Financial summary and NBS Chorus small works

When specifying on small works projects where the contract does not support the use of bills of quantities then it can be useful to create a financial summary based on the content of the specification (see article on our website for further reading).

This financial summary can be used for a number of purposes.

• Prior to tender - to break down any cost estimate to the client
• Prior to construction - to compare tenders
• Prior to completion - to assess valuations and as a base of agreeing the price of any variations

Figure one shows how to generate a Financial Summary from NBS Chorus:
(Click the images below for larger versions)

Figure 1 - Generating a Financial Summary from NBS Chorus 

In Figure 2 below, it can be seen that each section in the specification is listed as a row in the exported spreadsheet. The total value at the base of the spreadsheet automatically adds the values of each row.

Figure 2 - The Financial Summary

A second worksheet is also produced with a list of all clauses in the specification. Any of these items can easily be copied across to the main worksheet if costs need broken down at a finer level - for example of plastic and timber windows need priced separately within L10.

Figure 3 - a list of all content

And finally, great to see some positive feedback immediately on social media for this development. The screenshot below shows how Jeremy Foster takes this exported information and copies it straight into his template for managing costs on his small works projects.

Figure 4 - Further manipulation of the spreadsheet in post processing

To read more about NBS for small works please see the links below:

• NBS Chorus for Small Works
  https://www.thenbs.com/nbs-chorus/small-works
  
  
• J FOSTER ARCHITECTS - small practice case study
  https://www.thenbs.com/knowledge/customer-success-story-j-foster-architects
  
  
• Mulroy Architects - moving from Scheduler to Chorus
  https://www.thenbs.com/knowledge/mulroy-architects-moving-from-scheduler-to-chorus

NBS usage by smaller practices

Up until now the majority of NBS Chorus case studies have been featuring larger practices. Practices such as Maber, Ryder, AHMM, BDP, Franklin Ellis... large practices working on big projects.

However, since the launch of NBS Chorus Small Works a few months ago, we're now seeing smaller practices use this tailored package to make it work for them.

The Small Works version of Chorus makes use of a selection of the CAWS work sections from the trusted minor works and intermediate SpecWriter/Building libraries. Perfect for works of a less complex nature, but utilising all of the power of the Chorus software platform. You might not be able to write a performance spec for a curtain walling or green roof package whilst on a design and build project - but most small projects don't need these.

Our small works case study features the practice J Foster. Find out more about J Foster's experience in the full case study at the URL below. Some selected screengrabs and quotes in this blog post.

- https://www.thenbs.com/knowledge/customer-success-story-j-foster-architects

A list of work sections with pre-written specification clauses and guidance

 

Specifying manufacturer products prior to tender

A published PDF record of the various revisions of the specification

Manipulating the content to produce a priceable spreadsheet with highlighted items

Integrating the specification with 3D model to ensure all information is coordinated

Issuing drawings and schedules knowing they are fully coordinated with specification

Please read the full case study and listen to the interview on youtube.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlBZjtByFj0

...and to finish with a couple of quotes:

Working on a Mac
"The way I work, is that there is a desktop PC in the studio and a Mac at home and I have been able to work pretty fluidly and seamlessly between the two. This is a major difference from how I used to work with NBS Building which was PC based and work could only be carried out in the studio space."

How a good specification can be more important for a small practice than large
"For small practices, although the jobs are smaller, there is a lot more risk as you are doing a lot more yourself. So what I learned from when I worked at a big practice is the true power and risk reduction through management of a project through a specification. For a small practice environment it’s even more crucial. It is your safety net, it allows you to deliver projects to a level of quality whilst protecting yourself. Making sure everything is included and priced."

Free RIBA Contract Administrator Forms for use with RIBA Building Contracts

RIBA and NBS have published free Contract Administration Forms for use with the RIBA Building Contracts.

RIBA Building Contracts can be generated using the NBS online tool or bought in paper version from RIBA Bookshops. There is a Domestic version and a Concise version that may be used for residential and small commercial projects.
- ribacontracts.com

The screenshots below explain the process...

Generate your project-specific building contract online with the help of NBS guidance and suggested values

Generate a professional-looking PDF contract for the client and the contractor

Follow the link to download free useful forms and letters

A number of essential forms may be downloaded for either contract

Professional-looking Contract Administrator form, authored to work with the corresponding building contract

These free forms are the latest offering in an effort to provide for the whole industry.

On the smallest of jobs, a construction professional may use NBS Domestic Specification and the NBS RIBA Contracts service through their web browser on a pay-per-project basis. They may use tools like the NBS BIM Toolkit, National BIM Library and free forms and templates from RIBA Job Book and these contract administration forms for free.

On the largest of jobs, in addition to free resources, subscription services such as NBS Create and NBS Contract Administrator may be used to create efficiencies and reduce risks.

Think BIM Leeds – Half Day Conference – BIM and FM

One of the regular BIM conferences I attend is the fantastic quarterly Think BIM event. It’s a pleasure to chair as the quality of speaker is so high and the variety in activities is always of interest.

Deborah Rowland – Ministry of Justice
The first speaker at this July event looking at BIM and FM was Deborah Rowland who is Head of Property Asset Management for the Ministry of Justice and Government Soft Landings (GSL) Lead. Deborah talked about how at an early stage in any project the operational costs should be considered and not just the capital costs. What is a client’s requirements in terms of annual cost to run the building? In terms of GSL, the key elements moving this forward are:

• A stewardship group and individual champions of the initiative
• Ensuring wider-industry adoption and supporting academic research
• Reviewing projects to demonstrate the benefits
• A continued focus on standards such as PAS 1192-3 and the incorporation of GSL in BS 8536
• To have one eye on Level-3 BIM

When considering the state of FM for BIM in July 2014 the benefits and challenges are as follows:

Benefits

• Improved tender accuracy by using collected information from previous projects
• Early engagement of FM professionals in a project provides a better outcome
• Designing for the whole life cost of the building and not just the construction
• The ability to visualise and plan operations via the model

Challenges

• Ensuring digital information is contractually delivered
• The enormous task of “what to do with existing estates?”
• Keeping a digital asset information model up to date

The strap line on Deborah’s last slide was “BIM + GSL = Better Outcomes”

Rowlands - FM will keep the BIM data alive

Jon Chown – Skanska Facilities Service
The second speaker was Jon Chown a director at Skanska. Similarly to Deborah, Jon looked at the challenges the industry faced. He listed these as:

• FM not being involved in the design process
• The quality and structure of information at handover
• A lack of digital data capture during the operation of existing buildings
• A lack of a structured post operations investigation (POI) survey data feeding back into the next design

The challenges are not a technology issue, but a quality of information issue. “Put rubbish in and get rubbish out”.

Jon’s suggestion was that the industry needs to firstly get the data right and then look at the technology. Where Skanska had seen successes over recent years were:

• Through creating standard Skanska-wide templates for information collection for all projects
• Through giving asset operational information back to the design teams
• By encouraging collaboration across all of the organisation
• By implementing standard processes

The presentation demonstrated that no Government mandate for BIM is necessarily needed for private sector work. The private sector will see the benefits and roll out a BIM process regardless. Reflecting on this personally, I think this is true, but having a common process defined centrally means that there is commonality across organisations and not one process and set of standards for organisation 1 and another for organisation 2.

Skanska is an organisation where BIM has been mandated by its board in Sweden on all projects world-wide. The biggest technology they currently see is a lack of interoperability between different software packages. However, “even with the best technology in the world, if you don’t have the information you have nothing”.

Jon’s final thoughts were:

• When an organisation adopts BIM they must accept that they are going to change their processes and information structures
• Sort out process and information first then get the technology to fit your requirements. BIM is 10% technology, 20% process and 70% people.

Chown - a familiar theme - "The most important word in BIM is Information"

Roundtable 1 – Peter Barker, BIM Academy

The roundtable discussions are a particularly engaging part of the Think BIM conferences. The first of these I attended was hosted by Peter Barker MD of BIM Academy.

Some of the notes from this roundtable included:

• A big problem, even when FM people are included early on, is that current procurement is about contractors delivering projects with clear objectives about reducing construction costs. This means the focus is all about capital expense with operational expense and client outcome suffering.
• The thoughts around the roundtable were that if some incentive was there in the procurement process to reward better design and a focus on client outcomes then this would help the “FM and BIM” issue. “The thinking behind GSL is great, but it needs some teeth”.
• The importance of structured information in a standardised format was mentioned again and again during the day. The standards and guidelines are complete, but what is missing is standard product templates, a unified classification system and the ability to use this construction language to define who is doing what and when.
• There was some interesting discussion as to how much information is needed for FM. Is it just the 20% of the federated BIM that is needed for weekly/monthly operation and maintenance? Or is it 100% of the information so that when the building is altered or refurbished then the work can happen efficiently and the existing spaces can retain their original performance?
• There was also some good discussion about how much information should be geometry? How much should live in property-sets? And how much should be in linked PDFs? Equally, when considering property-sets, how much of this should be in the design models (ArchiCAD/Revit) and how much in external databases?
  (All great debate – leave your comments at the bottom of this blog post if you have an opinion…)

Peter Barker leads the discussions

Roundtable 2 – Paul Connell, Open Data Institute

For my second roundtable I changed topic a little and sat in on a session on “Open Data” with Paul Connell and Matt Edgar.

The open data initiatives are now being used every day. Weather and travel apps use open data. When someone searches for cinema listings using Yahoo, Bing or Google then results are returned using common open documented data structures.

The thinking is that many more people benefit if data is open, there is more innovation and those organisations contributing to the open data initiatives receive more back than they put in.

Two good examples were discussed:

1. The Open Street Map initiative (see video below) and how it was used during the Haiti earthquake to mark up real-time information about access routes and the location of utilities. If this information was all controlled by an private organisation in a proprietary format then this would not have been possible.
2. The Metro timetables – an organisation such as this can put their data online and then the market (big software companies or hobbyist programmers) can compete to produce the best apps for this market. The Metro organisation benefits as their services receive free promotion and free functionality.

The UK Government’s freedom of information initiatives were particularly well received. In particular the push to provide PDF, XML, information at the data.gov.uk website. The more public information that is open and well-structured then the more information that will be at the public’s finger tips to ensure that the correct top-level decisions are made and justified.

With respect to construction, it comes back to what is the user requirement? What information do people need? This all ties into the level-2 BIM strategy, structure the information in a standard digital way, then start collecting it, then query it to answer the information requirements.

Duncan Reed and Deborah Rowland share a room for their respective round tables

Final thoughts

The day then finished with an international presentation on buildingSMART, COBie and Data Dictionaries followed by Pecha Kucha presentations. One of these in particular was particularly engaging with a live demo of taking physical information to digital through laser scanning.

If I was going to take three points out of the day, they’d be:

1. A client must not select a process that focuses purely on the capital cost and project duration at the expense of outcomes and operational costs.
2. The quality and value of structured information comes as priority number 1. Technology and software is there behind this to support.
3. When designing a building, the standardised information from the operational phases of previous buildings must be utilised.

Nice to see the NBS National BIM Report getting presented back to the UK from the USA by the international speaker

From physical to digital - a live demonstration of laser scanning

The participating countries in the buildingSMART Data Dictionary Pilot

It's not all work, work, work - beer and BBQ time to finish

Final thoughts on RICS BIM Conference

Some quick thoughts and quotes from the RICS BIM Conference today.

Paul Morrell:

• In terms of the cost and carbon situation:
  "BIM may be the paddle that gets us out of shit creek"
• When asked to deal with cost and carbon at the same time:
  "If you cannot ride two horses at once, what are you doing in the circus?"
• Why we need collaboration and not an adversarial culture in the construction industry:
  "I could have retired at 27 if I could have the time back that was spent arguing"
• Looking at how businesses need to adapt:
  "Not one manufacturer of radio valves now makes micro chips"

Mark Bew:

• On Level-2 BIM:
  "We move from just 3D geometry to 3D geometry AND the information behind it"
  "In terms of contract currency, 2D information generated from the models is fine for Level-2."
  "Nobody is doing Level-3. Level-2.9 is best I've seen"
• Looking at plans of work:
  "Plans of work need to define outputs. The data drops. What data does the client get and when?"
• And in terms of bringing the majority of the industry up to Level-2 BIM:
  "The good news is that we set ourselves 5 years. The bad news is that we have already used 1 year up."

Simon Rawlinson:

Forget the Bew-Richards Maturity Model, check out what may just be named the Rawlinson-Coffee-Cup-Diagram. From Level-0 2D cup with no info all of the way to Level-3 cup complete with multi-colour post-its :)

A nice SWOT analysis too - I'll try and grab the slide.

National BIM Report 2012:

I presented the findings from the National BIM Report. Some nice tweets afterwards too - I hope people are finding it a decent document.

Also, great to have the likes of Simon Rawlinson, Brenden Patchell and Bryan Arscott all commenting very favourably about the National BIM Library project.

Chris Millard:

Some real fantastic things from Balfour Beatty here. The iPad augmented reality live demo. Also the photographs of the project team all gathered around a huge screen showing the BIM in the Balfour Beatty "BIM Cave".

Watching a model develop in parallel to the actual construction so that progress can be modelled and an as-built set of information be developed was great.

Brian Arscott:

Brian from John Lewis Partnership showed their ambition as an intelligent client with a "can do" attitude. "The big question is, when can we model our entire estate?"

Nice slide about how BIM is about reducing risk...

RICS BIM Conference

Today I am presenting the National BIM Report 2012 at the RICS BIM Conference. The presentation will look at the findings and some of the comment pieces and then I'll explore what RIBA Enterprises consider the "I" in BIM to be.

One thing that worked out quite nicely in terms of preparation was a set of questions I was emailed by an MSc student Candi Brown regarding a study into BIM and the Quantity Surveyor. Some of my thoughts below:
Update: Anybody that would like to help with this research please email:
Candi.Brown [at] uk.rlb.com

1. What still needs developing with BIM software in relation to QS tasks such as quantity take offs and automatic costing?
Quantity take off works well for the major materials such as concrete blocks or plasterboard. Automated costing is not as simple due to rules of measurement, for example a 4m-high x10m-wide brick walls cost less to construct than a 10m-high x4m-wide.
So there must be an intelligent interpretation of this data.
Also, costing is clearly much more than just the cost of construction in pounds and pence. It is also the environmental costs and these costs through the building's operation too.

2. What are the main benefits of using BIM for QS’s?
In terms of meeting with QSs involved with BIM that we have talked to, I’d say:
a. The ability to automatically take off quantities as opposed to measuring from plans and elevations.
b. The ability to link in-house cost databases to the elements in the BIM. This allows cost estimations to be more rapidly developed.
c. Basic collaboration and sharing of information. Through BIM, the design team are forced to make design decisions earlier – the cost consultant can then receive this information in a very understandable format and then advise on the implications of these decisions.

3. What are the main threats/opportunities to the QS?
The threats, to any construction professional, are mainly from “staying still” for too long and not adapting to change. Are there any practices still using drawing boards and typewriters?
Another threat is potentially from overseas competition. The UK cannot afford to stay still in an increasingly competitive global market. Clearly this is an opportunity too.

4. Is there any room for the future for Quantity Surveyor to get involved in adapting the BIM model themselves, for value engineering etc., and that this may be a skill that will be required of the future QS?

The BIM software packages used on a project, whether dealing with geometry, specification or cost must allow for the work flow you describe. What is clearly important though is for each consultant to agree the process and for change management QA processes to be put in place. Clever software and well-structured data are crucial, but skilled people and a defined process are also required.
A QS has traditionally contributed in many ways to the specification process, so there is no reason why this should decrease in any way with the adoption of BIM.

5. Could the QS play a lead role as BIM Co-ordinator/Manager?
I’m interested as to how long the word “BIM” will continue to be used. 5 years? 10 years? Eventually BIM will simply be the way people work on construction projects. Like a CMS is used to manage the production of a magazine or a website. Could a QS play the lead coordinator/manager role on a construction project? Of course. In 10 years’ time, will there be a contract role that is the “BIM Manager”? I don’t think so.

6. Which stage of the construction process is there scope for the QS to gain the most benefit out of using BIM?
The biggest chance to influence financial or environmental impact cost is as early on in the project as possible when the desired outcomes, performance specifications and the budget is being set. Post construction, there is an amazing opportunity now to take the actual information in digital form – estimated costs, actual costs, project duration and then feed this back into in-house systems so that lessons are learned and the next project is even better.

7. Are there implications for QS fees as a result of BIM? 
Consultants must be paid for the value they add to a project. If a construction project comes in for a lower price, if the yearly operation costs of a building are less, then the consultants must be rewarded accordingly. So fees should not reduce for those embracing BIM and bringing more to the table.
However, where standardisation is possible with repeat work of the same client, then fees may come down. But this will be “win for all” as everyone will benefit through increased profit margins.

8. What do you think are the key barrier(s) to the uptake of BIM for Quantity Surveyors? 
Same reasons people didn’t want to change from typewriters and drawing boards in the 1980s. Fear of change. Reluctance to invest in training and technology.
Businesses evolve through leadership from the top and through encouraging staff to push ideas from within.

9.  Are there any good QS case studies on BIM?
We have a number of industry-wide case studies on theNBS.com/BIM – a good cost consultant one is Dick Barker from Laing O’Rourke. We have another case study from John Lorimer (Manchester City Council – intelligent client) which will also be of interest.

- http://www.thenbs.com/topics/BIM/articles/

NBS Create - Prelims, Project Management and Costs

All of my blog posts to-date on NBS Create have been on the creation of a project specification and the functionality surrounding this. However, as with NBS Building and NBS Scheduler, NBS Create also allows the creation of contract preliminaries.

The first improvement with NBS Create is that sections may be added to your job prior to knowing what construction contract will be used. The screenshot below shows the New Job Wizard and sections such as "Project definition", "Works terminology" and "Works contract procurement" that are selected for addition from the start.

Fig 1 - New Job Wizard - sections common to all construction contracts

With the section editor, the experience is familiar to existing NBS specification users. A number of pre-written clauses are presented to the user and these can be completed with the assistance of technical guidance and suggested values.

Fig 2 - Section editor

Assistance is given to the user when selecting a contract. In the example in the screenshots below, the user has specified that the job is for a commercial client, in Scotland and there are contractor design portions. They are then offered a selection of contracts appropriate to this work.

Fig 3 - Assistance with selecting of the contract

Fig 4 - Relevant contracts are presented to the user

Once the contract is selected, all relevant sections are highlighted for addition to the job. The user may unselect any sections that they do not wish to add.

Fig 5 - The sections that are relevant to this contract

Another screenshot is included below to show the improved section editor from within NBS Create. All existing prelims behaviour is supported such as excluding clauses, adding user clauses, synchronised guidance and drop down suggested values. In addition to this, it is possible to quickly report on all reference documents and also it is easy to add office guidance notes and office drop down suggested values.

Fig 6- Completing the contract preliminaries and project management sections

One improvement with NBS Create that we believe will be very well received is the ability to include both project management sections and specification systems within the same document. This allows the project team to work on a combined single document. The screenshot below shows the content for the job all together. An advantage of this is that the cost consultant can see exactly what the design intent is for all of the systems in the job. This will help with team-working and also building-up informed cost estimations from an early stage. In addition, a single coordinated specification for the job can easily be published.

Fig 7 - Specification and project management content in the same document

At any time, the systems from within the job may be exported to a spreadsheet for use in the free Cost Tracking tool. The screenshot below shows an example export. The cost consultant is adding estimated costs against these systems based on the early outline descriptions provided by the designers. This tool may be used throughout the design phase and then the spreadsheets can be compared to perform a tender or a budget cost analysis.

Fig 8 - Costing the systems from the specification

NBS Create is launched next month with Engineering Services content. I'll continue to do monthly blog posts. If anyone has any topics they'd like me to cover - please add a comment to this article.

For all previous articles on NBS Create click the "NBS 2012" label.

To join our Beta Testing Program and help us develop this product, please see:
- http://www.thenbs.com/support/betatesting

NBS Domestic Specification - Coming Soon As An Online Product

Two or three years ago RIBA Enterprises published NBS Domestic - a loose-leaf paper specification for use on small domestic projects. This has been very successful, but feedback from specifiers has been clear that this should be an electronic product.

I am very excited to be able to say that an electronic version of this is now only a few months away from launch and is now undergoing beta testing.

NBS Domestic Specification is an internet application and will therefore work on pretty much any platform... PC, Mac or even Apple IPad. I cannot say too much for now - but please find some teaser screenshots below and keep tuned to this blog for more information over the coming weeks!

Sign in to NBS Domestic within your web browser and click to create a new specification

(click image for larger view)

Select your contract particulars and work sections

Edit your NBS specification with synchronized guidance and drop down suggested values

Publish your finished specification to PDF

Journal Article - NBS Specification Software Enhancements

A copy of the article I have written for the up and coming NBS Journal is below.

The NBS Journal contains specially-written articles on specification, and is available twice a year. The current edition and all previous NBS Journals are available to all as PDFs from the NBS website.
http://www.thenbs.com/resources/journals/

NBS Building, Landscape and Engineering Services Software Improvements

The recent 2010-1 update of NBS Building, Landscape and Engineering Services includes a number of significant software enhancements, following over a year of development work. Head of NBS Software Development, Dr Stephen Hamil, presents these in this article.

1. Integration between the specification and CAD

At NBS, one of our main priorities is to develop our existing products in-line with our customers’ needs. To prioritise these enhancements to the software we have a number of customer focus groups and we also have a yearly customer satisfaction survey.

One of the most requested features has been to make it easier to annotate a CAD model from clauses in a project specification. The Annotator application is now installed with your NBS software as part of the NBS Tools suite of the software. This application allows you to quickly access the clause number and title from your project specifications when making annotations in your CAD model.

The Annotator application works through copy and paste; this means it will sit alongside any CAD software such as ArchiCAD, Microstation or AutoCAD. Subject to having a valid NBS licence, you can access NBS technical guidance using the Annotator. This allows you to browse the general guidance in work sections at early design stage to benefit from this comprehensive and trusted NBS information.

Figure 1- Using the Annotator from NBS

In addition to the Annotator, it is now possible from within the NBS software to export to keynote format. This allows you to work with project specification keynote references within AutoCAD, Revit or Microstation. Using this method of working, within CAD you can annotate an element type once and then quickly access this same annotation from all of the matching element types within your model.

This work is very much seen as a first step towards further CAD integration and we are currently researching and prototyping methods to take this integration further.

2. Publishing enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to the publishing engine. The way the headers and footers are generated has had a complete overhaul. It is now possible to have mixed styles, a separator line and for the text to grow to fill the available space. This is demonstrated in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2 – Improved headers and footers

Another key improvement to the published document is the ability to clearly indicate how clauses have been revised when re-issuing a specification or a work section. The screenshot below shows two clauses that have been revised, one has been removed and one has been added as new. This helps communicate any changes made to the specification clearly to the other members of the project team. Figure 3 below shows an extract from the re-issued specification.

Figure 3 – Revisions to the specification

3. A new search facility

It is now possible to search NBS libraries, project documents and office standards from within the software. Initially, this is useful when you are creating a specification and do not know exactly where to find the content in the NBS libraries. For example, how many customers know where to find fascias and soffits (G20) or underslab insulation (E20)? This search facility allows you to preview the clause and view the guidance prior to adding the work section to your specification. This search facility can be launched through clicking on the search button on the main toolbar.

In addition to searching for content in NBS you can also search for content in your project specifications and contract preliminaries. Once you have found the clause that you have searched for, double click on it to open for editing in the main software window.

Figure 4 demonstrates the user searching a project specification for a particular manufacturer. It can be seen that all of the product clauses in which this manufacturer is specified are returned and can be quickly previewed. 

Figure 4 – New search facility

 4. Financial summary

For smaller projects without a bill of quantities, it is now possible to publish a financial summary at the back of your specification for the contractors to price. Rather than the contractors providing a lump sum cost based on the specification and drawings, the project can be broken down to allow improved analysis of the tender costs and a clearer demonstration to the client of how money will be spent.

Like the Annotator application, the Cost Tracking application is installed as part of the NBS Tools suite of the software. This application also enables the creation of a spreadsheet to allow costs to be tracked through the construction phase of the project.

Figure 5 displays a tender analysis report generated within the Cost Tracking application. Contractor prices are arranged from lowest to highest against a pre-tender estimate. The variations in costs for each priceable item are clearly shown.

Figure 5 – Tender analysis within the Cost Tracking application

5. Further integration with CIS and Building Regulations

The final major enhancement to the NBS software is the facility to seamlessly link with The Construction Information Service and NBS Building Regulations. If you are a subscriber to these services, you can enter your user name and password once and then immediately click through from the NBS guidance to the relevant technical information.

Figure 6 - External links within the NBS Guidance

Figure 7 - Seamless links through to The Construction Information Service

Larger practices can securely enter a company username and password to these services in their NBS office settings file. All users of the NBS software in the office can then immediately click through and download documents such as British Standards, BRE publications and Building Regulations without the need to log on individually each time.

6. Further information

• Video showing these improvements at: http://www.thenbs.com/update
• Free NBS Tools download: http://www.thenbs.com/nbstools  

2010 Software now with Beta Testers

The NBS Beta Testers now have their preview version of the 2010 software. This will be with customers in March 2010. I'll blog more about each of the enhancements in detail over the coming months, but for now here are some screenshots as tasters...

1. Searching and previewing the clause content of specifications, office standards and NBS libraries:

2. The NBS Annotator, allowing clause references to be easily added to CAD models and schedules:

3. Printing and publishing improvements such as highlighting of revised clauses in the printed document:

4. The ability to add a tender summary and then work with these costs through the construction phase

5. Seamless links to The Construction Information Service - no need to enter username and password each time:

6. Interoperability so that a single project specification can be produced with prelims, building fabric, landscape and engineering work sections:

Update 13 April 2010 - This 2010 software is now being dispatched to all customers. Please note that the interopability work did not make it into this release. However all of the other features did. Interopability will be considered for a future release.