In Unifier, the Space Manager is where you can perform the tasks of facilities management. The Space Manager integrates the AutoCAD® application to provide drawing and modeling capabilities for your architectural, layout, and design needs.
Notes:
- The Space Manager is only available to shells; it cannot be used in the Projects (Standard) node.
- You cannot view .DWF files in Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers. To view .DWF files, use Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Using the Space Manager, you can gather data about the levels in your facility (such as floors and parking lots) and the spaces that exist on each level (cubicles, offices, conference rooms, etc.). Each level is supported by an AutoCAD® drawing. You can enter individual spaces into Unifier, or directly onto an AutoCAD® drawing and classify them into categories (such as common areas, or usable space) to make managing them more efficient. Similar to the Asset Manager, categories (called types) of spaces can be designed in uDesigner, and you can then add records of individual spaces to these types and manage them on an electronic sheet.
The Space Manager is a means of organizing all the square footage in your facility to make monitoring, maintaining, and revising your facility more efficient. The Space Manager can be integrated with other managers or business processes to give you a broader view of your company’s physical capital and resources. For example, the Space Manager can be integrated with the Asset Manager to include the computers that reside in each cubicle on a level; or integrated with the Resource Manager to include the employees who occupy each space on a level.
In uDesigner, one attribute form is designed for a “level” type in your facility and multiple attribute forms for “spaces” types. With these attribute forms, you can create a hierarchy of levels and spaces within levels to store the facilities data you choose to collect.
In Unifier, the Sheets node in the Space Manager stores the manager sheet on which all the levels in your facility are shown. Unifier automatically creates a level sheet for every level type that is created. On these sheets, you can import and export drawing files to and from AutoCAD®, and also import and export column data. From the level sheet, you can also automatically update individual level records with data added to the sheet, either manually or via a formula created for a column.
The Stack Plans node is where you can create stack plans to show the actual usage of the levels in the company’s building(s). You can choose the information (data elements or specific spaces) you want to see on the stack plan and update the plan periodically to keep abreast of changes in the levels’ space usage. For example, you might want to know the square footage used by each department on each floor (level); or how many square feet of a floor are vacant versus leased.
The Levels node lists all the levels that exist in your facility. Each level is supported by an AutoCAD® drawing. This node is where you can create new levels or update existing ones, download drawing files, attach a drawing to the level, and print the drawing. This is where you can create new levels or update existing ones, import data from CSV files, export templates to CSV.
The Spaces node shows a list of all the space types, and under the space type sub-node, all the spaces that exist in your facility. This is where you can create new spaces or update existing ones, import data from CSV files, export templates to CSV, and select spaces to view on the level drawing.
The Space Manager allows you to identify floors and each space by type and associate attributes to the particular spaces. For example, a multi-floor building could have many types of spaces, such as offices, cubicles, restrooms, conferences room, laboratories, and eating areas.
You manage spaces according to space type. Examples of space types are:
- Gross measured area, which is the entire square footage of a floor, from wall to wall
- Common area, such as hallways, lobbies, and entrances
- Usable space, such as cubicles, offices, and conference rooms
- Vertical penetration, which includes elevators, stairwells, and columns
The Space Manager is available within a shell. Each shell can have only one Space Manager. A building is at the shell level. An example hierarchical arrangement of objects in the Space Manager is as follows:
- Buildings (shell level)
- Levels (Floors) of the building or other similar structures (in this case, Floor is an example of a level record)
- Spaces in the building. These are the various spaces in the structure, such as storage rooms, offices, and other interior spaces (space records). Spaces is a fixed node designed in uDesigner.
- Levels (Floors) of the building or other similar structures (in this case, Floor is an example of a level record)
The Space Manager includes a sheet to help you manage levels and spaces. The sheet will allow you to create formulas to calculate total leasable and rentable space for a facility or building.
uCAD Plug-In
Users can integrate the Unifier Space Manager with AutoCAD® using the uCAD plug-in application, which can be downloaded from Unifier. uCAD enables:
- Authoring of space objects in AutoCAD®
- Identifying spaces on a floor drawing and link them to Unifier space objects
- Associate a drawing file to a Unifier level record
- Transferring changes to level and space records between the Unifier Space Manager and AutoCAD®
Space Manager prerequisites
- Generic or CBS shells configured
- Level and space attribute forms defined in uDesigner
- uCAD plug-in and AutoCAD® installed on your desktop (if you are going to use the Space Manager with the optional AutoCAD® integration)
The Unifier uCAD Installation and User Guide is also available from the Unifier Support window, on the Download tab. After you download the uCAD plug-in you can access uCAD from the Windows Start menu > Programs> uCAD. When you install the plug-in, the uClient Configurator is also installed.
The Unifier uCAD Installation Guide is available in the uCAD Help menu.
- AutoVue installed and properly licensed, which is used to view the uploaded drawing files within the Space Manager window.
For information about language (internationalization) and CSV files refer to Unifier General User Guide.