BIM Viewer Onboarding: Cloud Cataloging of Assets

Archibus V.2022.04 introduced the Catalog BIM Models tool to catalog locations ; Archibus V.2023.01 extends the cataloging functionality to furniture and equipment assets.

For models that are stored in an Autodesk repository (Construction Cloud, BIM 360, Forge) and for which assets are assigned a level, you can now use the Catalog BIM Models command to register your Revit assets in Archibus. Cataloging assets requires that you have first cataloged the rooms housing these assets. The Catalog BIM Models command simplifies onboarding as you work directly from Web Central and do not need to access the Smart Client Extension for Revit.

The Catalog BIM Models task also includes the new Query Model command , which enables you to search the model by Revit properties. For example, in the below image, the user has first run the Query Model command to locate furniture items on Level 1 and then cataloged these items.

With the extended functionality of the Catalog BIM Models task, you can now completely onboard a Revit model -- its building, floors, rooms, and assets -- directly from Web Central. This greatly simplifies the onboarding process.

BIM Viewer: Explore the Space Inventory

Archibus V.2023.01 continues the expansion of BIM Viewer functionality by adding a new Rooms tab for working with the rooms of your Revit model.

In previous versions of the BIM Viewer, you could click on a room in the model and receive the Room Details form, listing vital facts about the room. With V.2023.01, you can now access extensive information about the rooms in your BIM model.

From the Rooms tab, enter a building in the filter and you can select a set of rooms from the room list and see their location on the floor. Click on a room in the model and you access the comprehensive Room Details form for viewing or changing the room's properties, including user-defined fields (the Configure Fields button). For example, the below image shows that the user has selected rooms 1001 and 1003 from the room list and the BIM Viewer has highlighted those rooms on the floor plan. The user then clicked on room 1003 to access its details.

In addition to locating specific rooms and accessing their details, you can highlight rooms in the model by Room Category, Room Type, Division, Department, and Hotelable status by using the Highlights menu.

BIM Viewer: Equipment System Highlights

Archibus V.2023.01 includes improvements to integrating space into your equipment system queries.

BIM Viewer: Search for Assets by Revit Properties

Through the BIM Viewer's filter, you can search a model for assets, rooms, and assets with active work. However, you might encounter situations in which you need to search for assets by their Revit properties, such as their Revit level, category, family, or type. For example, you might wish to find all mechanical equipment that has 220 volts. Searching for by Revit property is particularly useful when you want to find any element in the model, even if the item is not cataloged.

To enable you to search by Revit property, V. 2023.01 adds the Query Model feature to the BIM Viewer. From the Viewer's toolbar, select the Query Model command and complete the resulting Query Model form with the desired Revit properties.

The Query Model command is also available from the Catalog BIM Models task , and is handy for locating items that you might need to catalog.

BIM Viewer: Examine Revit Sheets and Views

As part of your Revit modeling procedures, your site might develop 2D sheets for 3D models. In Revit, you can create a sheet view--composed of project view, schedule, and title block sections--for each individual page of a construction document set. You can then place multiple drawings or schedules on each sheet view. In Revit, you can print sheets or publish them for electronic sharing and review.

If your Revit models have associated sheets, you can now view the model's sheets in the BIM Viewer. You will find it handy to access the 2D sheets in the BIM Viewer without having to move to the Autodesk BIM 360 website in order to see them.

With the 3D model and a 2D sheet displayed side by side in the BIM Viewer, you can interact between the two. Select an element in the 2D sheet and the 3D model highlights the same element; likewise, selecting an item in the model highlights it in the sheet (if it exists in the sheet). For example, the below image shows loading the First Floor Reflected Ceiling Plan sheet, selecting the ceiling in the sheet, and the BIM Viewer highlighting the corresponding item in the 3D model.

Use the ribbon's Sheets & Views command to access the Sheets & Views form, from which you can load sheets associated with the model. In the sample HQ project, the model for building MC10 has associated sheets.

BIM Viewer: Other Improvements

The BIM Viewer also includes these additional enhancements:

• View models from the European Autodesk Construction Cloud/ BIM 360 data center.

• Room labels now hide empty values.

• Equipment Profile shows diagnostic history older than 30 days.

• Faster rendering of models.

• Upgrade to Autodesk Platform Services Viewer v7.81.0.

Improvements to Archibus Asset Data Model

For V.2023.01, we have made additions to the Archibus schema to better support integration with Revit. For this release, these changes are available only in the schema and have not been exposed in the user interface .

The V.2023.01 schema:

• adds flexible, custom attributes for Equipment Standards, without having to add new fields to the Equipment Standards table

• introduces the concept of Archibus Asset Families as parents to Equipment Standards. This enables support of a multi-level asset hierarchy.

• links the BIM Categories table to the BIM Families table, through the Archibus Asset Families table.

• introduces the concept of Archibus Asset Classes, a super-category to Asset/BIM Categories. For example, Archibus Asset Classes will enable you to categorize equipment into Mechanical Equipment, Plumbing Equipment and Electrical Equipment. Asset Classes will be used for out-of-the-box reporting, workflows, and in synchronizing asset logic with other Eptura applications. The data in this table will ship with Archibus and customers will not modify it because it will be used in application logic.

Integration with Vergesense Occupancy Sensors (Proof of Concept) (UserVoice Idea)

We have continued our work on sensor integration by working with occupancy sensors from Vergesense. This integration enables you to analyze the utilization of a floor based on data that the Vergsense sensors record, providing insight into how rooms are utilized for a date and time range.

With integrated sensor data, the IoT Utilization Report enables you to:

• report on the actual, physical utilization of space

• view a “heat map” of rooms by their average utilization percentage, for a date and time range

• track room-by-room average and peak utilization metrics

For V.2023.01, the integration is for demonstration purposes only. We have developed a scheduled workflow rule that can run at a specified time and import demonstration utilization data from Vergesense using the Vergesense API. The data is mapped to rooms on floor NC05-01.

The sample Vergesense data has already been added to the iot_space_util table in the sample HQ database, and can be viewed with the Technologies / Innovative Solutions/ Integrations - IoT/ IoT Space Utilization task.

Workplace: Support for Service Request Questions (UserVoice Idea)

Archibus V.2023.01 upgrades Workplace to include some of the same functionality that is available when you access service requests in Web Central using the Service Desk / Client / Create Service Request task. These improvements include supporting an expanded set of supported documents , and the ability to access and respond to service request questions from Workplace.

From all forms of Workplace -- Desktop, mobile browser, and the Workplace mobile app -- you can now access and respond to questions that are defined for the service request type.

For example, setting up these questions for the COPY SERVICE request type:

results in Workplace displaying these questions when you choose COPY from the Workplace Service Catalog.

Workplace supports the same question types as Web Central's Service Desk / Client / Create Service Request task: Date, Enumerated, Freeform, Integer, Look Up, and Number. It also supports optional and required questions.

The user's responses are stored as XML in the Questionnaire Results field of the Action Items table (the activity_log.act_quest field) and can be viewed in the Description field of the Service Desk / Client / View Service Requests task.

Workplace: Review and Upload Additional Document Types (UserVoice Idea)

As part of our efforts to extend Workplace functionality to match the service request functionality in Web Central, we have improved Workplace so that you can now upload additional document types to your service requests. Previously, you could upload only photos; with V.2023.01, you can upload any type of document that your site has configured in the Archibus configuration file (the afm-config.xml file). You can also download documents attached to a service request.

When performing such tasks as reporting maintenance issues, requesting copy services, and requesting furniture, you will encounter the below screen for uploading files.

When you review a request from the My Requests form, you can download any attached documents, including those documents attached by others. This is particularly handy when you are checking on a reported maintenance problem; you can access documents that the technician might have added to the request while addressing the problem.

The properties of the underlying Request Type determine the number of documents you can attach to a request.

Workplace: See Meeting Attendees

When checking the details of a meeting in Workplace, you can now see a list of other staff and guests who were invited to the meeting. Workplace displays all parties who were invited; it does not report on their acceptance status.

With this change, Workplace better corresponds with the features of Web Central's Reservations Calendar Console, from which you can select a reservation and access the Details command to see a list of meeting attendees and their acceptance status.

Workplace: Search for Meeting Spaces by Room Type (UserVoice Idea)

Workplace's Meeting Space Booking page now includes a Room Type filter. If your site has defined various types of meeting rooms -- such as conference rooms, classrooms, and auditoriums -- you can now search for these specific types of meeting rooms.

Workplace: Wayfinding (Proof of Concept) (UserVoice Idea)

Wayfinding -- guiding people through your space with turn-by-turn navigation -- can help to welcome guests to your buildings and enable employees to find unfamiliar locations.

Integrating wayfinding into your Archibus deployment can have several uses. For example:

• For booked working spaces, employees want directions that guide them to the workspace so that they can easily find the booked room.

• For meetings, employees want directions that guide them to the meeting room so that they can find it and arrive on time.

• For planning purposes, employees want to see the fastest path to a working space that they booked or a meeting that they must attend.

• When Workplace is deployed on a lobby kiosk, building visitors can access routes to locations in an unfamiliar building.

To support these types of scenarios, V.2023.01 integrates Mapsted into Workplace as a proof of concept. On the People & Places page and on the Meeting Space Booking Detail pages for the SRL building, you can use the wayfinding icons to receive point-to-point and step-by-step navigation.

OnSite V5: Compatibility for Non-SaaS Deployment

OnSite V5 is fully compatible with Archibus V. 2023.01.​​

UX features, such as the footer redesign and Eptura rebranding, work with earlier releases.

Archibus non-SaaS customers need to upgrade their Apollo server to V5 in order to use OnSite V5.

OnSite: UX Improvements

OnSite Offline Support: Automatic Data Download

With offline support active for their site, technicians download background data upon opening OnSite for the first time. This way, they have the background data available if they later encounter a situation in which they will not have Internet access. Once the background data downloads, the technician's assigned work requests download. The footer apprises technicians of the download status. As the data downloads in the background, they can browse their work queue and plan their day.

In addition to the background data download at startup, technicians can manually download the background data at any time by invoking the “Prepare Offline Data” action, available from the More (three vertical dots) menu on the Work Request List screen.

OnSite Offline Support: Automatic Data Refresh

Once data is initially downloaded, OnSite keeps the data current by detecting changed data on the server and automatically downloading updates to the technician’s local data.

Refreshing the downloaded data happens in the background and the OnSite footer conveys the refresh status. Technicians can continue using the app to browse their work queue and update requests.

Administrators control the frequency at which changed background data and work request data is refreshed using the System / Mobile Apps Manager / Manage Configurations for OnSite task. Since work request data changes more frequently than background data, managers can set different intervals for each.

In addition to the automatic refresh, technicians can manually pull-to-refresh data at any time.

OnSite Offline Support: UX and Refresh Alerts

When technicians are working offline, they will find that OnSite displays the same pages and work request information as they encounter when working online. While offline, technicians can search and sort the offline data, access their work requests, access checklists, and so on. They can update work requests and the data will be stored locally on their devices.

OnSite Offline Support: Syncing and Conflict Resolution

While offline, technicians can edit their work requests with details about the job; the data is saved locally on their device. Once the technician enters an area where they can access the Internet, OnSite detects the changes and automatically syncs behind the scene. While syncing is in process, technicians can continue browsing and editing work requests, except the request that is currently syncing.

OnSite Offline Support: Configuration

As with other aspects of OnSite deployment, the administrator can control how offline support works across the organization for all technicians. Additionally, individual technicians can control some aspects of operation from their device.

Healthcare is Now Part of the Standard Deployment (UserVoice Idea)

When it was first released in Archibus V.26.2, Healthcare was not part of the standard deployment and required that you run scripts to update the sample data, schema, and home pages with its features.

For V.2023.01, we have integrated the Healthcare application into the standard deployment and it is no longer necessary to run scripts to update the database. The Healthcare application appears on Navigator and receives the benefits of quarterly updates.

Several Archibus applications include healthcare-related fields; these fields are hidden for non-healthcare customers. Administrators can promote or hide healthcare-related fields using the System / Archibus Administrator - Application Configuration / Configure Healthcare Application task.

Out-of-the-box Support for Japanese

For V.2023.01, we have added Japanese to the set of languages that Archibus supports without customization. Simply set your mobile device and Web Central and Smart Client locales to Japanese, and the Archibus user interface will appear in Japanese.

Japanese is supported for Web Central, Smart Client, OnSite, and the Archibus mobile apps; Japanese is not yet available for the Smart Client Extensions for AutoCAD and Revit.

Eptura Rebranding

In October 2022, Condeco and iOffice + SpaceIQ merged to create a new company: Eptura™.

The new brand, Eptura™, represents "the epicenter of the future at work." This brand underscores the company’s ability to accelerate the development of new worktech solutions and enhance the user experience.

Throughout the Archibus V.2023.01 user interface, you will see that the legacy "Archibus" logo has been replaced with "Archibus by Eptura." For example, the Navigator, the sign-in page, online help, and Workplace all use the new logo.

Adobe LiveCycle

Adobe has changed their data integration PDF generation tool from Adobe LiveCycle to Adobe Experience Manager. Existing Archibus views that use the LiveCycle functionality, such as Sustainability & Risk / Health & Safety / Management Reports / Incidents Log , still work. We have not changed these views and their documentation. We will assess integration with Adobe Experience Manager based on customer feedback in our UserVoice forum.

Since Adobe LiveCycle has been replaced by Adobe Experience Manager Forms, we have removed the Technologies / User Interface Add-Ins / LiveCycle Pdfs process and its tasks from the Navigator. We have also removed references to this integration feature from the System Management Help. If you require the LiveCycle integration topics, you can access them in Archibus V2022.03 online help at https://help.archibus.com/system_v2022.03/sysman.htm#wc_views/Adv_Views_Techniques/pdf_forms/PDF_forms_introduction.htm .