuing to use FlowMaster can absolutely continue to use the product, but under term licensing and enterprise contracts that usage will show in reporting and invoice as use of OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset. 

How will new releases of FlowMaster and CulvertMaster be made available to me after July 1? 

Following July 1, 2024, all new releases of FlowMaster and CulvertMaster will be made available under the installation for OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset. There will not be a need to download these subproducts separately.  

Versions of FlowMaster and CulvertMaster available prior to July 1, 2024, will remain in the individual download pages for those products. OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset will have releases from July 1 and beyond.

Is there a fixed date when I have to begin using the newly released OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset? 

We always encourage our users to use the latest product version to take advantage of functional and security improvements. Users are not required to migrate to using OpenFlows Water, but those who don't will miss out on the latest product updates. 

We recognize that many of our users will want to continue using pre-July 1 versions of FlowMaster and CulvertMaster for various reasons. We will continue to support of these products through our standard support life cycle. Currently, no date has been set to retire these products.

What are the pricing impacts of this transition? 

The subscription costs vary depending upon the commercial mechanism you use for access to FlowMaster and/or CulvertMaster. In general, there will be a slightly increased subscription cost for an individual user, but that user gains access to both products (and may be able to eliminate a license if they previously licensed both products separately.

We encourage you to engage with our webchat on www.bentley.com, where a member of our team will guide you through any remaining inquiries you may have.

Current Product Name 

New Product Name 

Capabilities 

OpenFlows FlowMaster 

OpenFlows CulvertMaster 

OpenFlows Hydraulic Toolset 

• Quick Culvert Calculator 
• Culvert Analyzer 
• Culvert Design Calculator 
• Pipe Design Solver 
• Inlet and Gutter Hydraulics Design Calculator 
• Open Channel Hydraulics Calculator 
• Weir and Orifice Modeling Calculator