Specify

The specification list

Specify: every specification of the project, area by area, with its search, filters, documents and bulk changes.

Where A project → Specify

Specify is the specification list, at its own address (/projects/…/specify); links to the old project page with a filter or a search still reach it. Its heading says how many specifications there are in how many areas and, for those who see prices, what they come to against the budget. The project's details and notes are on the Overview.

Specify on the example hotel: one table per area, with subtotals, the filters and the Actions menu.

One table per area

The list is one table per area, all sharing the same columns so the eye runs straight down the page: picture, item number, description, manufacturer, category, status, F/I (furnish and install — hover the heading: CFCI is contractor-furnished, contractor-installed), quantity and, for those who see prices, the price.

Beside each description, two small tags say where the item really stands:

• its stage with the vendor from Expediting: Acknowledged, Shipped, Installed; Installed, 1 to come while part of it is still owed, and claim open while a damaged or short delivery is being chased;
• the client's latest word from Approvals: Approved, Revise, Awaiting client.

The area headings stay pinned under the bar as you scroll through a long list. An area's heading is the link to its own page (numbers, swatch boards, specifications) and says how many swatch boards it has.

Each area's table ends in a quiet subtotal and the page in one total, both following whatever filter is on. The header line says the same in one breath — $1,437,740 specified of a $1,950,000 budget, or $38,180 shown under a filter.

On a phone each item is a row of a list rather than a table: its picture, the number and price on the first line, the name with its status chips and the quantity under them; each area's total sits on a line under its list. Checking items brings the quick-edit bar up across the foot of the screen, folded to one line until Actions opens it.

Working to a concept

Once the client has accepted a concept (see Concept), a line above the list names it — Working to Concept presentation v2, accepted … — with a link to the deck, so everyone specifying knows which direction the client chose.

Sorting, totals and filters

• Sort by orders each area's items: Item #, Item Name, Vendor, Type, Category or Issue Date.
• Financial Summary (for those who see project money) sets the items shown beside all the project's — how many, what they come to (the budget, where the firm prices nothing), and for those who see margin their cost and profit — against the project's budget.
• The list has a search box, + New specification, + New area, Ask the project AI and an Actions menu.
• A folding Filters panel by Area, Category, Status and Show opens itself whenever a filter is set and remembers that you opened it; the closed line shows what is in force.

The Actions menu

The list's documents: Excel, the spec book, an issue set, pictures, imports and reports.

Actions holds the list's documents, each following the filter in force:

• Download Excel (for those who see prices).
• Spec book PDF… opens the spec book page — see below.
• Issue a set… opens the New issue set page with the filter's items chosen, to check before the book is made; see Issue sets.
• Pictures by item number… takes a folder of pictures at once; see Pictures by item number.
• Import a schedule… brings in a spreadsheet of items (your FF&E or finish schedule, a project directory), with a preview of every change first; see Importing a schedule.
• Schedules… — the project's schedules: the FF&E schedule by area and by trade, the room schedule, the finish schedule by area, the finish legend by material, the lead-time schedule and, for those who see prices, budget against actual by area — each as a page and a spreadsheet.

The Actions menu on Specify: every document follows the filter in force.

Dialling in the spec book

Spec book PDF… opens the spec book page, where you dial the book in before it is built:

• the accent color (presets or any color), a solid band or type-only cover;
• the cover title, subtitle, extra line and issue date;
• what goes in — cover, index, furnish/install, pictures, text, standard requirements, general conditions appendix, maker and supplier, their contacts, web links, prices for those who may see them — and the order.

The filters set on the project page carry through, a rough cover shows as you go, and your choices are remembered on that computer. Then Open PDF or Download.

The spec book page: cover, contents and order chosen before the PDF is built.

Changing several at once

Check specifications and a bar appears for changes to all of them, with Undo.

Watch the video · 1:37Editing specs

Checked specifications and the bar of changes for all of them.

What the bar does

• Status…, Area…, Category…, Quantity… and Supplier… for all of them.
• Copy to area… — the same item again in another area, numbered in that area's habit, with nothing ordered or billed carried across.
• Copy to project… — the same items in another of your projects (a finished job's included), each in its own area there, matched by name or made, keeping its number unless that area has it. Room quantities stay behind, and the result links to the project.
• ⚑ Flag and Clear flag — what prints and goes to purchasing when flagged only is asked.
• Mark revised… across them with one note (it raises their revision numbers; it makes no set).
• Issue a set… — opens a new issue set with these items chosen, to check before the spec book is made.
• Omit.
• Delete… — anything on an order, an invoice or a proposal the client has seen is kept, and the result says to omit those instead.
• Send for approval…, Propose to client…, Request quote… from a vendor, Raise purchase order…, or Build pick list… for a delivery — each only where your role and the firm's modules allow it.

Logged, and undone

Every change is logged on each item. A quantity changed on items already ordered, accepted or invoiced is named in the result, so nothing is left short.

After a status, area, category, quantity, supplier or Omit change, the result line offers Undo for ten minutes: each item goes back to what it held, unless it has been changed again since.

List or Grid

The same specifications as rows, or as picture cards.

Above the specifications, a pair of icons — List view and Grid view — switch how they are laid out.

Grid shows each item as a picture card, area by area: its number and name, maker and category, its status and where it is with the vendor, its quantity and, for those who see prices, its price. Two across on a phone and five on a wide screen. An item with no picture shows its initials on a short band, so the card stays small.

Grid view: each specification as a picture card, area by area.

• The checkbox at a card's corner works the bar above exactly as in the list, and an area's heading keeps its box for all of them.
• An area's own page has the same pair of icons, with the same cards and bar.
• The choice is yours alone, kept on your account for each of Specify, an area's page and the library, and List until you change it. Clients and trades always see the list.
• Viewing as someone else, the icons switch the page for you without saving anything to their account.

A big job

Past 250 items, the rest of the areas wait to be brought in.

Specify draws the first 250 items at once. The areas after that show their heading, how many items they hold and their subtotal, with Show the … items in area to bring them in place.

• Checking such an area's box brings its items in and checks them all, so the bar still reaches every item.
• The totals always count every item, and search and the filters look through the whole job.
• A room's own page does the same past 250 items, with Show all … items.

Areas

Specifications are grouped by area. The area name opens the area page with its numbers, swatch boards, a filtered list and its own Spec book PDF; Swatch board beside it lays the area's pictures out on a new board.

See also Areas and rooms · Swatch boards

Adding a specification

Three ways to start one, adding straight to a room, and what happens when a number is already used.

Watch the video · 1:39Add items from the library

Where A project → Specify → + New specification

Specify on the example hotel: every specification of the project in one list, with Actions and the filters above it.

Three ways to start

+ New specification on Specify offers three ways:

• From the product library — search the library, then either link the existing product (images and all) or copy it as a starting point for the same item in another color or model. The pick fills the description, category, unit and price on screen, each marked from the product and still yours to change. The price is the firm's markup rule for the category applied to the product's cost when a rule covers it; otherwise the product's own sell price.
• Start from a template — the firm's standard text for a product type (Library → Specification templates).
• From nothing — item number, description, area, category, quantity, unit, price, web link and images. A quantity left blank is saved as 1, as it counts everywhere.

The new specification form: from the library, from a template, or from nothing.

When a maker's site blocks reading

Read the page beside the web link fills the item from the maker's page and saves the page as the item's library product. Some makers' sites check for automated visitors (a Press & Hold box) and show the server only the check: the form says so and opens Add screenshots instead.

• Paste screenshots of the page (⌘V or Ctrl+V), drop them in, or choose them — on a phone, from your photos or the camera. Up to five; a spec sheet PDF and the page's text are optional.
• Read the screenshots · 1 AI action fills the description, category and unit, and lists the maker, model, dimensions, materials, lead time and price it read, each marked from your screenshot. A detail not shown stays empty.
• Crop as picture under a screenshot makes the product's picture.
• On Create, the item gets its library product with those details, the web link as its source, and the screenshots attached as the source of its details. With no AI actions left the screenshots are still attached, for you to type from.
• On the clip page the same panel works with Update an item: the item's empty details fill from the screenshots and the screenshots go onto its product.

The full account, with a picture, is in the library chapter: When a maker's site blocks reading.

A library product can also be pushed onto a project from its own page with Add to a project, which offers the project's real areas and prices the item the same way.

Components

An item can be a component of another — a sofa's fabric, a lamp's shade, a bench's strap. On Specify (list or grid) and on a room's grid, components sit right under their primary item, marked ↳.

The primary item's page lists its Components, and a component's page says what it is Part of, each a link.

Adding to a room

Click the area's name on the list: the area's page opens with + New specification in Lobby. The area is set, and the item number is offered in that area's habit — after G-201…G-206 comes G-207; an empty area is offered its first (L-101). Type over it if the room numbers differently.

On the project list the same form takes the area from the area filter when one is on.

An area set up from the brief or under Areas and rooms shows on the list before it holds anything, with the way in; its own page opens with the form ready.

One number, one item

An item number belongs to one item on the project, however it is typed (f-3513 a is F-3513A).

Give a new item a number the project already has — on the form, from the library, from Add to a project, or by changing the number in Edit this item — and a panel names the item that has it (AA-9004-MR is already used in this project by ‘Digital Artwork File @ Headboard WC’, with (omitted) when that item is omitted: its number is still on past sets). It offers:

• Update that item with these details — its empty fields are filled from what you entered, and where both have a value a small side-by-side lets you choose, field by field. The item keeps its history, links and approvals.
• Use the next number — AA-9005-MR, or AA-9004.2-MR where the project already numbers that item's variants with a point; F-3513A → F-3513B.
• Cancel.

Several from the library stops at the first number in use, asks, and carries on from there. Copies in another area or another project never take a number the project has anywhere.

Numbers that were already doubled when they came in (from another spec system or a database; some may be alternates on purpose) are left as they are. Specify says 3 numbers are used more than once — review, which lists just those items, and Settings → Specification fields → Duplicate item numbers lists them project by project.

An import matches a row to the item with its number, spacing and case aside, and brings it up to date rather than adding a second.

Taking one out

Two ways, both on the specification's page and on the list's bulk bar:

• Omit keeps the row with the status Omitted: it drops off the counts, hides under Hide omitted (Filters → Show), wears an Omitted badge on its page, and every document that carries its line keeps it. Put back reverses it, with the status it had before.
• Delete… removes a specification made by mistake for good. The page says first what goes with it (approvals, vendor documents, revisions, tracking; the product stays in the library) and asks again.

See also Editing a specification · Importing a schedule · Clip from a website

Editing a specification

The item is the project's; the library product behind it is the firm's. What each holds and how to change it.

Watch the video · 1:09Write a good spec

Where A project → Specify → click a row

A specification's page: on the left the specification, then its source and what the spec sheet prints; on the right the picture and the order's facts.

Items and library products

Every specification is two things:

• The item is this project's: its number, area, quantity, finishes and size where they differ, price, supplier, notes and status.
• The library product behind it is the firm's, shared by every item that uses it on any project: the maker, model, the library's notes and details, pictures and the library price.

Under the item's edit buttons a line says which is which and how many items share the product.

Under the item's name, On 2 boards (…) · 1 layout (…) · 3 renderings says where it is used in the design work, each a link: the swatch boards it has a swatch on, the layouts it is placed on, and the concept pictures that show it. Each reader sees only what they may open — a client the boards and pictures shown to them. An item on none has no line.

Edit the library product → opens the product with Changes here apply to every item using this product: N items in M projects (Show them lists each, with its project). Where other items use it, choose before saving:

• Change the library product for all N items, or
• Make a copy for this item only — the item gets its own copy of the product, pictures and all, with your changes, and the other items keep the original as it was.

Both histories say so.

What the page shows

The page opens on the Specification: the item's own notes, then the library product's notes and details in template order and its size, with the standard compliance clauses folded under Standard requirements. Headings written as "DESCRIPTION:" read as bold run-in headings.

Under it, the Source card — the maker, the model / product code (what a reorder needs), the supplier and the web link — and On the spec sheet (ship to, drawing #, approvals, LEED). Beside them: the picture and the Order card, the item's key facts side by side (quantity, price, status, where it is, category, furnish / install). Where the item was received, Kept at says where it is. The two columns end close together; everything longer is in the tabs below, which run the page's full width.

The tabs under the specification

Everything else about the item is in one row of tabs across the page under the specification and the picture, each with its count or where it stands:

The lounge chair's tabs under its specification, History open: the revision with Compare, then the running log.

• A tab with nothing in it for you, and nothing you could add, is not shown: a client sees 3D only when there is a model, Files only with documents shared with them, Approvals only once something was asked of them, and never Budget, Tasks, Time or the firm's comments.
• The open tab is in the address (?tab=files), so a link — an alert, the approvals list, the expediting page's document chips, a project's Time — opens on its tab (the tabbed layout's Pricing and Distribution open Budget and Quantities), and Back steps through the tabs you chose.
• Files opens unless the address says otherwise; the 3D viewer loads only when its tab is opened. The small 3D picture on the corner of the main picture opens it.
• Comments beside the title opens Approvals & comments.

Above the title, Item 3 of 18 with its arrows (first, previous, next, last; or the [ and ] keys) steps through the project's list in its order, area by area, without going back to it. Specifications beside them returns to the list.

• With ordering on, the delivery dates sit under Where it is.
• With ordering off, files still go on the item, under Files → Attachments.

The two edit buttons

Drop images onto the page to add them.

Typing amounts

Prices and quantities are typed the way your firm writes numbers: 1,234.50 in dollars, 1.234,50 in euros. The box keeps what you type and tidies it when you leave it, and the extended price follows as you type.

An amount no single line can hold (over $20,000,000) is refused in words rather than saved wrong.

Changing a quantity that is already moving

If the item is already on an order, an accepted proposal or an invoice, saving a new quantity says so first — 2 more to order; a change order records the difference — so the extra units are ordered (Raise purchase order offers them) and billed rather than forgotten.

Orders and billing

A card on the specification page gathers where the item has gone: its purchase orders with what was ordered and received, any open claim, the proposals it is on and whether accepted, the invoices that billed it, quotes and change orders — each a link.

A 3D model

Where the firm has 3D models on, the specification page's 3D tab has the product's 3D model card: make one (Standard or Detailed, each at its price in AI actions), follow it being made, turn it and download it — see A 3D model of a product. The model belongs to the product, so it is on every specification that uses it.

See also Vendor documents · Revisions and history · The Flag

The Flag

A mark kept on each item that says what to print and what to buy next.

Every item carries a Flag (⚑): a mark kept on it that says what to print and what to buy next — the project-first layout's flag, in every style.

Flagging items

• On the item: ⚑ Flag beside Issue revision; it reads Flagged once on.
• In the list: check items and press ⚑ Flag or Clear flag in the bar at the bottom.
• Columns → Flag adds a checkbox column to the list (the Project-first layout shows it first); checking one there saves at once.
• The list's menu (Actions → Flag, or Flag beside Columns in the familiar layouts) has Flag the items shown — every item the list shows with its filters — and Clear every flag.

The list's Flag menu: flag every item the list shows, or clear every flag.

Using the flagged items

Show → Flagged narrows the list to them, and then the spec book and Issue a set… carry only them.

Flagged only is offered where a desktop spec database offered it:

• the spec book (only the N flagged);
• a new issue set (Start from the N flagged items);
• Raise purchase order (Check the N flagged items not yet ordered; in the project-first layout, Build P.O.s from Flagged under Spec Items).

A flag goes in the item's history but is not a revision. Readers see the ⚑ mark; clients and contractors never see flags.

Furnish / install codes

An item's furnish / install (OFOI/OFCI in the tabbed layout, Categ in the project-first layout) is one of these. The spec book spells each out.

Your own fields

The firm's own columns on every specification.

Where Firm → Settings → Work → Specification fields

Settings → Work → Specification fields adds the firm's own columns to every specification. Each has a name, a kind (text, number, date, a choice from a list, yes/no) and whether the spec book prints it.

Specification fields in Settings: each field's name, kind and where it shows.

They appear:

• in the Specification document on the specification page;
• in Edit this item;
• in the project's Excel export;
• when checked, in the spec book;
• with list column checked, as a column on the project's specification list too, where a choice or yes/no field also becomes a filter and the search box matches its values.

On import, a column named like the field (or mapped to it, listed as your field) fills it in. Changes to them are logged like any other edit.

Pictures by item number

A whole folder of pictures, each filed on the specification its name matches.

Where A project → Specify → Actions → Pictures by item number…

Pictures by item number: drop a folder; each file is matched by its name.

Which files are kept

Pictures take JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, HEIC, TIFF or AVIF (and PDF, Word, Excel, DWG, DXF or ZIP as an attachment), up to 50 MB.

A file of another kind, or one whose contents are not what its name says (a program renamed photo.jpg), is listed with the reason and not kept. Receipts and meeting files are checked the same way.

Importing a schedule

A spreadsheet onto the project — nothing is written until you have seen what would change.

Watch the video · 1:38Import a spreadsheet

Where A project → Specify → Actions → Import a schedule…

Actions → Import a schedule… brings a spreadsheet onto the project: an FF&E schedule, a finish schedule, a project directory, or several tabs of one workbook. Nothing is written until you have seen what would change.

Import a schedule: upload a file, paste a link to a Google Sheet or an Excel workbook, or paste cells; then check how it will be read and preview every change.

From a link, or pasted cells

Paste a link reads a sheet kept online, as it stands now, with all its tabs, and goes through the same reading and preview as a file. It takes a Google Sheets link (a link to one tab, with #gid= in it, still brings the whole workbook) and an Excel link from OneDrive or SharePoint. The sheet must be shared so that anyone with the link can view it:

• In Google Sheets: Share → General access → Anyone with the link → Viewer, then Copy link.
• In Excel or OneDrive: Share → Anyone with the link → Can view, then Copy link.
• A work or school SharePoint link often opens only to people in your organization. The page says so when the link asks for a sign-in; download the file and upload it, or paste the cells.

The import keeps the link, and Imports on this project shows where each one came from. Import again from the link there fetches the latest and shows what changed since, row by row, before anything is written: useful when the schedule lives in a shared sheet.

Paste cells needs no sharing, so it suits a private sheet. Select the cells in Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers, headings included, copy them, paste them in the box and press Read the cells. Cells with line breaks come across whole. Pictures in cells come across a paste from Google Sheets in the browser: each picture's web address goes in its cell, and the picture is fetched when you import. From desktop Excel or Numbers they don't (those apps keep them as files on your computer, and the page says so); upload the file to bring them.

Pictures

Every picture in the file comes with the import, whichever way the file came in. The preview counts each row's pictures, and each tab says how many it has and of which kind, before anything is written. These come through:

• pictures over the cells (Insert → Pictures, or pasted onto the sheet), on the row their top-left corner is in;
• pictures placed in a cell (Excel's Insert → Pictures → Place in Cell, and cell pictures from WPS Office);
• =IMAGE("https://…") in a cell, from Excel or Google Sheets: the picture is fetched from its address;
• a web address in a picture column (Image, Picture, Photo, Image URL…, or any column of pictures' addresses): fetched the same way.

A row's pictures all go on the item's library product, first, in the row's order (up to 12 a row); the same picture is never added twice, so importing again adds nothing it already has. An import fetches up to 300 addresses; one past that, or one that does not load, is kept on the product with Try again there.

These don't, and the preview says so: a picture linked to a file on the computer the workbook was made on (Excel's Link to File), which is not in the workbook at all; and any picture in a CSV, which holds only text.

From a link: an Excel workbook on OneDrive or SharePoint comes as the file itself, so its pictures come as an upload's do. A Google Sheet comes as Google's own download of it, which keeps pictures over the cells and =IMAGE(). Pictures placed in cells of a Google Sheet don't always survive that download; if a picture column comes through empty, the preview says so. Then put each picture's web address, or =IMAGE("https://…"), in its cell and read the link again, or paste the cells from Google Sheets in the browser.

Other layouts and the AI

A file made from the template is read straight away, for nothing. A file laid out like one you imported before is read the way you confirmed then, also for nothing. Any other layout is read from its headings.

Read it with AI reads the layout properly — which tab, which rows, what each column holds, how cells are written (a maker's card, "TBD", "OMITTED") and any "200's: Lobby" list of areas by number. It costs the AI actions shown on the button (usually 1 per file, given back if the read fails).

The AI reads the layout once; every row is then taken apart the same way, so what the preview shows is exactly what is imported. Where the AI is unsure it asks, under the reading.

What the preview lists

• new items;
• items the file changes (each change, before → after);
• numbers that now name something else — the item gets its own new library product; the old product, and any other project using it, is left as it was;
• items the file omits, and rows with nothing to make;
• the project's items the file does not mention (left as they are);
• the people it brings;
• any problems — a number used twice in the file comes in under the next free number, and says so.

What the import does

• The file wins for what it says; a library product another item shares is copied for this item before it changes.
• Pictures in the file go on each item's library product at full size, first (see Pictures).
• A row with no number under an item (the stone of a credenza's top) is part of that item.
• Notes columns are kept on the item's history for the firm only; a Notes column in the template goes into the item's specification.
• Makers' reps and the directory's people go into your address book (people already there are matched, never duplicated, and only their empty details filled); the directory's people join the project team; your own firm's people are left out.
• Money is read only from someone who may set it, and with Pricing off only as a budget.

Also look up the links

Also look up the links (a checkbox in the preview, off at first) reads each item's product page after the import, the same way Look it up from a link does, for what the file left empty: the model, the maker, dimensions, materials and finish, a list price as the MSRP, a picture where the row had none.

It never changes what the file said, and reads a custom piece's link as the design reference it is (nothing filled). A page behind a sign-in, a vendor's home page or a page about something else fills nothing and is listed with the reason. Each page read is an AI action.

Undo

Undo this import, on the same page for 30 days, takes the whole import back — or just its look-ups. Values the import wrote go back to what they were; the items, products, areas and cards it made are removed; anything a person has changed since is kept.

The template

Download the template (.xlsx) on the page gives a workbook laid out the way the import reads without being told:

• an Items tab with the importer's own headings — Item # and Name needed, one item per row, pictures pasted into the Picture cell, OMITTED in the Name to omit an item, drop-downs for the unit and furnish/install;
• a Contacts tab for the project team;
• an Instructions tab.

Its money columns follow what you may set: none without project money, Budget each when the firm budgets, cost and markup for those who see margins. Importing a filled template needs no AI.