NBS Create

Search across your specification with ease

You can now quickly check for information in your specification with a new Search Job feature. Your feedback told us that being able to look for information across your full job content would make specification writing, editing and checking an easier task and would save you valuable time. Simply type in what you need and Search Job will return a list of relevant content from across your job including clause numbers, titles, content and value inserts as well as clause suffix and classification.

You can also now delete user-created content within Project Management. So it’s easier and quicker for you to undo any mistakes, remove a clause you no longer need or that you have added in error.

Want to find out more?

• Using Search Job in NBS Create
• Benefits of Search Job [Video]

Note for any customers using older versions of NBS Create

We will soon be retiring v1.6.1 and v.1.7.1. This activity is essential to ensure customers are benefitting from the latest enhancements and bug fixes and have the best user-experience. Contact support if you are using these versions and have any queries. More communications to follow.

Get involved

We will soon be running test sessions with NBS Create users who are writing specifications and have provided feedback or have a specific interest in:

• Improved NBS Resources Search
• Undo

Contact your NBS Create product manager to find out how you can influence these developments.

Bug fixes

• NBS Create now only reports clauses which have been removed since the milestone you are comparing against.
• Making a print stylesheet with corporate branding, and including a company logo, you can now import this for use on specifications on another PC without errors.

We would like to thank our customers for making us aware of these issues.

NBS Create version 1.9.1 contains a number of bug fixes and general maintenance.

Bug fixes:

• Removed the "Out of date with NBS" list.
• Update notes in Guidance not always synced correctly.
• Addressed issues where specification files needed repaired for some customers.

Improving how you manage your Office Masters

This software update features the new Content Index, designed to help you manage your Office Master resources more efficiently.

For the first time you can see all of your office knowledge in one report.

The Content Index details what Office Master clauses, office values and user notes you have – including information about what is up to date, who last edited them, tags, and descriptions.

With the ability to export to Microsoft Excel you have the flexibility to sort, filter and analyse your data.

Our online help pages contain lots of information on how to use the Content Index feature in Create 1.9

Office Masters are a powerful way of pre-completing clauses you use often, to save time and ensure consistency across your organisation. The Office Master content you create can serve as an information management tool, capturing organisation specific knowledge and lessons learned from colleagues.

While every project is unique, we still take advantage of building our Office templates and Office Masters, to save time at the front end of the project. Part of that is storing information in a way we can readily get to, so we are not reinventing the wheel at the start of every project.

Adam Vaughan, Director and Architect, JDDK

We have found it most useful for review and audit [our office masters]. This helps us find user notes written some time ago immediately and easily. These audits encourage us to refresh or re-edit them when necessary; effective and timely management quickly implemented. Straightforward to set-up with an Excel spreadsheet and [NBS] Create in side-by-side windows. Another benefit is accessible and useable knowledge sharing of application guidance notes with more users and managers without having to use an NBS licence seat during review. It also means that all office master and associated data is as accessible as project level data has been for some time - via the review/ reports/ notes tool [from the review menu on the ribbon].

Richard Irving, Architect, EPR Architects

Useful resources

If you are new to Office Masters, take a look at some of our resources to understand the benefits to your organisation and how to get started:

• A guide to using Office Masters
• Top tips for Office Masters

Improving outputs for COBie

COBie is the data format detailed in the UK Government’s BIM Strategy for the exchange of non-graphical data. It ensures consistent, structured asset information is provided by all members of the construction team, supporting improved information handover to clients and building owners.

Your COBie export from NBS Create now comprises a single MS Excel workbook produced using the bimtaskgroup.org COBie schema. With the relevant worksheets populated with data from your NBS Create specification, this saves you time and provides structured data in an easy to use excel format.

To support our users in providing digital asset information on projects where use of Uniclass 2015 has been requested, the NBS Create COBie export now also includes these codes. Uniclass 2015 is a unified classification system for the UK construction industry, and part of the BIM Toolkit. It contains consistent tables classifying items of all scale from a facility such as a railway down through to products such as a CCTV camera in a railway station.

We are currently exploring further Uniclass 2015 developments with NBS Create users. Email us at info@theNBS.com if you would like to get involved.

More information
There are a range of new support articles available to help you understand how to benefit from this new feature:

• Export to COBie
• What is included in the COBie document
• COBie Report
• COBie mappings in NBS Create

If you are interested in getting involved in future feature or content development please email your NBS Create Product Manager.

Helping you to achieve more compact published outputs

When creating a specification in NBS Create, users select the appropriate systems to suit their project. When it comes to adding the detail, including product clauses and execution clauses, these can often be used by more than one system. We know from talking to users that having more flexibility when publishing these ‘shared’ clauses could help achieve a more compact published document.

You can now choose to show shared clauses in full once per document or every time.

Choosing the ‘once per document’ option helps to achieve a more compact output. Publish the shared clause once in full, with hyperlinks back to this fully published information included against all other instances of this repeated clause within your specification. These hyperlinks help with ease of reference across export to word, pdf, print and print preview formats.

Where the full clause appears, it helpfully lists all instances of where this clause features within your published specification .

This feature was developed in response to feedback from you, our NBS Create customers. Users from Stride Treglown, FaulknerBrowns and EPR were involved in the development, providing a more detailed understanding of user’s needs.

If you are interested in getting involved in future feature or content development, please email your NBS Create Product Manager.

Also included:

• Improved export menu making the range of options available to you more easy to view.
  

Further to direct liaison with relevant customers, we no longer develop NBS Create for Microsoft Windows Vista or XP operating systems. This follows removal of support by Microsoft. The last version of NBS Create available for these formats (v1.6.1) is available for download if required.

Introduction of the new NBS brand

NBS Create is among the first of our NBS products to see the introduction of the new NBS brand. The application of the new NBS brand provides a visually appealing, refreshed interface.

Watch our video about the new look NBS Create

Bug fixes

This update includes fixes to a number of software issues including:

• Presentation of long system titles in Table of Contents.
• New and existing users are now able to edit display name. Find out more
• Duplicate systems are now logically ordered by clause reference, then alphabetically by suffix.
• Missing specification title produces an error on publishing.
• Type A suffix when only one version of a clause.
• Inline clause revision now published for all clause types not just system outline clauses. Find out more

This version of NBS Create provides a new export to Microsoft Word option:

• Delivered in direct response to customer feedback
• Enjoy more flexibility when formatting specifications
• Apply your corporate styles even easier
• Continue to use the range of existing in-product formatting options
• New eLearning module on formatting and printing.

When you are ready to format and publish, consider how the new export to Microsoft Word functionality can benefit you.

Help centre

• How do I export my specification to Microsoft Word format? (includes 2 videos)
• What is not included in the export to Microsoft Word
• Export to Microsoft Word Style Mappings.

FAQ's

• Export to Microsoft Word frequently asked questions.

This is a maintenance update. While we recommend installing it, this is not a mandatory update. NBS Create v1.5.3 is fully compatible with all other versions of NBS Create in use (v1.5.1 and v1.5.2).

This version of NBS Create fixes known issues within the software including:

• NBS Create closes abruptly when adding new clauses to the beginning of some project management sections
• Deleting clauses caused a broken content link to occur in some specific scenarios
• Random loss of spacing between words when working in the editor
• User unable to delete customer reports
• User experiences performance issues when stopping/hiding updates on larger specifications
• Broken link occurs when highlighting a clause, deleting and saving
• Save All no longer functions after deleting a second level clause

We would encourage users to install this latest update to get the best experience from NBS Create.

Important information for customers with specifications being opened with pre 1.5 versions of NBS Create

Once a specification is opened in NBS Create version 1.5.2 it cannot be edited in versions v1.4.7 or earlier. This is of particular importance if there are a number of colleagues working on a specification together. Please consider this prior to installation. This doesn't affect your office master content.

If you use the NBS Plug-in for Autodesk® Revit® to better coordinate your specification and drawings, there is a new version you will need to install for use with NBS Create 1.5 and above.

This version of NBS Create fixes known issues within the software. We would encourage users to install this latest update to get the best experience from NBS Create. Go to ‘Updates’ and select ‘Software Updates’ within the NBS Create toolbar (see below) to check which version you are using. From here you will be given a link to the latest software download.

 

Important information for customers with specifications being opened with pre 1.5 versions of NBS Create only:

• Once a specification is opened in NBS Create version 1.5.1 it cannot be edited in versions v1.4.7 or earlier. This is of particular importance if there are a number of colleagues working on a specification together. Please consider this prior to installation. This doesn't affect your office master content.
• If you use the NBS Plug-in for Autodesk® Revit® to better coordinate your specification and drawings, there is a new version you will need to install for use with NBS Create 1.5 and above.

Important: Once a specification is opened in NBS Create v1.5 it cannot be edited in previous versions. This is of particular importance if there are a number of colleagues working on a specification together. Please consider this prior to installation. This doesn't affect your office master content.

NBS Create version 1.5 delivers improvements across 4 areas as follows:

Performance

• All NBS Create users will see a noticeable improvement, particularly users who are working together on the same specification.

Flexibility when saving

• Users can now decide when to save or discard their edits. In previous versions, NBS Create automatically saved all edits to the job.
• If you're editing the specification concurrently across a number of sections, all sections will open as separate tabs. You choose to save the edits in the current section, or across all the sections you are currently editing.
• Unsaved changes in a section are indicated by an asterix.
• Save-reminders are now included in software options. Set these to run from 5 to 60 minute intervals. Default is 15 minutes.
• Save-reminders also appear when closing a section that you've been editing.

Prompts when deleting, exporting and printing

• You'll see a prompt when you delete the last instance of a clause from your job.
• If you're working on a specification at the same time as another user and you try and open a clause they've deleted, the software now lets you know so you can decide whether your next action is to give them a call to discuss OR to refresh your job to include their changes.
• If you try to print or export a job that has unsaved content, we'll let you know.
• If you try to create a milestone with unsaved changes, there's a prompt for this too to check this was your intention and what the impact might be.

Easier to apply NBS content updates to your specifications

• On-screen 'before and after' preview for when there's been multiple changes to a clause.
• You can now add a clause rename into your job with a single step.

If you use the NBS Plug-in for Autodesk Revit® to better coordinate your specification and drawings, there is a new version you will need to install for use with NBS Create 1.5.

This version of NBS Create introduces new features and many improvements. We recommend that all NBS Create users upgrade to this version and it is highly recommended for customers using Office Masters.

Office Masters

• Key improvements to the performance of Office Masters – essential for all users.

New Features

• New options to insert cross references to make it easier to read and navigate printed documents.

 

• New functionality for searching, sorting and making bulk changes in the Licences and Users page making it easier to manage permissions of large numbers of users.

Other Improvements

• Standardisation of placement of clause number on contents pages and throughout the specification – now placing the number before the title.
• Stylesheets now retaining embedded logos.
• System Manufacturer value lists available in duplicated systems.
• Section/system codes on system separator pages corrected.
• Plus many more smaller improvements to the software.