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Space Book Mobile App

While in the field, at an off-site meeting, or in other situations in which they do not have a laptop connected to the ARCHIBUS database, facility managers, department managers, move managers, and others involved in the space use of a building may wish to access floor plans and building data. For example, a facility manager discussing new HVAC equipment with a vendor may need to know the square footage of the boiler room, a move manager at an off-site meeting may need to know the location of vacant rooms, a department manager while commuting may want to check the rooms assigned to their department.

To enable these users to access facility information when they may not have access to a laptop connected to the ARCHIBUS data, ARCHIBUS offers the Space Book mobile app, which provides staff with quick and easy access to key building data and drawings from their tablet or iPad. Additionally, the app offers tasks for conducting paperless space surveys using mobile devices.

Note: Because mobile users work with floor plan drawings that occupy significant screen space, the Space Book mobile app is designed to be used on a tablet and not a smart phone.

Note: The Space Book mobile app works in conjunction with the Web Central Space Inventory & Performance application. Your site should have a license for this Web Central application so that mobile users can access the space inventory developed in Web Central and update it using the Space Book mobile app.

Users working with the Space Book app will find that it has an intuitive interface and messages to walk you through its use. This topic overviews the Space Book mobile app, and has the following sections:

• Typical Use Scenarios
• Administrator: Prepare the Space Inventory for Download
• Administrator: Enable Staff to Use the Space Book App
• Mobile Device User: Download the Space Inventory to the Mobile Device

For information on the app's survey features, see Conducting Space Surveys.

Typical Use Scenarios for the Space Book Mobile App

Following are some typical uses of the Space Book mobile application:

• Access basic space information -- While in a meeting or in the field, personnel might want to check the details of a site, building, floor, or room. Having the space data immediately available on a mobile device enables users to access this information without consulting a laptop connected to the network.   For any item, they select the Details button to access key data. To find this information, mobile users can search for sites, buildings, floors, and rooms. They can also drill down to more detailed information, such as selecting a building and drilling down to its floors and rooms. The Home button brings them back to their list of sites.
•  Access floor plan drawings on a tablet -- Additionally, personnel may want to access floor plans so that they can check the location of a room, department assignment of a room, egress points on the floor, and so on. Depending on their role in the company and the information that your site tracks, personnel may have access to the following types of plans:

  • Allocation

  • Category

  • Type

  • Occupancy

  • Vacancy

  • Lease

  • Emergency

  • Survey

  • Hazmat

    To see these types of information on the drawing, the user chooses the appropriate plan type from the Plan Type drop down list.
    
    For example, in the above image of the floor plan, the mobile user has selected the Vacancy plan type so that the drawing highlights rooms according to their vacancy status. Note that before you choose a plan type, the drawing displays the first plan type in the list. Once you select a plan type, it stays in effect as you load different floor plan drawings. This is handy for comparing like data on different floors.
    

• Update room information ad hoc -- FM Staff in the field might compare an actual room to its description on the mobile device and note that the Room Category, Type, Standard, Division, or Department information is wrong . They can make changes to the room attribute data by following the same method as field auditors performing a survey, that is, they start an ad-hoc survey on the spot. If they have the permissions to do so, they can close out this ad-hoc survey and update the inventory immediately, right from the field.

• Perform space surveys -- Many sites wish to periodically survey their facility to ensure that the electronic room inventory matches the real-world situation. For example, have personnel on their own combined cubicles into a larger space, converted a conference room into an office use, used an office as storage area? In cases such as these, the electronic inventory no longer matches the actual conditions in the facility. To assess the real-world situation, field auditors visit each room and note any discrepancies with the electronic inventory. They then upload this information to a survey table on the ARCHIBUS server for the facilities manager to view and investigate. After review, the facilities manager can update the official electronic inventory with the needed changes. For information, see Conducting Space Surveys using the Space Book Mobile App.

• Email a floor plan -- An FM staff member may wish to send themselves additional notes on a floor plan or email a condition to a colleague. For instance, in the field they may notice that two rooms have merged and they wish to email a CAD specialist to update a drawing to reflect this change. Or, they may want to email the maintenance manager about a stained ceiling tile indicating a leaking pipe. With the Space Book app, they can send an image of the floor plan in an email message so that the receiver can visualize the rooms they are referring to. For example, suppose you are using an iPad and have the ARCHIBUS floor plan that you wish to send visible on the screen. You press the menu button and the power button to take a picture of the screen, navigate to the Camera Roll in your Photos application, select the photo, and forward it as mail.

The Space Book app works with both transaction-based and non-transaction based room inventory. If you use Space Book with a transaction-based inventory, the data that appears on the mobile device is the data as of the current date (while the server-side transaction data also includes data for past and future dates). If you are using the transaction-based inventory, and if your team uses the Space Book app to make corrections from the field, you may wish to run the Space Inventory & Performance / Space Manager / Transaction Exceptions report. This report shows any future planned transactions, such as moves or space re-allocations, that you should review in the light of this up-to-date information from the field.

Facility Manager: Prepare the Space Inventory for Download

In order to provide the device owner with a complete data set, the facility manager or ARCHIBUS Administrator must prepare the space data for download.

1. Using the ARCHIBUS Space Inventory & Performance application and the ARCHIBUS Web Central and the Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD programs, develop a complete room inventory (not transaction-based) that includes floor plan drawings with rooms defined.
2. If you wish to use the Space Book's campus map feature, be sure to develop a site plan by using the Space Planning & Management / Space Inventory & Performance / Building Performance / Set Buildings command in your CAD tool.
3. Use Web Central or Smart Client to complete the Site Graphic field in the Sites table and the Building Graphics field in the Buildings table. These fields store the bitmaps that appear next to the site and building lists when viewed on the mobile device.
4. Decide which types of plans you with to make available in the Plan Types list by running Web Central's System Administration / ARCHIBUS System Administration / Mobile Apps Manager / Select Plan Types task.
5. Use the Smart Client for AutoCAD or DWG Editor to publish enterprise graphics for the floor plans and store these on the Web Central server.Be sure to enable an SVG-type publishing rule that displays layers that contain all the asset types for the types of floor plans (rooms, suites, hazmat, architectural, egress, and so on) that you wish to make available on the mobile device.

• To enable, disable, or change drawing publishing rules for mobile plans, use Web Central's System Administration / ARCHIBUS System Administration / Mobile Apps Manager / Edit SVG Drawing Publishing Rules task.
• For information on which Process Navigator tasks present these plans and from which tasks you should publish enterprise graphics, see System Administration / ARCHIBUS System Administration / Mobile Apps Manager / Select Plan Types task.

Note: When using the Space Book mobile app, the user will have the option to download the floor plan drawings. The system informs the user how many plans it will be downloading. This number is calculated using number of floors multiplied by the number of active plan types.

Facility Manager: Enable Staff to Use the Space Book Mobile App

To enable the Space Book mobile app for users, a facility must do the following for each user:

• Enable the user to use the mobile app by running the System Administration / ARCHIBUS Administrators - Users and Security / Edit Users task and setting the Mobile Enabled? field for to "Yes."
• Make sure that the mobile users exist in the ARCHIBUS Users table and in the Employees table, and both the ARCHIBUS Users table and the Employees table record the same email address for this user.

• You must assign security groups to the proper roles using the System Administration / ARCHIBUS Administrators - Users and Security / Assign Security Groups to Roles task, and then assign the appropriate users to these roles. For information, see Configuring ARCHIBUS Mobile Applications - ARCHIBUS Administrator. The following security groups are available:
  • SPAC-MOB -- Can access the Space Book mobile app, but these users do not see its survey features.
  • SPAC-SURVEY -- Can access Space Book mobile app, and use its survey features. These users run the Complete Survey action, which posts the survey results for review by a manager. The manager will then update the inventory with the survey results.
  • SPAC-SURVEY-POST -- Can access Space Book mobile app, and use its survey features. These users are authorized to automatically update the inventory tables with survey results by running the Close Survey action. They also have access to the Complete Survey action (described above), if they wish their data to first be reviewed by a manager.

Device User: Download the Space Inventory to the Mobile Device

To get started using the Space Book app, the device owner must download the inventory data and floor plans to the mobile device using the following actions of the Space Book app:

• Download Data. This action downloads the list of Sites, Buildings, and Floors from the server. The action also downloads the Site Graphic and the Building Graphics bitmaps that the app presents in its lists.
• Download Plans. This action downloads the floor plans in bitmap and SVG format. The plans include their thematic highlights and labels so that they are available off-line.

On the server, floor plan drawings as well as the information for sites, buildings, and floors may change over time as facility managers, space managers, and those working with ARCHIBUS on the network update the facility data. Once device owners initially download the data, they should periodically run the above actions to update the lists and drawings on the device with the latest versions from the server. Similarly, CAD users should periodically publish the drawings as enterprise graphics so that they are available for download.