Specpoint Help for A/E Users

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Office Masters

Use an office master to use firm-level custom content as the baseline content for your A/E firm's projects, instead of content from the AIA MasterSpec library.

An office master is a custom section/family written to a firm's standard practices. As a custom specification, an office master contains guidelines or standards that are recognized as effective ways to prepare and present project requirements and convey a clear understanding to all stakeholders. Office masters enable a firm to preserve its knowledge and use the firm's best practices to enable success in future projects. Typically, a custom office master builds upon industry guide specifications, such as AIA MasterSpec, and integrates custom families, properties, and requirements.

To use office master content as the starting or baseline content for firm's your projects, you can set up office masters in the following ways:
  • Import as an alternative for an AIA MasterSpec family: Import an office master family to create a custom version of an existing family from the MasterSpec library. This enables you to use existing firm-level modifications to MasterSpec content.
  • Import as a unique family: Import a family outside the MasterSpec library. This enables you to specify proprietary or custom families that are unique to your organization.
  • Import as a new version: Import an office master family as a new version of a published office master family. You can import a new version of an office master that replaces a MasterSpec family or of a unique office master family.
  • Import to overwrite an existing office master version: Import an office master family to replace an existing office master family. This replaces the primary version for the family and deletes existing work items for the family.
  • Create a new work item: Create a new work item based on a MasterSpec family to create a new office master version for that family. This enables you to build out firm-level content based on a MasterSpec family.

Office Master Versions

Specpoint's office master manager enables you to manage multiple office master versions for given family. You can import multiple office master versions and/or create work items based on its MasterSpec family to cater to projects of different project groups, owners, and submission and regulatory requirements. Use the element library to select the primary version for which to apply to your firm's projects.

Importing Office Masters

When you import content from outside the platform, the platform converter reads the imported content based on Specpoint's baseline formatting and content structure. Specpoint converts the eligible content into their respective content items, such as families, product types, parts, articles, paragraphs, and product type properties. The converter enables you to continue working on the imported project content in the same way that you work on content that is native to the platform. Thus, each uploaded file must follow the prescribed file format (DOC or DOCX) and the MasterSpec approved template. In addition, you can use the available features to detect and resolve conflicts in format and structure to ensure that the imported content aligns with Specpoint's assembly-driven approach.

Office master import is almost similar to project-level import. For example, both share a number of conversion rules and mechanics as well as importing procedures. However, these imports have the following key differences:

Office Master Import Project-Level Import
An imported office master family is available in all of your firm's projects. An imported family is available only in the project into which you imported it.
An imported office master family requires publishing before it can be available in your firm's projects. An imported family is readily available in the project after the import process.
Only members of the office master access group can import office master content. Only authors and administrators assigned to the project can import at the project level.
Members of the office master access group can import multiple versions of the same family. Authors and administrators assigned to the project can only import one family at a time.