Managing Design Revisions and Spec Status

During the design phase of a larger project, designers often re-issue reports and project book sheets with revisions that have been incorporated since the official "Issued" date. Since changes occur in many different ways, FF&EZ gives you some simple tools to let you manage this process with less effort, without the use of a complex revision tracking system. (Note: the automatic revision tracking in the Purchasing module functions in a different way from that in the design system. If you have the Design/Purchasing version, be sure to also read about that function in the appropriate portion of the documentation).

Design revisions are managed with two tools: The "Revision Group" code on the specifications and the "Revised" date function on the Report Setup form. There is also a "Last Saved" date that can be useful for managing the review process.

Note: these fields are available on the Query command's list of fields on not just the Specification screen, but the Object List and FF&E Worksheet screens, as are other spec fields.

Design Revisions

Revision Group

This field appears on the Specifications form when you have selected the "Show Spec Status" option, located on the status/options bar at the bottom of the form.

The code you enter is entirely up to you, but the idea is to code each specification that has been revised (and needs to be reprinted) with a code that lets you quickly query for all the specs with the same code. The code could be as simple as "A" for all specs in the first revision set, "B" for the second and so on, or it could be the date on which you intend to issue revisions or anything like that.

Caution! The longer and more complex your code, the easier it is to mistype it, meaning your query may not pick up all the items! We recommend that you stick with a very simple code scheme, especially if more than one person is working on the project. Be especially careful of different ways people can enter a date, if you use a date as a "code," since this field is plain text and will accept anything you enter.

Since reports used for presentation and communication are always printed from the FF&E Worksheet, you will set up the query on that screen if you are sending reports to 3rd parties. You can print more than one revision code by using a query in which the "all / any" qualifier is set to "any of the following conditions" and create a query condition for each desired code. For instance:

Revision Group code (Specs) is equal to "B1" ("...contains B1" will also work)

Revision Group code (Specs) is equal to "B2"

If you add both of these to the conditions of the query, the "any" option will cause the system to return objects that meet any of the conditions as opposed to meeting both (which would be impossible). Note that you would get the same result if you used a single condition of "Revision Group code (Specs) starts with 'B' " as long as it was the first code in the field.

Also, if the code field contains more than one code (such as "B1, B2"), you should use the "contains" operator instead of "is equal to" since "equal to" means exactly that.

Revision Date

The date field next to the "Revision Group" is an optional date that can be used to track the most recent revision of individual specifications. It then appears on certain reports, especially the various specification and object status reports. Note that the "revision date" of an object is the same as the latest revision date of any specification attached to it.

Although you can enter the revision date manually, you can also use the Save as Revised version of the Save command on the Specifications screen to automatically insert the current date just before an edited specification is saved. This command only appears when you are editing an existing spec.

Please note that the "Last save" date displayed just below the main list on the Specification screen is not the revision date. The "Last save" date is set automatically, which may not be the behavior needed for revision control. See the next item.

Last Save Date

FF&EZ automatically retains a "Last Save" date whenever you save a specification. This is not used as a revision date because designers typically want more control over assigning that date. However, the date a spec was last saved can be used in queries where you want to print all the new or changed specifications from a particular date or date range. This can be handy if your daily or weekly work needs to be reviewed by someone else.

Printing General "Revised" Dates on Reports

Once you have a set of objects with revised specs to print, you will probably want to print a revision date on the report itself. This general revision date appears in the report footer. There are two options for this (not including the "Do not print" option) that are on the "General" options of the Report Setup form, plus one option to save a new date.

Use project date

The project screen includes a general "Revised" date that becomes accessible after an "Issued" date has been set. If selected, this printing option will use that date as the "Revised" date on any reports you print.

Manual

Allows you to enter the date of your choice (it defaults to the current date) ignoring any "Revised" date on the project screen.

If you wish to have FF&EZ calculate a revision date, use the small [=] button next to the date entry. This scans the individual specification revision dates and returns the latest revision date.

Update project screen

If you use the "Manual" option described above, this option will save the date you enter as the new overall project "Revised" date and it will appear on the Project Screen. The date is saved as soon as you preview or print the report.

Except as described under "Manual" above, the "Revised" date on a report does not have a direct relationship to the "Revision Date" on the Specification screen. It refers to the report itself, so you can set the printed "Revised" date to match that of the latest revised spec or to any other date, as needed. This is because the quantities shown on a report are dependent on changes made to the FF&E Worksheet, not on the Object or Specification screens, so a revision date may reflect those changes, not the specifications.

Spec Status

In addition to managing and printing revisions, FF&EZ offers ways to track common milestones that can occur in the process of moving from a generic placeholder to a final product specification. Like the "Revision Group," these appear when you select the Show Spec Status option at the bottom of the Specification form. Note that there is more information regarding spec status in "Checking Your Work."

You can view specifications that have missing status milestones (and other issues) by running the Status Check function on the Specification List screen, which is a special query that uses these fields.

General Approvals

Design approved	This date field is used to indicate that this product specification has passed your own internal design review process. The usual shortcuts for date fields apply. The "DA" column in the grid shows a check mark if this field has an entry.
Client approved	If applicable, this field can be used to flag specs that have been approved by the client (using a date). This status is shown in the "CA" column of the list grid.
Process Status	Allows you to track more detailed milestones in the process leading up to releasing a product for ordering. In addition to the standalone fields for "Design Approved" and "Owner Approved," you can optionally set a numerical process status value from 0 to 5: 0-Not applicable 1-Approved for pricing 2-Pricing requested 3-Price quote received 4-Pricing approved 5-Approved for ordering Status 0 simply leaves this feature deactivated for that specification and is the default value. Status 1 would typically be used after the product selection has been approved by the designer and/or owner. When you change a specification's status, the associated date will be updated to the current date (you can override this if needed). If a specification has a 1 or 2 status (that is, "Process Status" is active) and you enter a "Vendor Quote ID," the status will be automatically set to 3. Since the Design system only handles project activity to the point of generating a list of products to order, ordering, shipping and delivery status do not appear here. They are instead tracked by the Expediting screen in the Design/Purchasing version.
Vendor Quote Documentation
Vndr Quote #, Date	These two fields can be used to record the vendor's Quote # or Quote ID given when pricing a product, along with the date of the quote. You can then use the "+" and "-" shortcut keys to add or subtract days from a date or double-click the date to pop up a calendar. The "Quote" column in the list grid displays a symbol showing the status of a price quote based on the "Expires after" field. If you have set a "Process Status" value, entries in this field will also update that value if applicable (see that entry above). Shortcut: If you have a quote that covers multiple specifications, you can repeat the last Quote ID and Quote Date that you entered (and saved) by simply entering a quote (') or double-quote (the "ditto" symbol) into the Quote ID field. When you move off of the field, the system will paste in the last quote ID, date and expiration period that you entered (as long as you don't close the Specifications screen).
Expires after	(Optional) The number of days from the quote date until the quote expires. This is used to display the quote "status" column in the list area, as well as to display the expiration date next to the total cost in the "Source, Pricing" section of the screen.
Submittal Management This section is accessible by enabling the "Show Submittals" option found at the bottom of the Specifications screen. This allows you to track up to twelve submittal types, including two user-defined ones. For more information about this feature, see Submittal Tracking.
Status Notes (See image above) This is a free-form notes field into which you can enter any internal notes further documenting the issues and status of the design process. Although you can enter information in any way desired, if you take advantage of the Add Note button above this field, the system will enter your user name and date at the top of the notes field, pushing older notes down to create a list that shows the most recent entries at the top where they can be easily seen.

Note: All of these fields are available when creating queries on the Specification, Object and FF&E Worksheet screens. Keep in mind, though, that on the last two screens, queries look at all specifications attached to each object and return the objects in which at least one component spec matches your conditions. This means that if you create a query on the Specification "Design Approved" field, an object with multiple components will appear in the query results if any of its components have this field marked with an approval date. To double-check the list, create a query using the desired "approved" field, but with the condition of "is false." This will list all objects with at least one unapproved component spec.