Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD
Archibus SaaS / Leases / Suite Analysis
Real Property / Leases / Suite Analysis

Draw Suites

As part of the Suite Analysis process, a CAD Specialist needs to add suite asset symbols to CAD drawings. This is useful for visualizing your holdings in floor plan drawings that highlight suites, and for calculating measured areas that are used in reports. Graphically developing your suites is optional.

Suites are represented on the Suite (SU) asset layer and are registered in the Suites table. The Lease Code field for a suite associates the suite and the lease that covers it.

Typically, before you add suite areas to drawings, others at your site have developed background data about your facility, such as the names of buildings and floors and the existing leases.

If you are not working from an existing floor plan drawing, you can develop one:

• For a simple suite inventory, you can add your suite polylines to the floor plan drawing according to building grid lines, omitting the steps of developing gross area, vertical penetration areas, and service areas. In this case, you will be able to report on vacant suites and highlight suites by lease, but you will not have sufficient data to calculate the suite's and lease's usable, rentable, and common areas, or to view unaccounted suite space.
• You can develop a floor plan drawing that includes a floor's gross internal area, vertical penetration areas, and service areas before drawing the suite polylines. Developing these fundamental floor areas enables you to view unaccounted suite area and to generate several important statistics about your floor that the system sums for the building. For example, you can view the RU and U/R ratios and the Cost per Employee for buildings that appear in the Building Abstract report. See Building Performance Inventory (Process overview).
• For an overview of developing boundaries in CAD, see Connect your CAD Plans and Revit Models to Archibus and Creating Floor Plans.

To draw suite boundaries

1. In CAD or in Archibus Smart Client, move to Real Property / Leases / Suite Analysis.
2. If you are working In Smart Client and CAD is not active, select the Draw Suites task. The task presents the Drawing List so that you can choose a drawing to work on. Choose the drawing, and Archibus loads your CAD tool, displays the selected drawing, and makes CAD the active application.
3. In CAD, open a drawing (if necessary).
4. Set you snap and grid as necessary. The Navigator includes these commands for your convenience.
5. Prepare the drawing for working with suites by choosing Set Suites on the Navigator.
6. Depict the floor's suites by drawing rectangles and polylines.
7. Assign the polylines intelligence by data editing them.
• Enter the Building Code and Floor Code fields. The program may have already completed these with values from the drawing. If not, you may select from the available values.
• For each suite, assign a suite number that when combined with the Building Code and Floor Code will be a unique value.
• Enter the lease that covers this area by choosing a value from the list of available leases.
8. So that suite plans can be viewed using Archibus Web Central, publish your drawing as an Archibus Enterprise Graphic file in SVG format running the Publish Enterprise Graphics command, which is located on the CAD Navigator for your convenience.
9. If you like, view your suite plans in reports by accessing Web Central and running reports, such as Highlight Vacant Suites and Highlight Suites by Lease.