The general procedure for assigning features to the work locations of a design consists of these steps:

Unless you have disabled the business rules for a particular feature, Bentley OpenUtilities Designer executes a placement operation only if the selected feature and the target work location are compatible according to these rules. For example, a street light is normally installed on a pole or other structure, so the business rules for the Street Light feature might require it to be placed at a work point with a structural feature (poles, steel towers, and the like). If a placement does not conform to the business rules, the cursor displays a special cursor and a message indicating an invalid connection or a geometry mismatch. Bentley OpenUtilities Designer supports the configuration of custom cursor messages based on a customer's specific business rules.

Facility placement for a detailed design is typically done in several steps: creating paths and placing basic features such as structures and conductors, then adding devices and other feature types. Additional design steps might consist of inserting comments and leader lines.