Issue specs

Spec books, issue sets, revisions, presentation copies, vendor documents and transmittals.

Issuing specifications

The short way to hand a batch of specifications to the contractor as one PDF, with nobody emailed.

Where A project → Specify → Issue a set…

Issue a set

On Specify, check the items, or set the filters (area, category, status, a search) to the ones you want.
Press Issue a set… on the bar (checked items), or Actions → Issue a set… (the filter's items).
Check the list on New issue set: add or take out items, and look at anything flagged.
Give it a title and press Make the spec book.
The PDF downloads by itself, named for the set (25-113MR.00 Spec Book — Issue 1 — 2026-09-27.pdf); Download the PDF is there too. The page says No one has been emailed.
Upload the PDF to Procore or Autodesk Forma as you would any document.

Email it only if you want to: Send it to… on the set's page takes the addresses, shows the email first and sends only to them.

Every past set keeps its PDF, frozen as it was issued, with Download the PDF beside it on the Issue sets tab and on its own page.

What the issued book carries

A cover with the project, job number, client (on a priced set), the issue and its date, the number of items and your firm, and the furnish/install codes the book uses spelled out.
An index by area: item number, description, furnish/install (OFOI, OFCI, CFCI…), quantity and page.
A page per item: its number and name with the designation boxed at the top right, its area, category and quantity; its picture; the maker, product code, supplier, dimensions, quantity, furnish/install and status (said once); the maker's and supplier's contact cards from the address book (name, contact, phone, email, address); the product's details in its template's order; the specification and description, with the standard requirements under their own heading.
Along each item page's foot: the issue and its date, when the item was first issued and its revision (Rev 2 · Sep 20, 2026).

A long specification carries on to a second page rather than being cut short. Nothing internal is printed: no Last modified, and no screen labels copied in from an old system.

Under In the book on New issue set you can leave out Furnish / install (OFOI, OFCI…), Standard requirements, Maker and supplier or Show maker and supplier contacts (on to begin with). A priced set leaves the maker and contacts out when your firm keeps makers from clients.

Pictures in the book

Each item prints the product's first picture at print resolution. If that picture is too small to print sharply and the product has a larger one, the larger one is used.

Some imported pictures exist only as small previews, such as the 100-pixel thumbnails some spec systems keep. The book prints those small, smoothed rather than blocky, with Low-resolution picture under them. An item with no picture has a small No picture box.

Issue sets

Numbered, dated sets of the specifications, each with its spec book and what changed since the last.

Watch the video · 1:19Issue a spec book

Where A project → Specify → Issue sets

An issue is a numbered, dated set with its own spec book PDF, for the contractor or vendor building from it.

A list of issue sets with their numbers, dates and download links — The Issue sets tab: every set issued, with its spec book and what changed since the one before.

Building a set

A set is chosen and seen before its spec book is made, on the New issue set page. Three ways lead there:

New issue set on the Issue sets tab — empty, or where you left off;
Issue a set… on Specify's bar with items checked — they arrive chosen;
Actions → Issue a set… with Specify's filters set — the items the filter shows arrive chosen.

The new issue set page with items to add and the set's contents — New issue set: add items, check what is in the set and what changed, then make the spec book.

Add items narrows by area, category and status or a search, with Add all matching and a checkbox on each item.
In this set lists what's chosen with its picture, number, area and status, counts by area, and flags what's worth a second look: No picture, Not approved (by the client), and New or Changed since Issue n against the last set of the same kind, with the totals (added, taken out, changed) above the list.
Under The spec book, set the title, a note and what goes in the book: cover, index, furnish/install, pictures, specification text, standard requirements, general conditions, maker and supplier, their contacts, links to the maker — and, for those who see prices, With prices.
Make the spec book freezes exactly the chosen items as the next numbered issue and downloads its PDF. It emails no one.

What you choose is kept for you while you build, so a refresh or a return picks up where you were.

Sending a set

Send it to… on its page, if you choose to, emails the people you type there a link that opens without signing in: the PDF and the addendum, which lists what was added, removed or changed since the previous issue.

An issue set page with download and send buttons — An issue set's own page: its spec book, its addendum and Send it to….

Every issue stays under the project's Specify → Issue sets tab and its PDF on Files, kept to the firm until someone shows it.

Priced sets

A set issued with prices opens only for people who may see prices. A contractor, a Restricted colleague or a client never gets it; it cannot go on a transmittal from someone who may not open it; and a new version of it stays priced.

Contractors see the unpriced sets under Spec sets on their strip.

Revisions and history

An item's revisions, the project's numbered revisions (Δ), and the running log.

Watch the video · 1:19Issue a spec book

On an item

Issue revision raises the revision number, stamps the date, sets the status to Revised and records why.
On the item's History tab, the Revisions card lists the issued revisions, with every field edit folded underneath as N field changes. Once there are any, it carries Compare revisions: two points in the item's history side by side (the original, any issued revision, or now) with the fields that differ.
Notes & history under it is the running log, where anyone can also leave a note. A vendor document named in an entry ("shop drawing received: …") is a link to that document while it is on the item.

Numbered revisions (Δ)

A project keeps numbered revisions of three kinds — Specs, Budget and Finish schedule — each numbered on its own (Δ1, Δ2…; Budget Δ1, Finish Δ1), dated and described. These are the project-first layout's revision lists, in every style.

Where A project → Specify → Issue sets → Revisions (Δ)

They are listed on Specify → Issue sets → Revisions (Δ) (Revisions / Addenda on the project-first Main Menu), where New revision makes one.

A list of numbered revisions with dates and descriptions — The project's numbered revisions: Specs, Budget and Finish schedule, each with its own Δ numbers.

Putting an item in a numbered revision

On the item, press Issue revision. Besides why, it asks which revision it is part of — one of the project's, or the next Specs / Budget / Finish schedule revision, made there and then — and whether it is a Revision or an Addendum.
For several at once, check them and use Mark revised… (Set Revision on Flagged in the project-first layout), which does the same for them all.

The item's own counter still goes up (Rev 3, Δ 3 on the project-first form), and the revision keeps the fields its edits changed since the last one (Changed: finish and fabric, quantity on the Revisions card).

The spec book prints those fields shaded, the Specification or Instructions heading marked revised, and the revision line reads Rev 3 · date · Delta 2 · Addendum (the PDF writes Δ as the word).

An issue set can be a numbered revision too: Numbered revision on New issue set (the next Specs Δ, or one already made), its book's cover carrying it.

The index

Reports → Revision / Addendum index lists every item revision under the Δ it belongs to — date, item, Revision or Addendum, the reason and the fields changed — on the page, as Excel and as a PDF (every report now prints as a PDF too).

Staff only: a client reads an item's revision lines without money fields.

Presentation copies of the book

Where the finished, designed PDF of the spec book lives.

Where A project → Specify → Actions → Spec book PDF… → Presentation copies

The spec book the portal makes is a working document; many firms take the PDF into InDesign and come back with a presentation.

On the project's Spec book page (Actions → Spec book PDF…), Presentation copies is where that finished PDF lives. Upload it with a title, and the whole team (and the client, through Files) works from the same one.

The Presentation copies card on the spec book page, with its upload for the finished PDF — Presentation copies on the Spec book page: the finished PDF, made in InDesign or wherever, kept for the whole team.

Vendor documents

The quote, cut sheet, sample, shop drawing or certificate that arrives per item, approved or rejected.

Vendor documents hold the quote, cut sheet, finish sample, shop drawing or certificate that arrives per item. They are under the specification page's Files tab, with the drawings the item is tagged on; in the tabbed layout, under Attachments. In the project-first layout the card is Vendor documents, below the form.

The vendor documents card of a specification with three approved documents — Vendor documents on the lounge chair: its cut sheet, finish sample and test report, each approved.

Choose the kind, then add the file or drop it on the card.
Anyone who may edit specifications marks it Approve or Reject (with what must change).

Approving a new version of a document (the same kind and title) supersedes the earlier one, and only that one: the chair's cut sheet and its fabric data sheet stand side by side.

Warranty and care

Warranty and Care and maintenance are kinds of their own for what the owner keeps after hand-over. They reach the client as soon as they are filed, with no approval.

Following them up

Expediting shows, per item, what is still awaiting a yes or rejected and due back, and a Documents pending pill lists them (not on an installer's Deliveries).

What the client sees

A client sees the card, as Documents, only when it holds approved cut sheets, samples or drawings or a warranty or care sheet — never a quote, and not while it is empty.

Transmittals

A dated cover sheet for drawings and documents going out, with a link to fetch them.

Where A project → Files → Transmittals

Files → Transmittals on a project is the cover sheet for drawings and documents going out: who it is to, the purpose (for review, approval, construction, record, as requested), a note, and the documents checked from the project's files. Photos are included, under their own heading, for site photos to a contractor.

A list of transmittals numbered T-001 onwards — Transmittals on a project: each numbered, with who it went to and when.

Create transmittal starts one: choose who it is to, the purpose, a note, and check the documents.
The list is frozen on the transmittal (T-001, T-002…), and the cover is a PDF.
Send emails it. The recipients get a link that opens those files and nothing else.

You can only put on a transmittal what you may open yourself — a Restricted colleague is not offered an issue set printed with prices.

A transmittal page with its documents and send log — A transmittal: its cover, its documents and its log.

The log shows when it went to whom, and Send again adds addresses.

The recipient's page has Acknowledge receipt: their name and an optional note are recorded on the transmittal, shown in its log, and the person who issued it gets an alert.

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