Line Meets Curve

It seems every time we wake up and log on, something has changed. In our time of rapidly progressing technology, computer movers and shakers and their faithful followers of the Latest and Greatest (admit it: that would be us, friends) keep our relationship to the digital world in a constant state of flux. And while this progress is often exciting, we are frequently left in confusion though our livelihoods depend upon the smooth flow of information.

In the world of AEC/O, every project has the potential to produce thousands upon thousands of pages of hard or electronic copy. What format, from among the ones used to produce these documents, are we wisest to choose as the one that will rise above the others and give the greatest longevity and most universal compatibility to our documents? Microsoft Word’s .doc? Rich text? Plain text? Where is our formatting port in the storm?

It’s a common question for which everyone has a pet answer. Well, we’ve been doing a little research. We tend to agree with *Macworld’s Christopher Breen, who feels that Adobe’s Portable Document Format (.pdf) is most likely to stay relevant in the years to come. His justification: governments use PDFs for an endless number of documents, and since government change tends to move at a snail’s pace, chances are good we won’t be seeing the PDF go anywhere anytime soon. Which we, in the AEC/O should take as good news since the first place winner is plain text (.txt), which doesn’t do much for design documents and drawings.

Choosing to convert most of their documents to PDF wasn’t an arbitrary decision on our government’s part. In addition to the aforementioned benefits, PDF has considerable advantages over other formats in the areas of print quality and, increasingly, compatibility on all fronts.

Most CAD, BIM, drawing software, printers and other applications have been updated to produce high quality PDF searchable text and so now we’ve got a big group hug of information and compatibility where was once there was confusion and isolation. Add to this that PDF’s can be secured, or edited or created to be editable. They can be made into forms and so on. Well, it’s a beautiful thing.

So, are we saying only work in .pdf? Of course not. Your needs are diverse and you should always use what works best for you. Are we saying it might be a good idea to archive in .pdf? Absolutely. Consider it an insurance policy on your work; a safety net for the files’ future. All in all, we think this is excellent news. When you work in an industry where your words are only as effective as the image they describe, it’s comforting to know that the format most likely to stand the test of time is one that preserves your whole document, without a lot of limitations. And let’s all hope that 50 years from now, the work we’re generating today will be worth at least that much.

*MacWorld December 2007

Hey everyone! Atlanta is in the midst of the dog days of summer. It’s hitting in the triple digits here so we hope you are all staying cool and having a good holiday break no matter where you are.

Let’s jump right on in:

New Features - 550 has released* or will soon release a few new great additions to its feature set.

Sets Management* - This new take on document management is specifically for the AEC crowd, though anyone can use it for anything that gets revised a lot. Sets management gives you the ability to upload all your drawings as a pending set and keep them editable while you or your team are working with them (last minute changes never happen to you?) and then you can lock the set down once you’re satisfied and notify everyone that it’s all there. But that’s not where it ends.

The set you just uploaded may be the first or the tenth in a series of sets (addenda, revisions, permit sets etc) that make up the most current set of drawings. Sets Managements takes the most recent file out of each uploaded set that has the same name (and other criteria) and assembles it into the Pending Release Set which is the unofficial and most current version of the locked Current Release Set, which is the last published version of the drawings.

Again, when it’s time to publish the next Current Release Set and you’re satisfied all the best drawings are uploaded, then it’s just a matter of locking the files and VOILA! A new Current Release Set is born and a new, blank, Pending Release Set screen is waiting for uploads of the next revision or maybe the project is just finished? Cool.

Templates - Well okay, they aren’t entirely new. BUT THEY ARE! We’ve completely rewritten them from the ground up to perform better and now you can add data to your templates to create those useful checklists, specifications, punch-lists, and all kinds of other lists that you have been duplicating manually in the past. A time saver, to be sure. These will be up and running next week.

Data Uploading from CSV files - You will soon be able to upload your information from your existing databases or lists into your new or existing 550 lists.

Your address book from Outlook? Export it as a CSV file from Outlook and import it to 550. If you don’t have a list to import it into, 550 will give you the option to create one automatically.

Have databases full of data you want to upload? No problem. Just export them as CSV files and upload them into 550 and it will create the new lists for you with the data intact.

If you want to import a CSV file into an existing list but the columns don’t match there’s a tool to help you out.

We’ve done a lot of other things as well. Below if a brief summary and we’ve listed some of the other things we’ll be working on over the next couple of months.

Summary

Upgrades and Fixes

• Templates with Data
• Sets Management
• CSV Uploads of Data into New or Existing 550 Lists
• Column Mapping tools for uploaded CSV files to existing lists
• Quick Launch panels for Workspace Summary & Guest Account SkyView Pages
• Added customizable field to invitation emails
• Fixed known issues with sorting and pagination
• Fixed attachment issues with Submittal & RFI Lists
• Fixed a couple of Calendar issues
• Much more…

Coming Soon

• Streamlined Administration user screens
• Workspace templates
• Streamlined Bid Process Invitation Management
• Calendar functionality
• Much more…

Beta is over. We have added a number of features to make it to what we call version 1.0 of 550.

One of the features we are happiest to introduce is file versioning. This is the ability to upload updated versions of files already in the shared documents list and have these new files replace the existing files as the latest versions. The old version is then sent to an easily accessed history section in the file detail view where it’s out of the way.

This should help minimize the confusion over which file, in the long list of files, is the correct one, especially when there may be 5 different files with the same name and only the date differentiating them. There is also a version number associated with each file for easier discussion amongst project participants.

We’ve also changed the look of the shared documents pages. They are now organized by title or type so that they are easily scanned and can click on the triangle beside the title heading to expand the list to see the document(s). This came about because a lot people needed quick access while on the phone or during a meeting. We hope you’ll find useful.

The file versioning feature meshes with other existing features in some interesting ways so each document’s version history is limited to its workspace. That file can still roll up or down to other workspace lists, for example, but in order to make changes to it, such as replacing it with a newer version, deleting it or editing it, it is necessary, for the time being, to go back to its original workspace to work with it.

Guest User Access for bid sites is something we introduced a while ago but have really come to see the value of with continued use by our power users. This feature allows administrators to create anonymous access passes to limited parts of the site for bidding purposes though I am sure there are plenty of other great uses for it. These guest accounts can be set to expire so that admins don’t have to worry about forgetting to remove the account or that one might be left active and given to the wrong people after a particular date. Some of our users create multiple accounts, one for each type of subcontractor they want to set out bid contracts for. This way, they can control precisely what documents get seen within a specific time frame.

Photo Sessions are another great feature we have introduced. They allow you keep track of a project’s photographic progress and you can do it with one easy upload, if you choose. Just set up the session information and upload the files. It’s especially handy if you just downloaded the photos from your camera and simply want to put them up without renaming files, tagging, etc. You can even rotate misaligned images right on the site when you have time. The entire set of photos would be associated with the photo session on the centralized photo session list for easy referral and updating.

These photos can be worked with anyway you choose, as with Shared Documents, though we have not introduced file versioning with photos. We would love to hear from our user base on this matter. Is this something you think we should add? Would you use it? Do you need to keep a history of your images the way you keep a history of your drawings or documents that get revised? Let us know.

Client invoicing is now in place so that subscribers may invoice their clients for the reimbursable costs associated with managing their projects with 550. The cost and time savings will, we are sure, become apparent to all, when it is printed out in black and white at the end of each billing cycle.

The best for last: we have introduced a new pricing plan. We now have a free plan which includes a free workspace and 100 MB of storage to everyone who wishes to have it.

We are also offering a charter membership plan for a limited time. Please read about it and sign up! We’d love to have you.

There is lots more to talk about and plenty more to come but I think this is just about enough for today.

Remember, we are always interested in what you have to say. Me and my team are only ever a phone call, an email or a comment away.

Sincerely,

Zaina Ajakie
Founder/Partner
Tangentworks, LLC