CU1711

SOFTWARE focus
Adding Warboard Projects
The Warboard Dashboard
tongue-in-cheek because of its similarity
to the display of information you would
expect in such an environment, but it
proved a popular choice - and stuck!
WARBOARD IN ACTION
The simple display that pops up when
you load the software is indicative of
the simplicity of signing up for a
subscription - at 6 different levels of
usage for a monthly fee or as a single
user which is free, but which limits the
user to just 50 issues - and the ease
with which projects and team members
can be added. As an administrator of a
project you can invite others to join
your team, either as a guest, where
your commenting abilities are limited,
or a team member with full inclusion in
the process.
The Warboard dashboard is divided
into a number of sections. At the top,
once a project is loaded, are a graph
and pie chart that display current
progress levels, and a simple indication
of the number of projects you are
involved with, outstanding tasks, and
how many messages are waiting for
your attention. For convenience, a
project can have two or more
administrators to cater for those
occasions when one or other team
member is unavailable.
The main display has thumbnails for all
current projects, and collaborators for
each project. Projects are added by
selecting a suitable thumbnail image for
identification in the display, and
uploading and synchronising issues with
the model from Navisworks in one
operation in XML format. Once loaded in
Warboard, each clash instance is
displayed, enabling the administrator to
allocate which team member is
responsible for dealing with it and
recording all related communications
and comments, along with its priority -
high, medium of low - until it is resolved.
You can display all of the issues in
Navisworks using its Clash Detective,
which shows the quantities of different
categories and whether they are new,
active, reviewed, approved or resolved,
along with a description of each.
Selecting the report function here
brings up a list of data available with
each. All of these must be ticked
because that is the information that will
be required by Warboard - except for
Resolved, as the software then has no
further use for that issue.
Although the process is quite
straightforward, recent enhancements to
Warboard allow it to be integrated within
Navisworks as a plug-in, allowing
automatic and seamless
synchronisation with the application.
Both of these activities are brilliantly
explained in a series of six YouTube
videos hosted by Adam Ward of BIM
Technologies, with a promise of a further
one to come to explain how best to find
and upload issues within Navisworks.
Adding team members is quick and
easy, and once added you can assign
work, share comments and instructions,
and record their completion -
information that is aggregated and
displayed in graphs and charts and the
familiar red/amber/green symbology,
showing how far each project has
progressed in achieving a perfectly
coordinated model.
Below these two lists is a calendar of
scheduled events and a list of tasks. To
the left of the main display is a browser
that allows users to switch between
different actions.
SOLIBRI AND BCF FILES
Warboard is not just restricted to
Navisworks and Revit. It can be utilised
by any 3D modeller that is able to export
data in BCF (BIM Collaboration Format)
including Solibri. The effect is just the
same. This means that, theoretically, the
software can be used for multiple other
purposes besides managing clashes.
You can take a Revit model, for instance,
and highlight a section of it - perhaps
the detailing around one of the windows
- download it into Warboard, attach
comments, and assign one of the team
to deal with it.
WARBOARD DEVELOPMENT
This release is only the start of the
development of Warboard, and both
BIM Technologies and Space Group see
it becoming a central project tool for the
monitoring and management of design
information. Rob Charlton, CEO of
Space Group said; "We initially
developed Warboard to allow clients to
monitor project progress through a
simple dashboard. Over the years the
platform has grown into something
much more valuable, the functionality
has devolved from many users on many
live projects and this latest release is
particularly focused on helping
designers' workflows."
www.warboard.co.uk
November/December 2017 15