Archibus SaaS / Foundations / Background Data

Define Sites, Buildings, and Floors

Space is typically organized by sites, which house buildings, which in turn house floors, which in turn can house rooms.

Sites group together multiple buildings located in a contiguous area, such as a Market Street site that contains three office buildings. If your company wants to report on and organize space inventory according to a buildings located in the same area, you will want to develop sites. If you do not have multiple buildings located in the same area, you likely will not need the site level. In this case, there is no need to develop sites, as buildings can exist independently of sites.

Floors, on the other hand, cannot exist independently of buildings. A floor is identified by its unique combination of Building Code and Floor Code, such as HQ-17 for the 17th floor in building HQ.

Once you define your sites, buildings, and floors in the database, you can connect them to CAD floor plans.

Use the Background Data / Define Buildings and Floors task (ab-ess-def-bl-fl.axvw) to work with your buildings and floors.

This topic has the following sections:

• To see a site's buildings and a building's floors
• To create a new site or edit an existing site
• To show a site's location on a map
• To create a new building or edit an existing building
• To create a new floor or edit an existing floor

Tip: When working with the Define Buildings and Floors task, you can take advantage of several actions, such as exporting data and changing the displayed fields. For details, see Working with Archibus Forms:

To see a site's buildings and a building's floors

1. Load the Define Buildings and Floors task.
2. The top left panel lists all the sites in your organization.
3. Click on a site.
4. The bottom left panel lists the buildings assigned to this site.
5. Click on a building.
6. The right panel lists the floors assigned to the selected building, .
7. To return to the complete list of floors, click Show All in the Buildings panel.

To create a new site or edit an existing site

If your organization does not track sites, you can create a placeholder site record with minimal values, such as NO SITE. You can then choose this record for the Site Code field in the Buildings table.

1. Load the Define Buildings and Floors task.
2. The top left panel lists all the sites in your organization.
3. Click on a site.
4. Choose the Edit or Add New button in the Sites panel and complete the resulting form as follows:

Field	Explanation
Site Name	Enter a descriptive name for the site.
Site Code	Enter a unique value, such as Market, that describes this site and uniquely identifies it.
Country State City	Click on the ellipses buttons to choose an existing value. For information on completing fields for which you choose existing values from a database table, see Completing Validated Fields.

To show a site's location on a map

1. Load the Define Buildings and Floors task.
2. Click the Map button in the Sites panel.
3. The view presents a pop-up showing the site plan. Buildings on the site are indicated with a marker. In the below image, the site has only one building, which is marked with a blue marker.
4. Zoom out on the map by scrolling the mouse wheel to see the site locations within a larger geographic context. For information on working with maps, see Working with Standard Maps.

To set up a site map, you must complete the Longitude and Latitude fields of the Buildings table for the buildings located on this site, as described below. If you do not complete these fields, the Map button shows a map using the lowest level of the geographic information of the site. For example, if you specified only a state for the site, and not a city, the map shows the state. If you specified a city, it zooms to the city.

To create a new building or edit an existing building

1. Load the Define Buildings and Floors task.
2. Click on a site in the top left panel. You can skip this step and the Buildings panel will list all buildings.
3. The bottom left Buildings panel lists all buildings associated with this site.
4. Click the Edit/Add New button in the Buildings panel.
5. In the Building Details panel on the right, complete the fields as follows:

Field	Explanation
Building Name	Enter a descriptive name for the site.
Building Code	Enter the value that uniquely identifies this building. The value that you enter will be used as part of the identifier for floors and rooms in this building. For example, a value of HQ for the Headquarters building contributes to the identifying values for floors (HQ-17) and rooms (HQ-17-101).
Site Code	Enter the site on which this building is located. You must complete this field. If your organization does not track sites, you can create a placeholder Site record and then select it for this field. If you have selected a site in the left panel, the field is completed with this value. You can change this if you wish.
Country State City	Click on the ellipses buttons to choose an existing value. For information on completing fields for which you choose existing values from a database table, see Completing Validated Fields.
Building Use	Choose a value that describes how this building is used.
Internal Gross Area	Enter the internal gross area of the building (doesn't include walls).
Max Building Occupancy	For your reference, enter the maximum number of occupants of this building.
Date Built	Enter the date the building was constructed to use as a reference.
Comments	If necessary, enter general comments about the building.
Latitude/Longitude	If you are creating a new building, these fields become available once you save the record. The Site panel's Map button uses this information to present a site map with building markers. Other reports, such as the Locate feature for service requests, also use this information. There are a few ways to complete these fields: If you know the exact Latitude and Longitude values you can enter them. You can also use the Geocode button to have the system complete these fields based on the address. You can also use the Locate on Map button to choose the building location on a map. To use the Locate on Map button: Click the Locate on Map button. The Locate Asset pop-up window appears. The application plots the existing location (specified by latitude and longitude), if available, or else presents the map so that you can zoom and pan to the location of the building shown in the form. On the Locate Asset Map form, click the point on the map where you want to define the location. The application plots a color marker where you click. If needed, zoom in to further inspect the location. If you are not satisfied with the new location, click again. Once satisfied with the marker placement, click Save Location to confirm the placement, The application updates the Latitude and Longitude values in the edit form with the new coordinates. Click Save, The new location data is saved to the appropriate table, Note: Geocoding processes are often approximate. They compute coordinates by interpolating street addresses along lengths of road which might not be the location you want to specify. Additionally, some addresses return no valid results at all, not even acceptable approximations. For these reasons, you might want to override and refine the geocoded results by using the Locate on Map button.
Building Photo	If you are creating a new building, this field becomes available once you save the record. Upload a photo of the building in this document field. For details on document fields, see Using the Document Management System

To create a new floor or edit an existing floor

Floors are identified by the values of the Building Code field plus the Floor Code field, such as JFK-01 for floor 01 in building JFK.

1. Load the Define Buildings and Floors task.
2. Click on a site in the top left panel. You can skip this step and the Buildings panel will list all buildings.
3. The bottom left Buildings panel lists all buildings associated with this site
4. Click on a Buildings panel.
5. The lower right panel lists floors assigned to this building.
6. To edit a floor, click on it. Its values display in a pop-up window, along with an image of the floor plan (if available). For information on zooming and working with the floor plan, see Work with Drawings.
   
   
7. To create a new floor, click the Add New button.
8. Complete the fields as follows:

Field	Explanation
Floor Code	Enter a value for this field that when combined with the Building Code will form a unique value, such as 01.
Building Code	Will be completed with the name of the building that you selected,
Floor Name	Enter a description of this floor.
Sort Order	For use with stack plans, the sort order determines the order in which the stack plan presents floors. The stack plan sorts first by this field and then by the Floor Code value; thus, if this field does not have a value, fields are sorted by the Floor Code.
Internal Gross Area	If you are not depicting your floor in a CAD drawing, you can manually enter the size of the floor in this field. The Space calculations will use the value that you enter. If you are developing this area in a CAD drawing, the system will complete it with the size of the internal gross area.
Visible on Self-Service Views	Determines if the Archibus Workplace or kiosk displays this floor.