Specifications and the spec book

The specification is the unit everything else is built from: it becomes the proposal line, the purchase-order line, the item being expedited and the line on the invoice. So it is typed once, well, and never again.

The Specify tab: the project’s header and tabs, then its specifications by area with pictures, quantities and prices — A project’s specifications, by area, with pictures, quantities and prices — under the project’s own header and tabs.

Three ways in, none of them retyping

A new specification comes from the product library (link the product, pictures and all, or copy it as a starting point in another finish), from one of the firm’s templates, or from nothing. A web clipper brings a vendor’s product page across — title, description, picture, address — in one click; on a phone, pasting the link does the same.

Revisions that hold up in a dispute

Issue a revision and the number goes up, the date is stamped and the reason recorded. Compare revisions puts two points in the item’s history side by side with the fields that differ. Every edit in between is kept, folded under the revision it belongs to.

Issue sets, with the addendum written for you

Freeze the specifications that match the current filters as a numbered, dated set with its own spec book PDF. Name the recipients and each gets a link that opens without signing in: the PDF, and an addendum listing what was added, removed or changed since the previous issue.

The spec book, and the presentation copy

The portal’s spec book is the working document, in your house color. Firms that finish theirs in InDesign upload the presentation copy beside it, and the whole team — and the client — works from the same one, with the history kept as new editions go up.

Drawings with pinned tags, sent as transmittals

Drawings carry pinned tags that point at the items on them. When a set goes to a contractor or consultant, a dated transmittal records who, what and why, with a link they fetch the files from — no attachments hunting through email.

Takeoffs by room type, and your own fields

Quantities come from a room-type takeoff — what goes into each room type, per room and extended. And when your firm tracks something the portal does not, add your own fields: they appear on the page, in the book, in Excel and as list filters.

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