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Developing Locations (Sites, Buildings, Floors)

The first few levels of the ARCHIBUS space hierarchy are Sites, Buildings, and Floors. Space is typically organized by sites, which house buildings, which in turn house floors, which in turn can house groups or rooms. This topic discusses how to develop the first few levels of the space hierarchy.

With these tasks, you can enter new data or edit existing data. When editing existing data, you can use the filter console, located at the top of the view, to limit the display of the locations to only those containing the value you enter in the filter console. For information on the filter console, see Using Filter Consoles

The Define Locations tasks use a drill-down selection list to present the levels of location data. For information on working with this, see Using Drill-Down Selection Lists.

Note: This topic provides general information on developing the space hierarchy. Help topics for several applications that require this background data may link to this topic. The specific fields to complete and Process Navigator tasks may vary for each applications.

Step 1: Develop Sites (Optional)

Sites group together multiple buildings located in a contiguous area, such as a Market Street site that contains three office buildings. If your company wants to report on and organize space inventory according to a buildings located in the same area, you will want to develop sites. If you do not have multiple buildings located in the same area, you likely will not need the site level of the space hierarchy.

To define your sites:

1. In the Process Navigator, choose the Define Locations task. Or, from the Quick-Start home page, select Define Locations from the Building Operations Background Data section of the page.
2. If necessary, review the existing sites by using the restriction console and tree hierarchy to view the list of sites.
3. Click the Add New button and in the resulting pop-up dialog, choose Site.
4. In the right pane, complete the following site information:

• Site Code -- Enter a unique value, such as Market, that describes this site.
• Site Name -- Enter a descriptive name for the site.
• City/State/Region/Country -- Click on the ellipses buttons to choose an existing value, or type a new value into the box.
• Number of Buildings -- Enter the number of buildings located on this site. Note that you must update this value as you add buildings to the site; the system does not automatically update it for you.
• Number of Acres -- Enter the number of acres on which this site is located.
• Site Photo - If your company uses the ARCHIBUS Space Book mobile app, you can complete this field with the name of a bitmap image representing your site. The Space Book app will include this image in site lists that it presents.
• Detail Drawing -- If you are creating a site plan, enter the name of the drawing that houses your site plan, such as acampus-bl.dwg or us-pa-campus.dwg. For information, see Draw Buildings on a Site Plan.

5. Click Save in the upper right corner to save your data.

Step 2: Develop Buildings

To develop your buildings information:

1. In the Process Navigator, choose the Define Locations task. Or, from the Quick-Start home page, select Define Locations from the Building Operations Background Data section of the page.
2. If necessary, review the existing buildings using the restriction console and tree hierarchy .
3. In the tree view in the left pane, select the site in which this building is located. If you are not tracking sites, choose "No Site."
4. Click the Add New button and in the resulting pop-up dialog, choose Building.
5. In the right pane, complete the following fields:

• Site Code -- Will be completed with the name of site that you selected, or with "no site."
• Building Code -- Enter a unique value, such as TOWER
• Building Name -- Enter a descriptive name for the building, such as Tower.
• Address 1/Address 2/Postal Code-- Complete these fields with the street address and postal code of the building
• City/State/Region/Country -- Click on the ellipses buttons to choose an existing value, or type a new value into the box.
• Account Code -- For financial purposes, you may wish to associate the building with an account. Click on the ellipses buttons to choose an existing value, or type a new value into the box.
• Building Contact/ Phone -- Use these fields to document the party to contact concerning the building. For example, you can enter the facility manager in charge of this building; if you lease the building, you might enter the landlord’s name. Enter new values, or choose a value from the Contacts table.
• Building Photo - If your company uses the ARCHIBUS Space Book mobile app, you can complete this field with the name of a bitmap image representing the building. The Space Book app will include this image in building lists that it presents.

You may want to represent your buildings with asset symbols on a site plan (or campus plan), This is particularly useful for working with the Space Book mobile app. For information, see Draw Buildings on a Site Plan.

Step 3: Develop Floors 

Floors are identified by the values of the Building Code field plus the Floor Code field, such as JFK-01 for floor 01 in building JFK.

To develop your floor information:

1. In the Process Navigator, choose the Define Locations task. Or, from the Quick-Start home page, select Define Locations from the Building Operations Background Data section of the page.
2. If necessary, review the existing floors using the restriction console and tree hierarchy .
3. In the tree view in the left pane, select the building in which this building is located.
4. Click the Add New button and in the resulting pop-up dialog, choose Floor.
5. In the right pane, complete the following fields:
• Site Code -- Will be completed with the name of site that you selected, or with "no site."
• Building Code-- Will be completed with the name of the building that you selected.
• Floor Code -- Enter a value for this field that when combined with the selected Building Code will form a unique value, such as 01.
• Floor Name -- Enter a descriptive name for the floor.
• Cost Per Area -- Enter the cost of one unit of this floor, such as the cost of one square foot or one square meter. The Space domain uses this value to internally charge departments for their use of space on this floor.
• Exterior Gross Area/Interior Gross Area -- If you are not depicting your floor in a CAD drawing, you can manually enter the size of the floor in these fields. The Space calculations will use the values that you enter. If you are developing these areas in CAD drawings, the system will complete them with the size of the gross area asset symbols.

6. Click Save in the upper right corner.

If you want to depict your floor in a CAD drawing, see Draw Gross Areas (Space Inventory & Performance).

Step 4: Develop Rooms

For information, see Developing Locations (Rooms)