What a Facility Owner wants you to know

    I cannot count how many times I have spoken to the AEC industry on a perspective from the Owner's side. It is so important to have our voice heard, for design teams to learn from us as we learn from them and we meet together to create a sustainable lifecycle for our buildings and data.

    But with the last team who approached me, I was not sure what to present on, and the organizer, Karen Kensak, suggested something like Digital Twins. I was like, UGH not another shiny technology, when people do not even deliver what they are contracted for most of the time. 

    So... that became the topic of my conversation. They do not record their presentations, so I decided to record my own and post it, because it is a really important discussion. 

    Behind every technical analysis I have responded with over the years, is a disappointment that most design teams are not consistently meeting contracted requirements. 

    Yes, I lay plenty of blame on the Owner's side, from the PMs not understanding or caring to Finance closing out books and sending out final payments before requirements have been met... but just because someone lets you get away with something, does not mean you should.

    If you do not care to watch an entire video, and prefer podcasts instead, I did touch on some of the same topics (although a little less forthrightly) on an episode of BIMThoughts last year. After hearing the playback of that interview, I felt I should make a presentation addressing how I always dance around the real issue for us owners, but did not get around to it... until today.

    We have such passion and energy in our industry, among those of us who share knowledge. But not everyone is like us. They do not understand or do not care or have too many time pressures, whatever the issue is, if we close the loop, it will benefit all of us.

if you do not see a video embedded here, try switching your browser to "View Web Version" or click directly on this YouTube link. 

    Not only will it make the next renovation easier, faster, and cheaper for all parties involved, it should help our economy as a whole. As I refer back to (yet again) the NIST study that shows that there are billions of dollars of lost information in our industry every year, most of which is borne by the capital facilities portion, aka, our clients.

    I also mentioned in my talk, the article I wrote about the 'alphabet soup' of acronyms for FM, so here is the link: TLA/FLAs for FIM/IWMS

Facilities Management Q&A forum: https://www.augi.com/forums/forumdisp... Salary Survey 2021 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021AUGIsurvey Are you looking for a new job? https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021JobSearch

What's new in ARCHIBUS v26.1

In the past, ARCHIBUS has been on a longer release schedule, but they are currently putting out new versions quarterly, for their clients who choose a SaaS model.

I was able to join in on the most recent new features webcast, which was focused on user experience (UX) and return to work (RTW RTO).

Topics: 

• Space Console: Query Search
• Space Console: UX
• Move Console: UX
• ARCHIBUS Workplace: Accessibility
• ARCHIBUS Workplace: Hoteling
• Reports Central
• Badging Connector and Report
• Framework Controls: UX

Space Console: Query Search

 

 

 

The main strength of CAFM/IWMS/EAM systems is the data being in one place, and normalized. So all improvements into finding, querying, reporting on data get me really excited.

In addition to spaces, you can also find employees with this function, whether they are permanently assigned to a space or hoteling.

 

Ying Qin ran a demo of Space Console Query Search so we could see it in action.

There are three switches for this query feature:

• Query
• Employee
• Quick Search

 

 

Query search is for a space manager who knows the data

Switch this dropdown to employee, to search for people (by employee ID or name)

Quick search is the 3rd option

 

 

Can use 'contains' in the searches

Drill down into results and set room highlight types

 

 

 

Space Console: UX

 

 

Space Console User Interface improvements now include the ability to:

• Can print blank floorplans with no highlights
• When selecting employees or rooms, zooms in on results
• Drag and Drop Employees (names and numbers)

 Move Console: UX

 

Improvements include these abilities:

• Can now create a move request from within the console
• Can filter moves based on their Division, Project Code, Move Name and Move Order

ARCHIBUS Workplace Accessibility

 

 

Improvements to the Workspace App are summed up by:

• Features for visual and hearing impairments
• WCAG (web content accessible guidelines) 2.1
• Level A compliant
• Level AA Compliant

 ARCHIBUS Workplace Hoteling

• Ability to limit the booking window (application parameter)
• Limit to all-day bookings (previous settings were morning / afternoon) (this application parameter is either/or, it cannot be utilized both ways)
• Enable a healthcheck, with configurable text, prompt before booking is finalized. If you don't check in, the reservation will be released
• Book near a colleague, because you can see who else has booked, during your search for a space

 ARCHIBUS Workplace UX

 

 

ARCHIBUS Workplace User Interface improvements make room selection less busy and easier to navigate

• Removed pins on floor during booking
• Removed room labels on the floorplan during booking

Reports Central

 

 

Octavian ran through a demonstration so that we could see the reporting improvements in action.

 

Reports Central

• Create simple reports, with charts
• Quickly modify by filtering and selecting fields
• Publish and share reports with others

 

This one excites me.

ARCHIBUS has always been my favorite CAFM platform, but it was a bit of a contrast when I began using FMInteract from FM:Systems because the reporting was so much easier to get going with. I literally had zero training and was able to get going with FMS / FMI reporting (to be fair, I had prior exposure to the slightly strange FMI database structure as an ARCHIBUS Solutions Architect performing data mapping for migrating clients, so that surely helped. It was very easy to get going with in reporting.).

These new changes look to be leveling the playing field a bit more with regard to the usability and lowers the barrier to entry in ARCHIBUS reporting.

 

 

 

They support 4 chart types currently, but will be adding more in future releases

 

• Bar Chart
• Column Chart
• Line Chart 
• Pie Chart

 

 

Then you can save your report, either privately or shared with your team. When you publish the report, you dictate the Application and Process or Role to store it as.

 

This reporting can be restricted or allowed by Role. The 'publish report' is not a PNAV (process navigator) item, it resides within the Reports Central Process, and published reports will only be visible to those with the assigned application/process/role dictated by the reports.

 

One limitation is that there is no support yet for math. No averages or sums are available, but they will be in a future release.

 

If you are a report designer, you can lock some of the filters, so the asset manager who receives the report cannot add a filter. Basically, there is control how much filtering the end user will have access to based on your target user role.

 

Since this is version 1 for this feature, ARCHIBUS would love to get user feedback on it to help inform future releases. If you do not know how to submit feedback, contact your ARCHIBUS Business Partner.

Access Monitoring: Badging Connector

 

 

 

Access Monitoring (Badging Connector), these features can help ensure social distancing compliance by monitoring the current capacity / occupancy of your space:

• Imports employee badge data
• Supports contract tracing by tracking entry to facilities
• Monitors space utilization and access

As an aside: I have heard that this company, DLR group, is doing a lot of exciting data-centric forward-thinking work in the AECO industry re: IoT and IAQ, including not using badging or grid scans of occupancy scanners or other similar data sources for occupancy counts, but also using thermo data to detect changes in air temperature, indicating occupancy increases to unsafe levels. Neat stuff. 

Framework Controls: UX

 

 

Framework Controls User Interface

• Updated drawing control toolbar icons
• Ability to drag and drop documents into the document field
• Highlights in the tree which item you have selected

 

These changes apply across the product.

New Features and FAQ

There was a future features / backlog / roadmap portion of the presentation, but I will not be discussing that today, as it will be made public by ARCHIBUS at the appropriate time.

Likewise, I will not be sharing my notes and screenshots on the FAQ portion of the call, as much of that was regarding items currently in development which have not yet been released. Disappointing, as I have SOOOO many comments regardings some of them.

I always love new features, but, as someone supporting IWMS software, most of which is still (an average) of 60% customized, it does make me nervous. ;)

How do you Erase?

The last team that I joined, I was asked to review their tutorials for common tasks and one of the things that I noted was that users were instructed to DELETE <ENTER> objects. 

When my coworkers would present, some of them would type ERASE <ENTER> and others would type E <ENTER> or click the Erase button on the Modify tab of the Ribbon.

Personally, I prefer to use the right-click menu or by using the Delete button on the keyboard.

I recorded a video to demonstrate different ways to erase an object, including through the Quad cursor menu. 

Nothing here is really earth-shattering, we all know how to delete objects in a CAD program. 

But it would be a good idea to sit down with your team and see if the way that they call common commands could be updated to be more efficient, or if you might want to update your training documents to save folks a few keystrokes.

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