The engineering department of Alpena, Michigan, had a staff of five who designed with MicroStation and another 73 staff and two subcontractors who needed access to all of this information. Since the city couldn’t afford 78 MicroStation licenses, it at first used Bentley View to share information. However, as staff became familiar with the software, more wanted the ability to change and update the elements they viewed.

By subscribing to Bentley’s Municipal License Subscription program (MLS), the city can now provide a comprehensive portfolio of full-featured GIS software to everyone’s desktop, offering greater efficiency in a variety of disciplines. For example, the City Assessor’s Office now has its own MicroStation and MicroStation GeoGraphics licenses that give it full access to add parcels, update numbers, changes addresses, adjust building layouts, and modify other attributes of city properties.