topic Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend in Collaboration with other software

Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tender

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 17:41:14 GMT

Hi,

I am just making the move to Archicad and hoping to become much more efficient in terms of the documentation I produce. I am an architect in the UK working on private houses.

I am interested in being as effective as possible it streamlining the documentation I produce for tender. I normally produce drawings, a pricing document (essentially a schedule of works, with basic quantities) and the specification is largely in the form of notes on drawings. What is considered best practice now and is there a way to coordinate this with the information produced by Archicad?

Does anyone use NBS Create or any of their other products with Archicad? The biggest frustration I can see with NBS is that it does not produce an Excel spreadsheet that can be updated as the project is constructed. Essential for carrying out staged valuation and cost control.

I'd be interested to hear what you have found the best process to be?

T23

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

Anonymous — Thu, 05 May 2016 18:45:35 GMT

Maybe this will help you... Im looking for the same thing...
http://bimrecipe.com/specification/

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 23:13:50 GMT

jocontreras wrote:
Maybe this will help you... Im looking for the same thing...
http://bimrecipe.com/specification/

Bimrecipe is marketing a simple interface change to ARCHICAD's own specification system that has been built into every ARCHICAD for decades (unfortunately, last updated in ARCHICAD 9, circa 2004).

Truth to be told, ARCHICAD has absolutely breathtaking built-in specification system that nobody ever uses in full. It is build upon multiple customizable databases, connection property objects and resulting List schedules. Every version of ARCHICAD comes out accompanied by a totally incomprehensible "ArchiCAD Calculation Guide" that is located in "Documentation" folder of every installation. This document tries, but fails to explain this long-forgotten, but extremely powerful feature.

It is only natural that some commercial entity would want to capitalize on GRAPHISOFT's reluctance to update this treasure (and, honestly, why GRAPHISOFT would want to update Lists... after all, it is only one of the key BIM dimensions, a coveted BIM 5D to be exact, and in no way as important as a new and improved umbrella library part ARCHICAD users get every year).

The verdict is as follows: if you are no stranger to BIM and can restrict yourself to proper BIM workflow (!important), don't mind doing your own setup and a bit of bug fixing and programming (Lists are buggy and being a very old feature have some odd limitations in the name lengths of specifications, for instance), ARCHICAD's Lists/Databases specification system would be one of the tools (together with BIMx and BIM server) that would easily bring you 100% client conversion rate. Literally.

If you are not willing to go the length, then some limited commercial interface to this old feature might help you get by.

I love Lists/Databases, but they are way too complex for most of users.

Did not want to sound grim... it just came out that way.

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 10:22:30 GMT

Please excuse my rather off-putting and unconstructive rant in the previous message.

tekton23 wrote:
Hi,What is considered best practice now and is there a way to coordinate this with the information produced by Archicad?

I'd be interested to hear what you have found the best process to be?

ARCHICAD is, after all, a BIM aplication, so it does allow you to produce a fully coordinated BIM model. This means that you can easily get it to calculate quantities and all the related info you need if you approach it right.

It is difficult to give you specific advice on how to approach this without knowing what exactly you would like to accomplish (PM me if you need some advice specific to your practice), but the main direction is simple — you can get ARCHICAD to do whatever you need. The question is how.

ARCHICAD has two major areas related to specification process (you can see them in your Project Map tree).

Schedules
Lists

Schedules (or Interactive Schedules, as they are referred to in the manual) are a newer and much-better-supported tool for displaying/calculating/editing model-based quantities.
"Model-based" means quantities you can directly acquire from the model (for example, you can count how many times a specific object was used in your project; or you can get area/volume of a brick wall in square/cubic meters, but not the amount of bricks, sand, concrete and metal ties you need per cubic meter of volume of that wall).

Schedules are very well supported, easy to use and require little training (short of ubiquitous BIM-related approach constrains, but that is another story).

Lists are a very old specification system, that I mentioned in a post above, dating back to 2004.
Now, Lists are the coolest thing since sliced bread and, to my knowledge, no other BIM software on the market has it built-in in a way ARCHICAD does.
Lists is what you use to get the number of bricks, volume of sand, bags of concrete, or man-hours, kWt of energy or anything else you might think of in relation to some "model-based" property. For example, you might want to make a specification that states "1,57 kilograms of stucco finish material per square meter of this wall's surface; shaken, not stirred" and ARCHICAD will dynamically keep track of all the numbers and text notes for you, even if the specific wall surface is modified in any way.

Lists are not very user friendly, but are totally awesome when setup and debugged properly.

As I mentioned in my post above, understanding and implementing Schedules and Lists properly (together with BIM server/cloud and BIMx) is a sure way to a 100% client conversion rate for any architectural practice.

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:59:02 GMT

May be this tutorial will help you
https://youtu.be/L2MYjJJlYlA

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

alemanda — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 16:08:08 GMT

Hopefully GS will implement a simple and userfriendly way to calculate using properties.
What I hope for is a property or better a type of property which can be scheduled with the proper unit.
In other words same concept of list but using the more user friendly properties. For example a wall coulde have more than one property which will be a BOQ entry.

It is somehow what we can do now using IFC data mapping. But of course properties will allow a wider range of possibilities.

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

godi — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 22:55:43 GMT

Anton wrote:
jocontreras wrote:
Maybe this will help you... Im looking for the same thing...
http://bimrecipe.com/specification/
Truth to be told, ARCHICAD has absolutely breathtaking built-in specification system that nobody ever uses in full. It is build upon multiple customizable databases, connection property objects and resulting List schedules. Every version of ARCHICAD comes out accompanied by a totally incomprehensible "ArchiCAD Calculation Guide" that is located in "Documentation" folder of every installation. This document tries, but fails to explain this long-forgotten, but extremely powerful feature.

In our office we have ALL Archicad element listed with his own parametric and customized properties scripts, every kind of slab, wall, objetc, door... everyone give us all his componentes, we do NO materials measurement at all.

You need a minimum of GDL mastering but the power of this way is impossible to obtain with the simplistic schedule system

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 14:52:08 GMT

Hi Godi I absolutely agree with you.

Did you manage to retrieve quantities for stairs? and do calculations in AC21?
because from first looks it seems that stairs and railings do not support the list system. Although the objects do have property script and can be found in criteria dialog they are not available in the list scheme settings dialog.

tried to apply property objects on them through editing with gdl editor but did not manage to list components.

Thanks

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

godi — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 16:36:12 GMT

No success at all with stairs and rails. Simply GS has not implemented these objects to use list.

We're doing our bills of materials using list system for all project but those two kind of objects, and I have defined two schedules for stairs and rails.

Schedule system is a so underpowered, simply and rigid, that there's no way to obtain anything too detailed: no more than pure length and height of rails and step number in stairs.

I really can't understand that decision of GS.

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 16:59:15 GMT

godi wrote:
and I have defined two schedules for stairs and rails.

Yes but you lose the continuity of the estimate document.

Now we get three documents that we need to amend and edit somewhere else.

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

godi — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 23:10:38 GMT

Of, course.

Being forced to use a solution so poor as schedules is a annoyance and a nonsense.

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 00:08:28 GMT

godi wrote:
No success at all with stairs and rails. Simply GS has not implemented these objects to use list.

We're doing our bills of materials using list system for all project but those two kind of objects, and I have defined two schedules for stairs and rails.

Schedule system is a so underpowered, simply and rigid, that there's no way to obtain anything too detailed: no more than pure length and height of rails and step number in stairs.

I really can't understand that decision of GS.

The List system is deprecated. None of the new features are part of it - not just the ones you mention. It's a shame, but that's how it is.

GS's decision as to supporting the schedules you want is (from public comments) that it is not part of the architectural software workflow, but rather part of the construction management workflow which is supported by other software. They had developed such software and later sold it:
http://www.vicosoftware.com/model-based-estimating

In some countries, architects must do what you're doing - and so all of us can sympathize with the difficulties you are facing (!) - but it is not something that is part of the architect's responsibility for the vast majority of users/countries.

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 04:27:21 GMT

Ok Karl,

Please tell me what MEP has to do with an Architect software the lets deprecate this too.

interactive schedule is a great tool to tabulate object and element info. Also the fact that you can control their parameters though this makes organising information much faster. But not presentation.

Because it is just a table not a form.

What Graphisoft should do is add the new properties to the list system.
for example when a parameter applies to ALL classes, is actually a global parameter so it can be listed in the the parameters dialog in the list scheme settings, and be used in these forms. This would be ground breaking.

As you mentioned Graphisoft sold Vico and also Vico merged later with Trimble. We can't know about the sales contracts what rules they had about using or not using or advancing the listing technology. But if there are not any contractual implications then they shouldn't deprecate this.

if your statements stand all countries that rely to these functionalities should stop in version 18 where everything worked fine. Even the coordinate object tabulation of xyz parameters of the object. Something that was giving us the ability to not only tabulate but also export for setting out reasons.

Architects and all construction professionals need robust flawless solutions because they are professionals not gamers.

We added point clouds a feature that was firstly developed by surveying professionals. Not that I'm implying that it is not useful for architects but it wasn't developed for them. Thinking the same way Lists are more useful to construction managers but are useful for architects too.

Architects still want to make estimates. Their estimates are of higher level.
Elemental classification like Uniformat cannot be derived without lower level like masterformat. We firstly estimate in a detailed manner and then we group our results in a grouped manner like uniformat. Uniformat is used for the customer to better understand the expenses and where they go in the building. You can achieve uniformat estimates in the old system by using elements or zone lists that will use components but will filter by element or zone. Otherwise you just rely on price books that have done the analytic job for you and then provide you higher level pricing.
Is'n it better though to develop your own vision of how much a residential property costs per m2 instead of relying on published pricing data that you are not sure how precise they are and what parameters they have taken in to account?

And by the way the construction manager does not design. He manages information provided by the Architect. So the Vico concept was wrong in including constructor. Archicad should stay as it is and stay to the architect side and the rest of the suite should go to CM's side.

Regards

Re: Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tend

godi — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 09:34:45 GMT

Karl wrote:
godi wrote:
No success at all with stairs and rails. Simply GS has not implemented these objects to use list.

We're doing our bills of materials using list system for all project but those two kind of objects, and I have defined two schedules for stairs and rails.

Schedule system is a so underpowered, simply and rigid, that there's no way to obtain anything too detailed: no more than pure length and height of rails and step number in stairs.

I really can't understand that decision of GS.

The List system is deprecated. None of the new features are part of it - not just the ones you mention. It's a shame, but that's how it is.

GS's decision as to supporting the schedules you want is (from public comments) that it is not part of the architectural software workflow, but rather part of the construction management workflow which is supported by other software. They had developed such software and later sold it:
http://www.vicosoftware.com/model-based-estimating

In some countries, architects must do what you're doing - and so all of us can sympathize with the difficulties you are facing (!) - but it is not something that is part of the architect's responsibility for the vast majority of users/countries.

None of the reason you give me is logic. Most architects are NEVER going to use the curtain wall objet or the morph tool, but we are many THOUSANDS making cost estimations for every project as a daily basis and GS let us in the lurch.

You can't make any estimating with any 3rd party application if you don't have first a detailed list of the project components, and that is what AC can make easily and one of the best features of this app. Just until now.

The worst of this nonsense is that add stairs and rails to list should be so simple as to obtain properties from fields of a database Archicad already had and use it in a function that they have implemented 20 years ago. So his absence of more infuriating.