Nested Design Options

[Matt Balaam]

Design Options is a great addition to the software, however we've found it somewhat limiting when working with more complex arrangements of options.

If you have a home with two Master Suite options, this is easy to achieve. Create a Master Suite group with two options, Master Suite A and Master Suite B.

If, however, you have two different Ensuite layouts, and these layouts are different for each Master Suite, there's currently no ability to nest the Ensuite options within the Master Suite options. You have to either make four Master Suite options (Master Suite A with Ensuite A, Master Suite A with Ensuite B, Master Suite B with Ensuite A and Master Suite B with Ensuite B) which gets extremely complicated once you have more than two alternatives...or you have to create two sets of Ensuite options and use descriptive text in the names to 'prevent' people from selecting the wrong options (i.e. nothing is actually preventing them from selecting a Master Suite B ensuite with Master Suite A, or turning on a Master Suite A Ensuite and a Master Suite B Ensuite at the same time).

If we had the ability to nest options within each other this problem would be solved. Turning off Master Suite A would turn off all child options, including the nested Ensuites. It shouldn't even require changing the core functionality, we're still just turning options on and off...it would just enhance the way the dialogue is arranged.

 

[Barry Kelly]

Don't forget you can (and should) set up design option combinations that turn on/ff the design options you want.

There is no need to manually turn on/off each design option.

Barry.

[Matt Balaam]

That works well for presenting specific option combinations to a client etc.

In our case, we are a volume home builder and our drafting teams need to be able to 'assemble' any possible combination of options that may be requested. Design option combinations aren't applicable in this instance as the drafter isn't selecting from pre-determined arrangements, they are selecting the appropriate option from each of the option groups then locking in the final arrangement when they are done.

Some of our options are quite complex...as an example we have a design with four rear of home options, each of which then has 4 different kitchen options that are specific to each rear of home option, as well as alternate master suite layouts specific to each rear of home, and each master suite then has multiple ensuite layouts. As you can see, with a flat structure this can't really be achieved, however adding the ability to nest the options (with multiple levels of nesting, not just one level) would make this arrangement perfectly possible.

[Mahmoud Qenawi]

I agree with you, we should have the ability to change any option or option set to be a child of a parent one in a real tree structure & not only the available parallel structure.