Associating a work area to a ProjectWise project has different purposes depending on which feature you want to use.

For example, getting HTTPS links to documents in ProjectWise Web, and publishing content from integrated Revit to ProjectWise Share, both require that a work area is associated to a ProjectWise project.

For ProjectWise Web, if the datasource setting, WSG Work Areas URL for Connect services, has been configured, then associating a work area to a ProjectWise project automatically adds a work area connection (which exposes the work area and its contents) to the ProjectWise Web portal of the associated ProjectWise project.

For ProjectWise Deliverables Management, associating a work area to a ProjectWise project (where ProjectWise Deliverables Management is turned on) lets work area participants who have the ProjectWise Deliverables Management connector for ProjectWise Explorer installed send and receive transmittals, submittals, and RFIs from ProjectWise Explorer.

For ProjectWise Project Insights, associating a work area to a ProjectWise project lets the ProjectWise Analytics Data Upload Service (the administrative tool that collects statistical information about documents in the datasource) know which ProjectWise project to upload data to, and it lets the ProjectWise project know which work area to display data for.