We have now transitioned over to Bentley Open Utilities Substation (OUS) and we currently have significant quantity of relevant legacy drawings (250 000+) stored in ProjectWise. With using the current features of the import tool within Project Manager we have to individually write all the metadata from the Project Wise (PW) into the project manager import tool. This process is also repeated when we use manufacturer or contract design drawings that are outside the OUS system - These files do not contain the “Item types” feature.

Firstly, when using the Import tool, we need to individually add all the OUS required metadata (Drawing set, Mode border etc) on a single file (file by file) basis by hand.

Secondly, when importing from a ProjectWise environment to the OUS environment we lose the PW metadata originally stored in that environment and have to re-enter this metadata into PW again.

Due to this our drafting resources spend significant quantity of their time (2-40+hours) per project manually entering predominantly already existing metadata into the system, which takes considerable amount of time, resources and is prone to administrative errors. If we extrapolate that over to a cost incurred on an annual basis, we have estimated that the incurred cost of this manual transition to be somewhere in the order of $65k USD to $100k USD per year.

One suggestion on improving this issue, would be to see the import function within project manager be able to read legacy PW environments and being able to select what existing metadata columns go into what OUS meta data columns. For any missing information being able to bulk populate rows/files rather than selecting a drop down per file.

Then other side/option would be able to use a excel or CSV file that you could import which would do they same thing as mentioned above however, it would be able to manipulate the metadata outside OUS. This option aligns with the ability to be able to export drawings lists from legacy environments or even being provided with metadata drawings lists from external parties and then being able to simply upload it into the OUS system. This means regardless of what cad file system the file is originally developed in, it will provide a quick, easy and economical way to streamline getting the metadata into OUS.