Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD
Archibus SaaS / Assets / Equipment
Assets / Assets/ IT Asset Manager
Assets / Enterprise Assets / IT Asset Manager
Assets / Telecom Assets / Telecom Management

Draw Faceplates

Your site can choose to document their faceplate inventory with a faceplate plan, in which faceplates are represented on CAD floor plan drawings. Faceplate plans are handy for visualizing the exact location of faceplates within a room . For example, if am IT manager needs to connect the jacks on a faceplate to a workstation computer, they can check the plan to see the exact location of the item.

Although you can also represent specific jacks on your floor plan drawing, many sites represent only faceplates in CAD. Although the jacks are not represented in CAD, users do track their telecom connections to the jacks contained in faceplates. Your site should assess the detail to which you need to track faceplates and jacks in CAD drawings.

To create a faceplate plan, a CAD specialist needs to add faceplate asset symbols to the existing floor plan drawings.

Procedure

Prerequisite: Typically, someone at your site will have already defined faceplates standards and other background data about the facility. The CAD specialist should have previously defined faceplate blocks and developed a CAD room plan.

1. In CAD or in Archibus Smart Client, move to a process listed at the top of this topic.
2. If you are working in Smart Client and CAD is not active, select the Draw Faceplates 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. Prepare the drawing for working with faceplates by choosing Set Faceplates on the Navigator. This activates the appropriate layers in the drawing
5. Depict the floor's faceplates by inserting faceplate blocks. There are several methods. For your convenience, commands for these methods are listed on the Navigator.
• Insert an instance of a block drawing representing your faceplate item by choosing Insert Block from the Navigator. Browse to find your block drawing, and then position your block.
• If faceplate standards have been defined, you can asset insert a faceplate. Choose Asset Insert from the Navigator and then choose a standard from the resulting list. Choose a position for your block, and the command inserts it and displays its standard as asset text.
• If Faceplate records already exist in the database and you now want to generate asset symbols for these records, you can populate the drawing with faceplate blocks. Choose the Populate Faceplates to Rooms task on the CAD Navigator. Based on the database information, the system will add the blocks to the appropriate rooms, assign them intelligence, and convert them to asset symbols. If you use this method, you can skip step 6 below. Once the system generates them, you will want to position your faceplate asset symbols within the room boundary to represent their physical location in the actual room.
• Populating generates asset symbols for all faceplates in the room. If you want to create asset symbols for just some items, asset insert the standard, which will add the block to the drawing. Next, from the CAD Navigator, run the "Attach to Record" command, which will prompt you to select the database record to connect to this block to form an asset symbol. You can skip step 6, below.
6. Data edit the blocks to convert them to asset symbols and register them in the database. Complete the following fields:
   

Field	Description
Faceplate Code	Enter a value to uniquely identify this item
Building Code Floor Code	The program may have already completed these with values from the drawing's default space hierarchy values. If not, you may select from the available values by choosing the ellipses button.
Room Code	Enter the room in which the faceplate is located by typing the room number or choosing the room from the ellipses button.
Faceplate Standard	If you asset inserted your faceplate, the block will have a standard. If you used the Insert Block command, you will need to complete the standard.

7. So that your faceplate plan can be viewed using Archibus Web Central, run the Publish Enterprise Graphics command (located on the CAD Navigator for your convenience) to publish your drawing as an Archibus Enterprise Graphic file.
8. View your faceplate plans by working with the Telecom Console task in Web Central.

See Also

Representing Telecom Devices in CAD

Adding Blocks to Floor Plan Drawings

Creating Asset Symbols by Asset Inserting

Creating Asset Symbols by Populating