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Configure BOMA Standard Versions

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Configure BOMA Standard Versions

Archibus supports calculating rentable area according to BOMA 2017 and BOMA 2024 office building standards. Both standards offer two calculation methods:

  • Method A — Uses floor-level and building-level allocation ratios. Best for mixed-use buildings with floor-level variations.
  • Method B — Uses a single building-wide load factor. Simpler, best for uniform buildings.

A single application parameter controls the active method. Switching standards requires only changing the parameter value, and re-running the area calculation; no room re-categorization is needed.

Prerequisites

Ensure the following are in place before starting:

  • You have administrative access to Space Inventory & Performance.
  • Floor and room inventory is up to date, with room areas recorded in the rm.area field.
  • If using BOMA 2024, identify which rooms qualify as Non-Allocated Tenant Areas (see Step 2 below).

BOMA 2024 Overview

BOMA 2024 introduces Non-Allocated Tenant Areas and these spaces that count toward Rentable Area but are not included in load factor calculations. These areas add directly to a tenant's rentable area without any common area markup.

Three new room categories are available:

Room Category Description Examples
UNENCL TENANT Unenclosed Tenant Area Balconies, terraces, patios, outdoor amenities exclusively used by one tenant.
TENANT SHAFT Tenant Shaft Floor openings exclusively serving one tenant (exhaust ducts, piping).
TENANT EQUIP Tenant Equipment Rooftop or ground-mounted mechanical equipment installed for a single tenant.

Backward Compatibility

Under BOMA 2017, these room categories are automatically treated as Rentable Exclusions. Under BOMA 2024, they are included in Rentable Area with no load factor applied. The same room data works correctly with both standards.

Step 1. Set the BOMA Calculation Method

  1. Navigate to Space Inventory & Performance > Background Data > Define Space Application Parameters.
  2. Locate the parameter CalculateBOMARentableArea (Activity ID: AbSpaceRoomInventoryBAR).
  3. Set the value to one of the following:
Value Standard Method

2024A

 BOMA 2024 Method A — floor and building allocation ratios + Non-Allocated areas

2024B

 BOMA 2024 Method B — building-wide load factor + Non-Allocated areas

2017A

 BOMA 2017 Method A — floor and building allocation ratios

2017B

 BOMA 2017 Method B — building-wide load factor

No

 — Disable BOMA calculations (system default)
  1. Save the parameter.

Step 2. Set Up Non-Allocated Tenant Area Categories (BOMA 2024 only)

Skip this step if you are using BOMA 2017.

Step 2a. Create the room categories

  1. Navigate to Space Inventory & Performance > Building Performance > Add Non-Occupiable Room Categories.
  2. Run the workflow. This automatically creates the three BOMA 2024 room categories (UNENCL TENANT, TENANT SHAFT, TENANT EQUIP) if they do not already exist.
  3. To verify, navigate to Space Inventory & Performance > Building Performance > Define Room Categories and Types and confirm the categories display.

Step 2b. Assign rooms to Non-Allocated categories

  1. Navigate to your room inventory.
  2. For each room that qualifies as a Non-Allocated Tenant Area, set its Room Category to the appropriate value:
    • UNENCL TENANT - unenclosed areas such as balconies or terraces used exclusively by one tenant
    • TENANT SHAFT - vertical openings (exhaust, piping) serving only one tenant
    • TENANT EQUIP - rooftop or ground equipment installed for a single tenant

Rooms that serve multiple tenants or are part of a common building infrastructure must not be assigned to these categories. Use your building's lease documentation to determine which spaces qualify.

Step 3. Run Update Area Totals

  1. Navigate to Space Inventory & Performance > Building Performance.
  2. Click Update Area Totals.
  3. Enter the effective date range.
  4. Click Start Job.
  5. Wait for the job to complete and the progress is shown in the job status panel.

This recalculates the Area Rentable BOMA field (fl.area_rentable_boma) for all floors using the selected BOMA method and stores the result in the floor record.

Step 4. View Results in Building Performance

  1. Navigate to Space Inventory & Performance > Building Performance.
  2. Select a building from the list and then click Show.

In the floor performance grid, the report button displayed depends on the configured method:

Configured parameter Button displayed

2024A

 BOMA 2024 Method A

2024B

 BOMA 2024 Method B

2017A

 BOMA 2017 Method A

2017B

 BOMA 2017 Method B

No

 No BOMA button shown
  1. Click the report button to open the BOMA Rentable Area breakdown, showing floor-by-floor occupant area, load factors, non-allocated area (BOMA 2024 only), and the final rentable area figure.

Only the button for the currently configured standard is shown. The BOMA 2017 buttons are automatically hidden when a BOMA 2024 method is active, and vice versa.

Switching between BOMA Standards

You can switch between BOMA versions at any time without losing your room categorization data:

  1. Change the CalculateBOMARentableArea parameter value (Step 1).
  2. Re-run Update Area Totals (Step 3).

The system recalculates all floors using the newly selected method. Room categories UNENCL TENANT, TENANT SHAFT, and TENANT EQUIP remain in the inventory and they are simply interpreted differently depending on the active standard:

  • Under BOMA 2017: these rooms are treated as Rentable Exclusions (excluded from rentable area).
  • Under BOMA 2024: these rooms are included in the rentable area with no load factor markup.

Non-Allocated Tenant Areas

Let's see how the Non-allocated Tenant Areas affect the calculation.

Scenario BOMA 2017 BOMA 2024
Room categorized as UNENCL TENANT Excluded from Rentable Area (Rentable Exclusion) Included, no load factor applied
Room categorized as TENANT SHAFT Excluded from Rentable Area Included, no load factor applied
Room categorized as TENANT EQUIP Excluded from Rentable Area Included, no load factor applied
Standard office room (any other category) Normal load factor applied Normal load factor applied (unchanged)

Example: 

The floor has 10,000 sq ft of office space and 500 sq ft of tenant balcony (UNENCL TENANT) and the building load factor is 1.15.

  • BOMA 2017: Rentable = 10,000 × 1.15 = 11,500 sq ft (balcony excluded)
  • BOMA 2024: Rentable = (10,000 × 1.15) + 500 = 12,000 sq ft (balcony added without markup)

BOMA 2017 for Office Buildings Overview

In 2017, BOMA released a document entitled "BOMA 2017 for Office Buildings." The main goals of the document are:

  • describe standard methods of measurement,
  • show how to calculate rentable area in office buildings using two possible methods: Method A and Method B. The methods were first introduced in the BOMA 2010 standard, and they have been updated in the 2017 standard.

To calculate rentable area, the document utilizes a few terms that are not part of the basic Archibus space vocabulary, such as Base Building Circulation, Occupant Area, and Service and Amenity Areas. However, you can use Archibus to calculate rentable area according to BOMA 2017 by mapping the BOMA 2017 terms to Archibus terms, and then performing calculations in Archibus. See  Mapping BOMA and IFMA Terminology to Archibus

BOMA 2017 supports rentable exclusions, which is a category of space that is within interior gross area but excluded from rentable area. For example, areas such as occupant storage areas in the basement, a “public colonnade”, and parking are considered to be rentable exclusions. With BOMA 2017 both rentable exclusions and vertical penetration categories are excluded from rentable area.

Notes  

  • Beginning with Archibus V.24.1, Archibus supports the BOMA 2017 methods. The BOMA 2017 A and B Methods replace the BOMA 2010 A and B Methods.
  • BOMA 2017 uses the Area Rentable BOMA and Rentable Exclusions database fields to store BOMA-specific values.
  • https://boma.org/boma-standards/floor-measurement-standards/ | Office_Buildings  - Any vertical penetration area on the lowest level can be treated as rentable area, though openings in the floor are not included in rentable area. Therefore, you can assign this type of space a room category that designates it as service area.

Method A - Calculate Rentable Area (BOMA 2017)

One of the goals of Method A is to determine a Rentable Area by proportionally allocating shared Service and Amenity Areas to occupants using multiple load factors: one for each floor and one for shared spaces that serve the building. Method A tends to lower load factors on single-tenant floors; also, load factors are more likely to change when floors are reconfigured.

The following table illustrates equivalent terminology between BOMA 2017 and Archibus for measured spaces and, in some cases, for calculated spaces where the BOMA 2017 and Archibus calculations are equivalent. It also defines the calculations required to arrive at BOMA 2017 calculated spaces.

BOMA 2017 Method A Term Calculated or Measured? Archibus Equivalent (for measured spaces) BOMA 2017 Method A Calculation (for calculated spaces)
Boundary Area (IPMS2) Measured Internal Gross Area
Rentable Exclusions Measured See the table in Mapping BOMA and IFMA Terminology to Archibus. This is a Super Category of “Other Area”, where Calculations Used In is set to “All Totals”
Floor Rentable Area Calculated Int. Gross Area – Total Vert. Pen. Area – Total Rentable Exclusions Int. Gross Area – Total Vert. Pen. Area – Total Rentable Exclusions
Tenant Area (IPMS2) Measured Sum of all room areas that are exclusively used by a tenant. In addition to office space, this can be secondary circulation space or even exclusively used service areas. There are no formal categorizations of this space, other than it doesn’t belong to any other category of measured space listed here. That is, it consists of rooms with categories where the Super Category is either Usable Area or Service Area, it is not prorated, and it is not category TENANT ANCIL.
Tenant Ancillary Area Measured Sum of all room area where the room’s category is TENANT ANCIL. Examples include parts of a corridor system that provide exclusive passage to specific occupants, and interior door setbacks.
Occupant Area Calculated Sum of Tenant Area and Tenant Ancillary Area
Building Amenity Area Measured Sum of all room area where the room category’s Super Category is set to “Usable Area” and room’s prorate is set to BUILDING.
Floor Usable Area Calculated Sum of Occupant Area and Building Amenity Area
Building Service Area Measured Sum of all room areas where the room category's Super Category is set ot "Service Area" and the room's prorate is set to BUILDING.
Floor Service Area Calculated This may be equivalent to a sum of room areas where the room category’s Super Category is set to “Service Area” and room’s prorate is set to FLOOR. Floor Rentable area, minus Floor Usable Areas, minus Building Service Area
Floor Allocation Ratio Calculated Sum of Floor Usable Area and Floor Service Area, divided by Floor Usable Area. This is calculated per floor
Floor Allocation Calculated Product of Occupant Area and Floor Allocation Ratio
Building Amenity & Service Area Calculated Sum of Building Service Area and the product of Building Amenity Area and Floor Allocation Ratio
Building Allocation Ratio Calculated For the entire building, the sum of Floor Rentable Area, divided by the difference between Floor Rentable Area and Building Amenity & Service Area. This is calculated for the entire building
BOMA Rentable Area Calculated The product of Floor Allocation and Building Allocation Ratio
Load Factor A Calculated Rentable Area divided by Occupant Area

Method B - Calculate Rentable Area (BOMA 2017)

One of the goals of Method B is to determine a Rentable Area by proportionally allocating shared Service and Amenity Areas along with Base Building Circulation to occupants using a single load factor. This occurs by using all shared space in the building to arrive at the load factor. Method B tends to increase load factors on single-tenant floors; also, load factors are less likely to change when floors are reconfigured.

The following table illustrates equivalent terminology between BOMA 2017 Method B and Archibus for measured spaces and, in some cases, for calculated spaces where the BOMA 2017 and Archibus calculations are equivalent. It also defines the calculations required to arrive at BOMA 2017 calculated spaces.

BOMA 2017 Method B Term Calculated or Measured? Archibus Equivalent (for measured spaces) BOMA 2017 Method B Calculation (for calculated spaces)
Boundary Area (IPMS2) Measured Internal Gross Area
Rentable Exclusions Measured See the table in Mapping BOMA and IFMA Terminology to Archibus. This is a Super Category of “Other Area”, where Calculations Used In is set to “All Totals”
Floor Rentable Area Calculated Int. Gross Area – Total Vert. Pen. Area – Total Rentable Exclusions Int. Gross Area – Total Vert. Pen. Area – Total Rentable Exclusions
Tenant Area Measured Sum of all room areas that are exclusively used by a tenant. In addition to office space, this can be secondary circulation space or even exclusively used service areas. There are no formal categorizations of this space, other than it doesn’t belong to any other category of measured space listed here. That is, it consists of rooms with categories where the Super Category is either Usable Area or Service Area, it is not prorated, and it is not category TENANT ANCIL or BASE BL CIRC. Note for Method B this is not equivalent to IPMS 3 because Base Building Circulation may encroach on this area.
Tenant Ancillary Area Measured Sum of all room area where the room’s category is TENANT ANCIL. Examples include parts of a corridor system that provide exclusive passage to specific occupants, and interior door setbacks.
Occupant Area Calculated Sum of Tenant Area and Tenant Ancillary Area
Base Building Circulation Measured Sum of all room area where the room category’s Super Category is set to “Service Area” and room’s prorate is set to BAS BL CIRC.
Service and Amenity Area Calculated This may be equivalent to a sum of room areas where the room category’s Super Category is set to “Service Area” or "Usable Area" and room’s prorate is set to FLOOR. Floor Rentable area, minus Occupant Area, minus Base Building Circulation
Load Factor B Calculated Sum of all room areas where the room category's Super Category is set ot "Service Area" and the room's prorate is set to BUILDING. For the entire building, the sum of Floor Rentable Area, divided by Occupant Area. This is calculated for the entire building
BOMA Rentable Area Calculated This may be equivalent to a sum of room areas where the room category’s Super Category is set to “Service Area” and room’s prorate is set to FLOOR. The product of Occupant Area and Load Factor B