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Dear MicroStation Maxine: What Kind of Support Is Available for a Migration to MicroStation?

19 Jun, 2018 By: Cadalyst Staff

Bentley Systems provides procedural and technical support as well as endless learning resources to support CAD managers, users, and their companies making the transition.


Dear MicroStation Maxine:

Our design and engineering firm is seriously considering a move from AutoCAD to MicroStation — but to be honest, the prospect of such a major change is stressful! As the CAD administrator, I’m especially concerned about what this experience will be like for the CAD users and myself. What can you tell me to ease my mind?

—Looking Ahead

Dear Looking:

Maxine feels your pain, and so does Bentley Systems — which is great news, because it means the company cares about your experience and is invested in making the move a positive one. With Bentley, you have access to the company’s extensive global team of implementation, training, and technical support experts — plus endless self-paced learning resources included for all SELECT subscribers — to support you, your CAD team, and the IT department throughout the transition and beyond.

Some challenges are inevitable with any major change, of course. The key is how well you’re equipped to deal with it. With Bentley’s extensive support tools and services available around the clock, you and your users will be able to efficiently resolve most any issue.

How Hard Will It Be?

Bentley is eager to share its decades of software implementation experience and knowledge with new customers. When it comes to migrating to MicroStation, you’ll find the company has done a lot of the thinking for you and readily shares that insight for you to apply to your unique situation.

One of the benefits of MicroStation is that it can be custom tailored to work exactly the way you want, to fit perfectly into your specific workflows. To ensure you can achieve that, Bentley has a team of dedicated professional services experts who can help you with any scale of configuration, customization, implementation, and integration with other enterprise systems to ensure you get the most value from your investment.

While many users can begin deploying MicroStation out-of-the-box, many others will wish to have help assessing the best way to customize it to work best in their preferred workflows. One of the most powerful things about MicroStation is the level to which it can be customized and personalized — and understanding what’s possible through training, particularly for the CAD manager, will go a long way toward ensuring that you get the most value from your organization’s use of MicroStation.

Bentley timeline example
 A sample timeline from Bentley Systems’ AutoCAD to MicroStation CONNECT Edition Migration Guide shows what to expect during a MicroStation transition. Migration tasks and timelines can vary depending on project size and complexity.


To support migration planning and execution, the following  are great examples of the resources the company makes available:

CAD Management Support

As a CAD manager, you will find yourself in fairly familiar territory when you move from AutoCAD to MicroStation. For the most part, supporting MicroStation users is very similar to supporting AutoCAD users, and with all the similarities in features between AutoCAD and MicroStation, you’ll have a solid foundation to build on before you even begin. Best of all, once you become familiar with MicroStation vs. AutoCAD, you’ll find that its benefits can improve your workflow in many significant ways. (For more on that subject, see “CAD Manager’s Guide to the AutoCAD–MicroStation Transition.”)

In addition, Bentley offers an entire library of live and on-demand learning resources specifically for CAD managers to become experts in managing MicroStation.

Technical Support

As you implement new software, train users, and work with Bentley products over time, you’ll find that the company takes customer service and support very seriously. Whether you need assistance solving a complex issue or answering a quick question, technical experts are available to help 24/7/365, via online requests, live chat, and phone support worldwide.

Bentley Communities

Every Bentley customer can connect with industry peers and Bentley experts via the Bentley Communities user forums. Find answers to your software questions, get advice, and learn from other users. You will find specific communities organized by product category, each with engaged users as well as Bentley colleagues from all over the world.

End User Assistance

Did you know that expert AutoCAD users are more than half way to being MicroStation experts? The tools have a lot of similarities that ease migration. Once up-front MicroStation training is complete, users shouldn’t need more than a week of regular use to get comfortable! From Day 1, they’ll have lots of options at their fingertips to tackle everything from quick “Where is that function?” questions to building in-depth software knowledge.

Bentley Connection Center

Bentley’s CONNECTION Center puts all the resources users need to be effective right at their fingertips, with access to personalized learning content, relevant events, Bentley Communities, project sharing, and software management. (Click to view larger version.)
 

One fantastic offering from Bentley is CONNECT Advisor. From inside MicroStation, users get tips based on the context of the work they’re doing at any given moment as well as learning recommendations that connect to courseware, feature and workflow videos, a database of documented issues and solutions, and answers to frequently asked questions.

Bentley Institute provides learning programs for every schedule and budget. The extensive list of opportunities is continually updated. (See the current list here; enter “MicroStation” in the Product field at top to narrow the search results.) As a CAD manager, you can generate team learning reports and individual transcripts to track progress.

Bentley Institute learning is delivered via multiple platforms that make it easily accessible and effective for different types of users. You can personalize it to fit any business requirement.

  • Virtual classrooms: live instructor-led learning delivered online.
  • Local classrooms: live, in-person, instructor-led learning.
  • On-demand courses: recorded, self-paced learning.
  • Bentley Institute User Group Program: peer-to-peer guidance and expert learning through lectures, workshops, and networking tailored to the needs of a particular region or community.
  • Webinars: online presentations include Success Factors (best practices presentations with Q&A) and Special Interest Groups (interactive how-to tech talks).
  • Bentley Institute Press books: a library of university textbooks and professional works dedicated to AEC and academic communities.

For AutoCAD users, Bentley has developed the following content to complement Bentley Institute learning resources:

  • MicroStation for AutoCAD Users learning path coursework is available on demand.
  • MicroStation Quick Reference Guide makes it easy for former AutoCAD users to learn old-vs.-new terminology, clarify features, and quickly resolve other common productivity bottlenecks.
  • DWG in MicroStation Learning Reference Guide provides information for new users about working with the DWG file format in MicroStation.

Bentley Services

If your company needs an extra level of support, Bentley’s professional services team can carry out the entire MicroStation migration process or assist with any part of it, from end user training to CAD standards and workflow migration to full upgrade assistance.

Summing Up

With the support of Bentley Systems, CAD managers and users stand every chance of success in their transition MicroStation. Many former Autodesk customers are surprised by the level of support they receive directly from Bentley! Bentley will always have your back — before, during, and after software implementation — and that’s a commitment, not an empty promise.