e-SPECS version 13.0 Upgrade

There are so many exciting things happening in the Deltek Specification Solutions world. At Deltek, our product development teams continually strive to make our solutions the most user-friendly and deliver the most comprehensive product features and functions to meet your day-to-day specifying needs. The Deltek e-SPECS product development team is pleased to announce e-SPECS version 13.0 is available to licensed customers. In addition to the e-SPECS upgrade, Product MasterSpec quarter 3 release has also been deployed. Now, let’s take a look at the new features and enhancements available with e-SPECS version 13.0 and the Product MasterSpec quarter 3 release.

e-SPECS Version 13.0 New Features

The saying, “It’s the little things that count,” is very apparent with the e-SPECS version 13.0 upgrade. On the surface, many of the new version 13.0 features may not seem like a big deal; but these changes are significant and go a long way to enhance the e-SPECS user experience.

Project Workspace Options Added

The project workspace now includes options that you can use to quickly toggle the visible items in the project tree view or find specific divisions or sections based on a search term. The following options are now available:

• Find
• Next
• Prev
• + (Expand all)
• - (Collapse all)

Export Manager New Features

Three new features have been added to the Export Manager to give you more control over your specs development process.

• The Suppress Section Title in Filename option is now available on the View Options tab in Export Manager for both MasterSpec and UFGS projects. When you export multiple or all sections of your project, you can now include or exclude the section titles in the file names of individual exported files for each section.
• The Bookmarks tab is now available in Export Manager. You can now use the options on this tab to enable or disable bookmarks in your exported files. To enable bookmarks, you must configure the level of content for each section, such as the Section Title (SCT) or Part 1 – Sample (PRT) for MasterSpec, for which to include bookmarks. You can enable bookmarks for exported files of projects that use a MasterSpec or UFGS master. By default, bookmarks for SCT, SCN, and PRT are enabled.

• The Color option is now available on the View Options tab in Export Manager. You can now configure the font color of tracked changes or manual edits to one specific color or to different colors by author. This option only applies to files that you export to DOCX format. Manual changes in exported PDF files display in red and automated changes display in gray. Earlier projects might not automatically support the new color property for tracked changes. If so, the Color option will have a default value of By Author and you cannot set this option to a different color unless you have Word installed.

 View Product Type Properties in e-SPECS Revit Plugin

The Product Type Properties button is now available in the e-SPECS for Revit plugin versions 2019, 2020, and 2021. This tool enables an experienced user to review selections made in Part 2 of a project in order to either update the Revit family to correlate with the project’s section or suggest modifications from Revit to update the section in e-SPECS. The product type properties enable you to compare selections and requirements within an assembly in order to ensure that you maintain a well-coordinated model to specification.

You can use this tool to view the following information depending on the following elements that you select in the Revit workspace:

e-SPECS Version 13.0 Enhancements to Existing Features

Table Menu Options

You can now access the Table submenu options in both the Edit menu and Insert menu. The following options are available when you click Edit » Table or Insert » Table:

• Add Table
• Remove Table
• Insert Row
• Delete Row(s)
• Insert Column
• Delete Column(s)

Confirmation Message

New confirmation messages now display when you save or publish all sections to notify you that e- SPECS has registered your action. The following messages are now available for the following commands:

Project Workspace Enhancements

• The project workspace now displays sections and pages with a saved icon to indicate that the section or page was saved but not published. A “Save” state indicates a section is in progress while a “Publish” state indicates the section is ready for review or issuance.
• When you import a section into a project division, the project division now neither collapses nor hides its sections in the tree view in the project workspace. You can now import sections and maintain the current tree view.
• In Export Manager, in the Path field, you can now enter or paste a path to set the location for your exported file. You are no longer limited to browsing through folders to set your export path. You must enter a valid file path. Otherwise, an error will occur and the export will not proceed.

Submission Manager Enhancements

• Submission Manager now uses export settings from Export Manager. When you click Export in Submission Manager, the Confirm Export Settings dialog box now displays. You can now choose to use or override the file, view, and bookmarks settings for your submissions. The e-SPECS Submission Build Settings Window is no longer available.
• You can now configure double-sided printing for your project submissions. In Export Manager, Prepare for Double Sided Printing option and the Text for the placeholder pages now apply when you export a submission in Submission Manager.

Unified Facilities Guide Specifications (UFGS)

• e-SPECS includes adjustments to the line spacing in the exported files to accurately match the line spacing of the content in the edit workspace and SpecsIntact UFGS sections.
• You can now export MasterSpec and UFGS sections that contain line spacing and pagination that accurately match the Final Draft view in the edit workspace. This applies to any means of exporting such as using Export Manager, selecting other export commands on the File menu, and printing to PDF.
• The Suppress “Section” in Filename option in Export Manager now applies to UFGS projects. When you export multiple or all sections of a UFGS project, you can now include or exclude the word “Section” in the file names of individual exported files for each section.
• Content changes with Section header paragraphs, such as SPT1 and SPT2, no longer contain square brackets, “[” and] “]”. Paragraphs that have only these brackets no longer display.

New Error Message

e-SPECS displays a new error message when you select conflicting project criteria tags and click Select All in the Section Checklist window or the Base Document List – Insert Specification Section window.

The following message no longer displays for the aforementioned situation:

• You have attempted to create a binding to a Project Criteria tag. This is not allowed in the Binding Manager.

To modify selections to Project Criteria, use Project > Project Criteria to edit selections to all sections in the project.

To help you understand the effect of clicking Select All in these two windows and how to better use the application, the following message now displays:

• You have attempted to select Project Criteria checklist tags for this section. The command did not modify Project Criteria - those are only applied across an entire project. Please access the dialog in Project > Project Criteria to modify selections for the entire project.

Project Status Report

The Project Status Report now includes the following information in their respective new columns:

• Building Type
• LEED Level
• Construction Budget
• Project City
• Project State
• Project Zip
• Project Date
• Project Country

Default Project Title Page

A revised Default Project Title Page is now available. When you install e-SPECS 13.0, e-SPECS automatically adds or updates the title page file (Default Project Title Page.rtf) in the e-SPECS defaults folder (C:\Users\Public\Documents\e-SPECS Defaults).

Deleted Database Handling

When you or someone from your firm deletes a database/document master through SQL Server Management Studio, you can no longer view or select the deleted database/document master in any e- SPECS client application.

Permissions Enhancements

• As an administrator, you can now assign the Project Group Modify permission to users and user groups. Users with the Project Group Modify permission can now modify project group selections such as the style guide, header and footer, and owners.
• Previously, when a user enabled permissions and you create a new project, an admin must manually give open/modify permissions to all other users to access the project. This means that, previously, only the person who created the project automatically had permissions to open/modify it.
•  When a user enabled permissions and you create a new project, any user who has the global Projects Create permission now has the Project List Open/Modify permission for the new project. Additionally, if a user has the Projects Delete permission at the global level, then the user has delete privileges (Project List Delete) for newly created projects.
• As an administrator, you can now use project permissions to control access to a newly created project. When you assign permissions to a user for a specific project, project permissions at the global level will no longer apply to that project.

Product MasterSpec Q3 Update

Product MasterSpec is a program that customizes MasterSpec® sections around a manufacturer’s product as a Basis of Design. Product MasterSpec saves Architects and Engineers valuable time and money because the specification has already been developed around a particular manufacturer’s product.

• The latest Product MasterSpec update contains 128 sections added from the beginning of March 2020 through the end of September 2020 as well as 148 sections previously only available in text format. Launch Product MasterSpec to begin your product evaluations.

The Deltek team is committed to providing you with a premier product to support this critical component of your business. If you have questions about accessing e-SPECS version 13.0 or running the installations, please contact us at https://deltek.custhelp.com/.