FEA has tremendously advanced in the last decade, but it is still regarded with skepticism and caution by the structural steel industry. This presentation will explore the application of FEA techniques for the design of connections in engineering practice. It will discuss the current state of the art in advanced FEA and why its usage can bring benefits to the connection design in terms of material optimization and costs. To illustrate the cases in which FEA should be used for connection design, real world examples of connections calculated using FEA will be exhibited and compared to the traditional approach. Finally, practical FEA best practices and pitfalls (software independent) will be presented and discussed.