Space / Space Inventory

Converting a pre-V18.1 Archibus Space Inventory

Archibus users who have used the space management features of pre-v18.1 versions of Archibus will notice that beginning with V18.1 the application has been simplified to remove the choice between producing an all room inventory and a composite inventory.

Recall, with the pre-V18.1 organization, the major features of a composite inventory were:

• vertical penetration areas and service areas are stored on their own layer and in their own database tables
• departmental areas can be outlined on a CAD floor plan with group polyilnes and stored in the Groups database table
• if you wanted more detail on your departmental areas, you could develop rooms for individual offices and workstations and assign these rooms to departments.

The major features of an all room inventory were:

• occupiable rooms, vertical penetrations, and service areas are stored on the Rooms layer and in the Rooms database table, with the Room Category classifying a room as service area, vertical penetration area, or an occupiable room.
• departmental area is tracked with by developing rooms and assigning the rooms to departments; outlining departmental areas with group polylines is not an option.

Beginning with v18.1, the application simplifies the space inventory methodology by combining features of both composite and all room into one methodology. With the this methodology:

• vertical penetration and service areas are stored in the Rooms table and on the Rooms layer, with the Room Category classifying these rooms as service area or vertical penetration area
• departmental areas is depicted with groups, or rooms, or a combination of groups and rooms. For information on this type of inventory, see Developing a Space Inventory that has Both Rooms and Groups.

Thus, users of the pre-v18.1 Space domain who have a composite inventory composed of vertical penetration areas and service areas that are stored in separate drawing layers and database tables and want to use this data with the newer space management system will need to convert these areas to rooms.

The group component of a composite space inventory does not need to be converted because the newer methodology supports a space inventory that includes both rooms and groups.

Converting Vertical Penetration and Service Areas to Rooms

To convert your composite vertical penetration areas and service areas to rooms tagged as VERT or SERV, you run the "Convert Vert and Service Areas to Rooms" task, which is available as part of the Building Performance process.

To convert your vertical and penetration areas to rooms:

1. Start Extension for AutoCAD and open your project.
2. Move to the Space / Space Inventory / Building Performance process.
3. Open a floor plan drawing that contains vertical penetration and service area asset symbols located on the Vertical Penetration and Service Area layers.
4. Run the Convert Vert. and Service Areas to Rooms command.
5. For each vertical penetration and service area asset symbol located on the Vertical Penetration and Service Area layers, the command does the following:

• copies the polyline from the Vertical Penetration layer or Service Area layer to the Room layer
• for each copied polyline, creates a record in the Rooms table with a generated value for Room Code and completes the new record's Room Area value with the value of area polyline.
• sets the new record's Room Category to VERT or SERV, which supplies them with a super-category of VERT and SERV.

6. In order to view your updated drawings using Archibus Web Central or Smart Client, you need to publish your updated drawings as Archibus Enterprise Graphic files. Do so by running the Publish Enterprise Graphics command, which is located on the Navigator for your convenience. Be sure that the drawings show the Room layer, and not the Vertical Penetration or Service Area layers, when you publish.
7. Move to Web Central or Smart Client and run Update Area Totals.

Note: The command copies, and does not move, the vertical penetration and service area asset symbols. The original vertical penetration and service area polylines are retained; likewise, the corresponding records remain in the Service Areas and Vertical Penetration tables. The system does not need to delete these items because the v18 calculations do not consider values from the Vertical Penetration and Service Area tables. However, you may wish to delete the vertical penetration and service area asset symbols from the drawing yourself so that other users of the drawings will not be confused by these asset symbols on the Vertical Penetration and Service Area layers.

Note: This routine requires that you first open each floor plan drawing. If you have many floor plan drawings to convert, you may wish to write an AutoCAD script to automatically open the drawings and run the routine. Such a script would take the format:
open drawing1
runconvertprogram
save
open drawing2
runconvertprogram
save

Chargeback Methods

Users of the pre-v18.1 Space domain will note that fewer chargeback methods are available with v18.1. Below are the equivalents for pre-v18.1 chargeback methods:

Group Chargeback: Since the Standard Chargeback method covers both rooms and groups, there is no need for a separate Group Chargeback method.

BOMA Chargeback: To replicate this pre-v18.1 methodology:

• All group entries must be assigned to departments. That is, there should be no Group Common Area.
• Any service common area – rooms with rmcat.supercat = SERV and prorated – must be prorated to FLOOR.

Enhanced BOMA: To replicate this pre v18.1 methodology:

• All group entries must be assigned departments. There should be no Group Common Area.
• Any service common area – room with rmcat.supercat = SERV and prorated – must be prorated to BUILDING.