Accelerate the delivery of compliant piping designs anywhere in the world with comprehensive and up-to-date international design code coverage found in AutoPIPE. Ensure your pipe stress and support or nozzle loads are modeled correctly with the latest release of AutoPIPE that includes code updates for pressure, piping, offshore, and gas piping designs.

Attend this webinar to learn how to take advantage of these design code updates through new workflows and features. Jessica Portuese, AutoPIPE Mechanical Application Engineer at Bentley Systems, will present new software features for: 

•  ASME B31.1 2014 for Pressure Piping

•  ASME B31.3 2014 for Process Piping

•  ASME B31.4 2009 & 2012 for Offshore Liquid Piping Systems

•  ASME B31.8 2014 for Gas Transmission and Distribution and Piping Systems

•  EN 13480 Piping Code

Discover how these code updates can improve your pipe stress analysis workflow.

REGISTER NOW

AutoPIPE Vessel Fundamentals
V8i Base Release
Oct. 06-08, 2015
Jessica Portuese

Your learning includes:

• Model a vessel in AutoPIPE Vessel, including pressure vessels, heat exchangers, tanks and air coolers.
• Perform a strength analysis, lifting analysis, and fatigue analysis in AutoPIPE Vessel.
• Prepare a comprehensive construction cost estimate and complete drawings.

Classes are scheduled for United States – Eastern time unless otherwise noted. Use a Time Zone Converter to determine your local start time.

Join Mark Upston, Bentley Senior Director, Structural Solutions, Piping and Vessel on Tuesday, September 29 at 12 p.m. CT for a technical discussion on Innovations in Seismic Design of Industrial Structures and Piping – Post Fukushima 2011. Along with Bob Drake, Editor-in-Chief, Civil and Structural Engineer of the Zweig Group, Mark will discuss issues such as new engineering practices for safer seismic design; accurate, integrated structural piping models to produce plant assets with more seismic resilience; and combined laser scanning and design software to quickly evaluate the structural integrity of aging industrial plants.

Register now

AutoPIPE Advanced
Nov. 02-05, 2015 (20 hours)
Jessica Portuese

In this course, you will determine the stress level and interaction of pressure loads on a pipe after adding various components. A fundamental knowledge of AutoPIPE is required.

Performing an ASME NB Analysis Using AutoPIPE
Nov. 11-12, 2015 (4 hours)
Phil Senior

Skills taught in this course include: Geometry Considerations; Fatigue Analysis; Analysis Results Post Processing. A fundamental knowledge of AutoPIPE is required.

Classes are scheduled in United States – Eastern time unless otherwise noted. Use a Time Zone Converter to determine your local start time.

We wish to report a major error in ASME B31.3 2014 edition, in which supports that are not lifting off are incorrectly marked as lifting off under operating condition. Such supports are removed in the subsequent analysis performed on the same analysis set. The results obtained for such an analysis set will be incorrect and overly conservative.
 
When will this defect impact your current B31.3 2014 edition results? Some Comments below:

1. This defect will only impact the results for the analysis set with the “Remove Lift-off Support” option enabled. Note that the sustained stress value calculated for the impacted analysis set may also be used in calculation of occasional stress for other combinations.

2. Using the option “Multiple analysis sets (B31.3)” under the “Create Default Sets” drop down on the Analysis Sets dialog generates analysis sets with the option “Remove Lift-off Support” enabled by default. Such analysis sets may also be impacted by this defect.

In general, this defect will incorrectly result in an overly conservative sustained stress value calculation as a support which was not supposed to lift-off is removed for generating the results. As the occasional stress uses the maximum sustained stress value from across all analysis sets, the occasional stress may also be incorrect and overly conservative.

For all other piping codes and B31.3 2012 and earlier editions: When a non-linear analysis is performed for a model with v-stop or guide supports with a gap in the upward direction, AutoPIPE may incorrectly display a warning message for v-stop or guide support lifting off under operating conditions. The warning message serves as an alert to the user that at least one support has lifted off in the model for an analysis set. The Support Forces and Code Compliance report will display correct results regardless of the warning message.

This defect will be corrected in AutoPIPE CONNECT Update 1 to be issued in mid December.

Any questions please contact Technical Support Group (TSG) - support@bentley.com

Join us for a complimentary live webinar: Key Updates Included in the CONNECT Edition of AutoPIPE.

Attend this webinar to learn how the CONNECT Edition application of AutoPIPE provides you extensive global design code coverage for pipe stress design and analysis in a common environment for comprehensive project delivery that connects users, projects, and your enterprise.

The CONNECT Edition gives you a personal portal to access learning, communities, and project information. With the new project portal, your project teams can review project details and status, and gain visibility into project performance.

Luke Andrew, Bentley Product Manager, Piping and Vessel, will present key updates to the CONNECT Edition of AutoPIPE that enable you to:

• Use the new ProjectWise Connection Services including Project Performance Dashboards and Issues Resolution
• Maintain compliance with global code updates such as ASME B31.3-2014 and ASME B31.4- 2009 and 2012
• Utilize a Technology Preview to quickly generate input data listing reports in Microsoft Word
• Customize your reports with the Technology Preview of the SQLite DB report creator

Discover how AutoPIPE can keep you compliant with global design code coverage for pipe stress design and analysis while accelerating your project delivery in a common environment.

Register Now for this free 1 hour webinar (45-minute technical presentation, 15-minute live Q&A):

• Tuesday, December 1, 2015 5am EST (10am GMT) Europe, Middle East & Africa
• Wednesday, December 2, 2015 12am EST (5am GMT, 3pm AEST) Asia Pacific & India
• Thursday, December 3, 2015 2pm EST North America

AutoPIPE Vessel Fundamentals
United States
Jan. 19-21, 2016
Jessica Portuese

In this course, you will learn how to model and analyze various vessel types in AutoPIPE Vessel.

• Model a vessel in AutoPIPE Vessel, including pressure vessels, heat exchangers, tanks and air coolers.
• Perform a strength analysis, lifting analysis, and fatigue analysis in AutoPIPE Vessel.
• Prepare a comprehensive construction cost estimate and complete drawings

AutoPIPE has a very robust fatigue analysis based on Nuclear Class 1 piping. The interface and reporting is very intuitive and well developed.

Evaluating the cumulative effect of the stress cycles experienced by the piping system is done first by deciphers the stress cycles. The number of times each stress cycle of type 1, 2, 3, etc. is repeated during the life of the system shall be designated as n1, n2, n3, etc. This is an input by the user in AutoPIPE. Cycles shall be superimposed such that the maximum possible peak stress ranges are developed.

For each type of stress cycle, AutoPIPE determines the alternating stress intensity (S_alt) from Equation 14 in ASME Section III. For each value of S_alt, the applicable design fatigue curve is used to determine the maximum number of cycles permitted if this were the only cycle occurring. (These fatigue curves are found in the appendices to the code).

These values shall be called N1, N2, N3, etc. User defined fatigue curves can also be used. If N1 is greater than the maximum number of cycles defined in the applicable design fatigue curve the value of n/N may be taken as zero.

For each type of stress cycle, the usage factor is calcuted.

AutoPIPE then uses its intelligent analysis sets to setup the proper calculations for the fatigue analysis.

Unlike other analysis codes, the Code Combinations for ASME NB are not created automatically. They are managed by the Stress Summary which also defines the fatigue analysis. The Stress Summary combines the various load cases together that describes each specific plant operating event in line with the code requirements and assigns number of cycles that each event (or load pair) occurs during the plant lifetime. The program automatically calculates the maximum equation stress results and determines the incremental usage factor based on the maximum occurrence of each load pair. The definitions in the stress summary form the basis of the full verification and fatigue analysis.

Finally, the fatigue report includes all the required information in an intuitive format including the iterations, load sets pairs, and results including the cumulative usage factor.

Training is available if needed to show you all that is needed to setup up a fatigue analysis. Check out this feature and let us know what you think.

Optimizing Pipe Stress Design – Unparalleled input, analysis, and post-processing options

Are you getting the most out of your pipe stress analysis applications? Don’t miss this chance to explore how post processing options can potentially change your stress results, saving time and money. Join in as our product experts discuss how you can optimize AutoPIPE analysis and post-processing options to produce efficient and economical designs.

In this webinar, you will learn how to:

• Optimize your design by adopting code compliant options
• Achieve the full potential of unparalleled options for efficient design

Get results the way you like them by controlling report formatting options

REGISTER NOW

I am pleased to report that the Quality Assurance Program that is used to control the development and distribution of STAAD.Pro and AutoPIPE has successfully undergone our periodic NUPIC audit.  The procedures and processes that are an integral part of our program were evaluated in depth by the NUPIC team.

We support more engagement from accounts who need more insight into our QA processes and regular reports with our QA&R program.  Contact your account manager or Bentley sales office to get more information and how you can add this service to your portfolio.

Check out this great article that was published in World Pipelines in August 2016 that discusses all the great features and capabilities in AutoPIPE for offshore pipelines.

The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), a first-of-a-kind, 53,000-square-foot facility will be treating 900,000 gallons of liquid radioactive and hazardous waste that has been stored in underground storage tanks which are located above the Snake River Plain Aquifer.

The waste that will be treated – called sodium-bearing waste – was generated during the later stages of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing from the 1950s until 1992. The liquid was transferred to three, 300,000-gallon storage tanks.

IWTU, located east of the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center, will use a steam-reforming technology to heat up the liquid waste to temperatures up to 700C, essentially drying it; consolidating the solid, granular material; packaging it in stainless steel canisters; and storing the containers in concrete vaults at the site. Ultimately, the treated material will be transported to a national geologic repository for permanent disposal.

Any emissions generated during the treatment campaign will be filtered through high-efficiency particulate air (hepa) filters to "scrub" the discharges to ensure state and federal air quality requirements are met.

Steam reforming is used successfully in a variety of chemical and petrochemical applications. It is currently being used at a facility in Erwin, Tenn., to treat radioactive wastes from commercial nuclear facilities.

I would like to invite you all to submit one of your projects to Bentley’s 2016 Be Inspired Awards!

This prestigious awards competition recognizes outstanding achievement in infrastructure design, construction, and operations across the globe.

Why should you submit your project(s)? Check out some of these great benefits:

• Increase Your Global Exposure
  Finalists present their projects in front of the top 100 industry trade publications. You also get to interact with media and members of the Bentley team who will help you market and promote your organization's project.
• Receive Recognition in Infrastructure Yearbook Publication
  Have your project profiled in the renowned Infrastructure Yearbook publication distributed globally to 150,000+ key media, government, and industry influencers.
• Win a Trip to London
  Each finalist will win an expense-paid trip to the Year in Infrastructure 2016 Conference in London to present their project and network with members of the global infrastructure media as well as thought leaders in design, construction and operations from around the world.

Submitting your project is a great marketing opportunity for your organization—one that will help significantly increase your global exposure and enhance your competitive edge! To learn more about the Be Inspired Awards, go to www.bentley.com/BeInspired.

Submissions will be accepted until 30 May 2016. Please let me know if you are interested in submitting a project, and I would be happy to assist you if you have further questions.

Best of luck!

In plant design, it is important to perform pipe stress analyses to examine different loading scenarios, such as thermal, seismic, wind and dynamic loads. This process brings significant benefits, but to understand what those benefits are, it is important to distinguish between a linear and a nonlinear analysis. A linear analysis is characterized by constant pipe properties, small deflections, and elastic deformation when the pipe reverts to its original shape. For example, for every pound of force applied one inch of displacement is created. Initial states are not required for the analysis – all gaps are assumed closed; friction is ignored; linear soil properties are used; and soil yielding is not considered.

A nonlinear analysis is characterized by changes in pipe properties over time, large deflections, and plastic – or permanent – deformations. The analysis is called nonlinear because the amount of force that creates a given amount of displacement is variable. It is important to run a nonlinear analysis because supports that have gaps and friction do not behave in a linear manner. Users gain significant benefits from a nonlinear analysis method. For example, a nonlinear analysis gives project teams the ability to better engineer designs by analyzing more realistic models. State-of-the-art nonlinear analysis engines use tangent stiffness and secant stiffness methods – both of which are found in finite element analysis (FEA) programs such as ANSYS and Abaqus – to handle piping models.

Tangent Stiffness vs. Secant Stiffness Strategies

A tangent stiffness strategy, which handles all the supports and their gaps, involves performing a linear analysis for the nonlinear supports. The starting point equation for the analysis is an initial state. If the support gap in that direction doesn’t close after the initial load case, the support in that direction is ignored. If the gap does close, the specified stiffness is used for the entire analysis. A secant stiffness strategy, which handles friction, derives the initial stiffness from the ratio of support forces – i.e., the friction force – to the support deformation – i.e., the amount of friction slip – and also starts with an initial state. There is some question, however, about whether or not friction should be considered for seismic loads.

According to design codes such as the Uniform Building Code (UBC) and the International Building Code (IBC), friction ought to be ignored – a situation that’s only possible with incremental load case analysis engines. The total load approach offered by most pipe-stress software vendors fails to understand either boundary conditions or how the direction of the pipe movement can change the bearing force. That kind of change can possibly double the stress and load range when, for example, the magnitude of the friction force from an operating condition stays the same when the pipe returns to ambient conditions, yet operates in the reverse direction. Instead, it is better to do an incremental analysis to ensure that no extreme load is overlooked – and to conform with American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) code philosophy. 

To read the rest of this technical paper, click here

The AutoPIPE Project Showcase

The AutoPIPE Project Showcase and the Year in Infrastructure series of publications are project yearbooks published by Bentley Systems, Incorporated that showcase the extraordinary work of Bentley users sustaining the world's infrastructure.

These projects represent tremendous innovation in the use of AutoPIPE advanced software for pipe stress design and analysis to enable companies to deploy proven, scalable and integrated projects.

Read The AutoPIPE Project Showcase... Click here.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at CONNECT Advisor and how Bentley AutoPIPE v11.4 leverages this in-application cloud service to boost your team’s productivity, improve your project execution, and reduce your time-to-market for your engineering projects.

Most of you are probably already aware of the volumes of product-specific information and documentation Bentley provides with AutoPIPE, but maybe there’s some of you that aren’t fully aware of all these resources and exactly where they’re located.

When you install AutoPIPE, three comprehensive help files are placed in your local directory (or on a network drive if that’s where you installed). These help files can also be accessed directly from the AutoPIPE ribbon, or by pressing the Help button on any dialog.

The main program help documents what’s new and changed in the application, walks you through some getting started exercises and examples, gives you an introduction to the interface, and documents every dialog in the program and fields within those dialogs. There’s also a Frequently Asked Questions area, Technical Support details, and a Supplemental Documentation area that has volumes of stand-alone PDFs that cover specific areas of the program.

The second help file is for Reference Information, which details AutoPIPE libraries, program files like unit files, and all the calculations and considerations used by the application.

The third addresses modelling approaches. This help file gives you a set of practical examples arranged in “How To” procedures that guide you through modeling typical piping systems. This file also documents modeling and stress scenarios you’re likely to encounter, and the procedures for modeling these elements in AutoPIPE.

If you don’t already, you should take advantage of Bentley Communities – it’s a free and invaluable resource. Bentley’s online community lets you interact with other users and Bentley experts who have knowledge and expertise with products, disciplines, projects, and industries similar to your own. Communities allows you, the user, to be an active participant in product-related and industry-related conversations and solutions. It’s really your chance to be heard and to share ideas and best practices. The AutoPIPE Community has areas dedicated exclusively to Forums, Wikis, Product Announcements, and a whole lot more.

The Bentley LEARN Server gives you direct access to learning curriculum and materials tailored for specific products, disciplines, and skill levels. It also provides access to recorded learning sessions, virtual classes, webinars, hands-on workshops, video lectures, and Special Interest Group sessions. Think of it as a virtual classroom for engineers. There’s literally thousands of hours of training materials available here.

I’m sure we’ve all seen YouTube, but did you know Bentley has a Pipe Stress Analysis YouTube channel? There’s hours of video content posted there on a variety of subjects – product information, industry hot topics, benefits analysis, How To procedures, and so on. Take a minute and subscribe – it’s definitely worth your time.

On Bentley’s corporate website, we have an entire area dedicated just to Upcoming Events – training sessions, industry events, Special Interest Groups, and so on. We further categorize these offerings by live and recorded events, webinars, tech talks, conferences, and training opportunities.

If you were to consider all the product assistance resources we just covered, that can be overwhelming number of windows, webpages, bookmarks, and tabs to keep track of and to navigate. If you’re anything like me, those windows can occupy valuable real estate on your screen.

So, Bentley came up with a great solution. CONNECT Advisor consolidates all these resources with a single, non-intrusive, access point. This how CONNECT Advisor looks alongside AutoPIPE:

You can see this is a floating window, so you can move it to the most convenient place that fits your working style or even to another monitor. The window is also scalable, so you can adjust the size to your preference. There’s even a zoom slider to control the magnification level.

Remember, this instance of CONNECT Advisor is “wired” directly to AutoPIPE so that all the information you see is automatically filtered to apply only to AutoPIPE.

When CONNECT Advisor is initiated each time, it automatically retrieves and displays the most recent content posted to the Bentley LEARN server, Bentley Communities, and YouTube. This can be useful for keeping up on the latest “hot topics” and what’s happening with AutoPIPE.

Don’t just take our word on the benefits of leveraging CONNECT Advisor in your organization. Here’s what a few of our users had to say.

Read the next installment in this series: "Getting the Most out of CONNECT Advisor in AutoPIPE."

What’s CONNECT Advisor?

There is enormous untapped potential for your Bentley software to help you become more productive and successful. Bentley's CONNECT Advisor helps unlock this potential by accelerating your mastery of Bentley software as part of your everyday workflow. By providing in-application access to personalized learning content that is relevant for you, you can increase your proficiency and complete work faster and smarter.

CONNECT Advisor is now available to SELECT subscribers as an integrated service for use within every Bentley application. Today we will talk about it's application within AutoPIPE. With CONNECT Advisor users now have quick and easy access to a wealth of learning content, including on-the-fly contextual help and recommendations, directly within the software application. 

With CONNECT Advisor, you can search and access application-specific learning content, including thousands of on-demand and live virtual training videos, virtual learn conferences and best practice webinars, wikis, forums, YouTube videos, support, and communities content.

Using CONNECT Advisor in AutoPIPE

Now let’s say you’re working on a model and need to find information on performing Hot Clash Detection in AutoPIPE. In CONNECT Advisor’s search bar, just type “Hot Clash” (CONNECT Advisor fully supports literal, fuzzy, and Boolean search parameters), then press <Enter>.

CONNECT Advisor found 2 LEARN server courses that address Hot Clash, 19 entries on Bentley Communities, 9 YouTube videos, and 7 occurrences in the product help files. We’re also performing the search on any PDF files installed with the software, like the AutoPIPE Tutorial and the Quick Start Guide. Those results are included within the Product Help category.

Remember all those product assistance resources we addressed in my previous blog post? The Content Type drop-down enables you to select the resources to cultivate for your search, or to filter the results of a completed search.

Once we have our search results, let’s see how we can use that information. Expand the LEARN server offerings. I can see there’s a Special Interest Group recording that addresses hot clash detection. Also notice that CONNECT Advisor recognizes this as an Intermediate-level offering, while the result below it is a Fundamental-level course.

If I click on the first entry, a playback window appears. I can see there’s a video available specifically about Hot Clash Detection. If I click on it, the video starts playing in the window. I have full video playback controls, so I can pause, fast-forward, or even reverse to get to exactly the information I’m looking for.

Now let’s see what’s available on Communities. If you have a lot of search results, like in this case, you can sort the list by Author, Date, Relevance, and Title.

You can also filter the list to further narrow down the information you’re looking for. I see I can download a Hot Clash Detection Tutorial from Communities. Just click on the link and I’m instantly taken to Bentley Communities where I can download the file.

So how about YouTube? I see I can play a YouTube video on the benefits of using Hot Clash Detection. And there’s also one on how to perform a Hot Clash Detection. Again, just click on the link and it automatically plays for you. But maybe I don’t have time to watch the whole video right now, but I want to save a link to it. If I right-click on the video, I can add it to my favorites, which we’ll talk more about shortly.

If I think this video can be useful to another team member, I can select Recommend To Others, then enter an email address and a link to the video will be sent to them. If I select the Recommendations tab, I can see that I’ve saved a short-cut to the video to watch later in my favorites list.

Something you might consider is building a custom “knowledge base” for your team members or your colleagues. You could assemble relevant LEARN offerings, YouTube videos, and so on as links in your Favorites folder. Then once you’re happy with your collection, you could recommend those items to another team member and they would have their own custom knowledge library.

CONNECT Advisor suggests learn courses using an algorithm that considers your current in-progress courses and learning paths and provides you with suggestions in the Suggested Trainings area.

We’ve just seen how we can manually enter a search term in CONNECT Advisor to get information, but AutoPIPE has a very handy built-in feature that automate that process. Pressing the Search button in AutoPIPE displays the Command Search Utility. This helps you locate and execute any ribbon command.

By typing the first few letters of a command, the utility automatically filters to match that value. Let’s use Run for example. At the bottom of the list is an entry to search CONNECT Advisor for that value.

Click this option and the value is automatically transferred to CONNECT Advisor and the search is executed. We can see the Product Help returned 40 instances of the term Run. Just click on the link and the help file is launched and navigates directly to that topic.

What if you have new team members you need to get up-to-speed and productive as quickly as possible? CONNECT Advisor’s QuickStarts pull-down provides access to a series of short video lectures that help you learn the fundamentals and get jumpstarted with AutoPIPE.

Remember the Events webpage and the News and Announcements forum we mentioned earlier? CONNECT Advisor provides drop-down options to keep you up-to-date on the latest news and developments. The Upcoming Events drop-down displays all events scheduled for the next 60 days. Events like webinars, seminars, live virtual conferences, and industry events are shown here with a calendar. You can even filter the events by the event type, by specific product brand, region, and language. You can also register for upcoming events directly from here.

But CONNECT Advisor isn’t just a resource consolidation utility – it’s much more powerful than that. How about having your own personal advisor that has the intelligence to understand what you’re working on in the application and gives you contextual assistance?

Notice the Contextual tab on the CONNECT Advisor. Click on it to have focus.

In AutoPIPE, let’s say we’re working along on a model and need to insert a Pipe Run, but there may be an unusual set of circumstances about where we’re inserting that run. Pick a point on a tee and insert the run. Now watch the Contextual tab. Notice how it runs in the background without any prompting. CONNECT Advisor is intelligent enough to understand what you’re doing in the application and automatically retrieves information specific to that action.

You can see we have some helpful information that might solve our situation. I can see there’s a topic specifically for inserting a run on a tee, which is exactly what I was trying to do.

Click on the first link. CONNECT Advisor starts playing a feature video that walks me through the steps to insert a run on a tee. Again, I have full playback controls in this video’s window and I can move it anywhere on my monitor. The Feature Video gives you sub-captions to guide you through the steps, and the relevant ribbon icon is always displayed in the upper left-hand corner.

In CONNECT Advisor’s Contextual tab, you can see the level of information associated with each feature video just beneath the title, and a short description. The last entry we see is a short-cut to a specific topic in the AutoPIPE help files that addresses Runs. The icons adjacent to each of the entries indicates what type of media you’re accessing.

Obviously, this can be a very powerful user-assistance service. In case you’re curious, every AutoPIPE Ribbon command has assistance displayed in the Contextual tab – that’s over 550 individual commands!

If you would like to learn more about CONNECT Advisor and see a demonstration of its, we encourage you to watch a recording of our June 20, 2018 Tech Talk.  In summary, below are just a few of the benefits of leveraging CONNECT Advisor.

Read the next installment in this series: "CONNECT Advisor: There's No Such Thing as a Silly Question!"

Some CONNECT Advisor questions we’re often asked are:

How do I install CONNECT Advisor?

If you’re running CONNECT Edition applications, CONNECT Advisor is automatically installed with your software. For those running V8i applications, CONNECT Advisor is available for download and installation from the Fulfillment Center.

Are LEARN subscriptions still available?

Good news on that front. While Bentley no longer sells Learn subscriptions, you can still access and use the LEARN Server just as you always have. Existing LEARN subscribers are actually grandfathered in through their SELECT CONNECT Edition subscription.

Is there an off-product version of CONNECT Advisor for users to look at on other monitors?

No, there is not. Users need to be connected to the application in order to harvest the appropriate information. So, it’s not available outside of the application. Content available through CONNECT Advisor is filtered automatically for the product in use.

Are there any features in CONNECT Advisor we should also be aware of?

Yes, the first is Expert Advisor. Let’s say you’ve created a CONNECTED project, with all internal and external team members added to that project. With the Expert Advisor, you can define the roles of each of those team members, including those individuals with specific areas of expertise, or who we often call subject matter experts. From inside CONNECT Advisor, you can collaborate directly with other project users in real-time, regardless of their physical location. Expert Advisor gives you built-in tools to share your screen, share files, text chat (which can be saved and searched), audio and video calling, and whiteboarding. Expert Advisor is a powerful compliment for your CONNECTED projects.

The second feature is CONNECT Advisor’s ability to leverage your proprietary content. Let’s say you’ve invested a lot of time and effort in developing your own knowledge base of information, whether that’s standards, workflows, best practices, training content, etc… but you need to keep that data internal and share it only with your team. CONNECT Advisor can integrate that content, right alongside Bentley-produced collateral, and puts it right at your fingertips. You can leverage this content using any Office 365 tools like Sharepoint, Yammer, and Sales Force Chatter.

How can CONNECT Advisor actually improve our project execution and time to market?

CONNECT Advisor helps you discover product functionality and procedures on your own. Whether it’s Bentley knowledge or your own organization’s knowledge, your designers can access this information for themselves quickly, without having to rely on other project team members for answers.

Can I look for courses using CONNECT Advisor for products that are not associated with the product currently in use?

Absolutely. CONNECT Advisor has two search levels. The first search routine looks through information currently related to the application in use and retrieves it. The second level searches information on a broader range for all Bentley applications.

If you missed my previous posts on exploring the benefits of CONNECT Advisor in AutoPIPE, you can find them here:

• What's All the Buzz About CONNECT Advisor in AutoPIPE?
• Getting the Most Out of CONNECT Advisor in AutoPIPE