ProjectWise Licensing

Overview

This technote outlines how ProjectWise Licensing works and covers entitlement management and usage logging for:

• ProjectWise Explorer
• Infrastructure Cloud Portal (https://infrastructurecloud.bentley.com)
• ProjectWise 365 Portal (https://projectwise365.bentley.com)
• CONNECT Portal (https://connect.bentley.com)

Terms to know

• ProjectWise Subscription:  An organizational level, consumption based contractual agreement with Bentley Systems which provides license entitlements to run ProjectWise including ProjectWise Design Integration servers, cloud services, web UI, mobile apps and/or desktop clients.  Servers can be hosted by Bentley Systems or by the subscriber on-premise.
• ProjectWise User License Level: The ProjectWise License, assigned quarterly, for an individual whose organization has a ProjectWise Subscription.  The ProjectWise User License Level is based on the ProjectWise application(s) used by each individual within the quarter.  See table at end of this article for details on which applications are included with each User License Level.  
• ProjectWise User Subscription from Virtuosity:  A Practitioner Level user subscription that enables ProjectWise client access (including web UI, mobile app, and/or desktop client) for projects and datasources which that practitioner is invited to. See table at end of this article for details on which applications are included with each User Subscription. 
  ProjectWise User Subscriptions can be purchased at Bentley’s Virtuosity Online Store.
• ProjectWise Perpetual License (legacy):  A contractual relationship with Bentley Systems which provides a perpetual license to run ProjectWise servers and clients outlined in that agreement. 
• Internal User:  An individual who works for the organization that owns the Cloud Project or Datasource (based on the User’s IMS ID being associated to the organization in User Management).
• External Participant:  An individual who is granted access to a Cloud Project or Datasource which is owned by another organization. 
• External Participant License Modes: The ProjectWise Subscriber organization that owns the project or datasource can prescribe who is responsible for providing the license entitlement to run ProjectWise.  The options are:
  • User Provides License: The external participant’s organization is responsible for providing the license entitlement.  Usage and associated costs will be attributed to the external participant’s organization.
  • Owner Provides License: The ProjectWise Subscriber organization is responsible for providing the license entitlement.  Charges associated with external participant usage will be attributed to the ProjectWise Subscriber’s Organization.
• Datasource: Data storage system used by ProjectWise Design Integration to store and manage project related data including documents, files, and related metadata
• Work Area Connection:  A construct within ProjectWise Design Integration which can be associated to a Cloud Project.
• Cloud Project: A project context used by Bentley Cloud Portals to organize and manage information, including iTwin information, accessed via a Bentley Cloud Portal.
• Bentley Cloud Portals:  A web interface for accessing Cloud Projects and related ProjectWise, Powered by iTwin, Services. 
• Subscription Entitlement Service (SES): Bentley’s user-based entitlement management service which allows account administrators to manage entitlement assignment and access for each client application.  See more at https://www.bentley.com/support/subscription-entitlement-service. 
• License Entitlement: The right to run an application.  An organization’s contractual agreement with Bentley Systems determines which application(s) the organization has access to and can assign entitlements for its users.
• Usage Logging: Application usage records which are used to track application usage by an individual and attributed to the organization providing the license entitlement for the application.  Usage logging can be viewed at https://reporting.bentley.com/report/pwusage.   
• SELECTserver (legacy): Legacy Bentley Licensing service
• Bentley Identity Management System (IMS):  Bentley’s identity management system.  Unique individuals are identified by their IMS ID.

ProjectWise User Licensing

There are two options available to obtain a ProjectWise License:

1. ProjectWise Subscription (Consumption based Organizational Subscription)
2. ProjectWise User Subscription from Virtuosity (Individual User Subscription)

For most organizations with a ProjectWise Subscription, ProjectWise fees are consumption based.  Organizations will have usage logged for each internal user who accesses one of their Projects / Datasources.   They will also have usage logged for each external participant if the license mode is set to ‘Owner Provides License’.

The User Licensing Level consumed and logged for a user will be based on the application(s) that user accesses. See table at end of this article for details on which applications are included with each User License Level. Usage reporting can be viewed at https://reporting.bentley.com/report/pwusage.  

ProjectWise leverages the Subscription Entitlement Service (SES) to provide users with entitlements to run the applications and account administrators with the ability to manage which entitlements a user can access.  The SES is backwards compatible with previous versions of ProjectWise and should be used for managing all ProjectWise entitlements.  A user’s entitlement can be managed by account administrators in the SES service as described in the Prerequisites: Entitlements article.

For each user, per quarter, an organization will have at most one ProjectWise User License Level assigned.  based on the ProjectWise applications used by that user.  It is possible for the same user to consume different User License Level(s) across multiple organizations depending on how licensing is configured by the ProjectWise Subscribers who own the respective Datasource / Cloud Project.

The act of assigning a user an Entitlement, adding users to a Datasource / Cloud Project and/or installing ProjectWise software on a computer does not trigger usage for that user and will not (by itself) result in the logging of any ProjectWise usage for that user. 

ProjectWise Design Integration Usage Logging Configuration

ProjectWise Design Integration Servers leverage the Subscription Entitlement Service (SES) to provide users with entitlements to run the software.   By default, ProjectWise Design Integration datasources are configured as license mode “User Provides License”. 

ProjectWise Explorer Licensing User Setting

See the licensing section of the ProjectWise Administrator documentation at https://docs.bentley.com for full information on configuring licensing settings for your datasource.

In ProjectWise 2023 and later (including ProjectWise Cloud), ProjectWise Administrators can configure a user’s license mode to either be set as ‘User Provides License’ or ‘Datasource Owner Provides License’.  This setting only applies to usage of the ProjectWise Explorer Client.  See definitions section for details on these 2 license modes.

NOTE: ProjectWise Explorer versions 3.4xx OVERRIDE any server settings and results in User Provides License behavior.  Any license mode settings applied by a ProjectWise Administrator for a datasource (any server version) will be ignored and OVERRIDDEN when that datasource is accessed by 3.4xx ProjectWise Explorer Client.  In this scenario, usage of ProjectWise Explorer will be logged to the organization of the user logging into ProjectWise Explorer.

To make changes to the License Mode for a datasource:

Launch ProjectWise Administrator and log in

• Highlight, then right click the user (or users) you want to change
• Choose ‘Properties’, then click on the Settings tab
• Expand ‘Administrative’, then expand 'Licensing and entitlement'
• Click on the radio button of one of the two licensing and entitlement settings, then click apply and OK.

NOTE:  This licensing and entitlement setting only applies to datasource which are accessed by ProjectWise Explorer and ProjectWise Administrator.   It will not impact license behavior of any other Bentley applications which access the datasource including the Infrastructure Cloud Portal, ProjectWise 365 Portal or CONNECT Portal.

 

Infrastructure Cloud Portal (https://infrastructurecloud.bentley.com)

The Infrastructure Cloud Portal leverages the Subscription Entitlement Service (SES) to provide users with entitlements to run the software.   When an internal user accesses projects which are owned by their organization, they will consume the highest user license level entitlement that has been provided to them by their administrator (as managed in the Subscription Entitlement Service). 

When using the Infrastructure Cloud Portal, the user license level is determined by the entitlement level accessed not based on the features used.  The entitlement level is visible to the user in the portal.  Users will always consume the highest user level license entitlement assigned to them in the Subscription Entitlement Service, regardless of which features within the portal they use.    The default setting for entitlements within the Subscription Entitlement Service is to allow all user’s access to all of the entitlements which are available under the organization’s subscription.  The Subscription Entitlement Service provides a rich set of capabilities to manage user entitlements.  For more details on managing entitlements, please see Entitlement Management Overview.

You may need to change the Country filter to ‘Global’ to control entitlement settings for ProjectWise Manage, ProjectWise Engineer, and ProjectWise Validate entitlements in SES.  These entitlements control access to infrastructurecloud.bentley.com only.

Project Administrators can choose one of two license modes for External Participant entitlements.  This setting is managed at the Project level and applies to all External Project Participants for the specific Cloud Project where the setting is made.  This is not a global setting.   The available license modes include:

1. User Provides License (default)
2. Owner Provides License 

By default, Cloud Projects in the Infrastructure Cloud Portal are setup as ‘User Provides License’ license mode.  When projects are configured with this license mode, all users will need to have their own entitlement via either a ProjectWise Subscription or ProjectWise User Subscription.  Organizations and Users who do not currently have a ProjectWise subscription can either work with their account manager to add a ProjectWise Subscription to their contract or they can purchase a ProjectWise User Subscription via Bentley’s eStore Virtuosity.

The Owner Provides License setting will grant the External Project Participant a Manage License for the project, there is not currently an ability to provide a different entitlement.   All usage on the Cloud Project by the External Project Participants will be attributed to the owner of the Project. 

This setting applies to how usage of the Infrastructure Cloud Portal is logged and includes the Documents (ProjectWise Web) service when accessing a Work Area Connection associated to the Cloud Project. This setting has no effect on ProjectWise Explorer Client usage against the associated Work Area Connection nor on External Organizations in Deliverables Management.

To enable ‘Owner Provides License’ for an organization:

• Go to Administration and choose Manage project details.  

• Scroll to the External Team Member Management option, check on the ‘Cover the cloud services cost for external team members’ option and click Save

NOTE: This setting is applied on a per Project basis and it must be configured independently for each Project.  When enabled, this setting will be applied to all external users added to the Project under ‘Manage your team’, even if that user already has the ability to consume a license from their own organization.  This setting does not apply to or impact ProjectWise Explorer licensing.

 

ProjectWise 365 Portal (https://projectwise365.bentley.com)

The ProjectWise 365 Portal leverages the Subscription Entitlement Service (SES) to provide users with entitlements to run the software.   The ProjectWise 365 portal only supports a license behavior of ‘User Provides License’ meaning that external users will be responsible for providing their own license and their organization will be responsible for the associated usage and costs.

 

CONNECT Portal (https://connect.bentley.com/projects)

The CONNECT Portal leverages the Subscription Entitlement Service (SES) to provide users with entitlements to run the software.   The CONNECT portal only supports a license behavior of ‘User Provides License’ meaning that external users will be responsible for providing their own license and their organization will be responsible for the associated the associated usage and costs.