Release Date: June 14th, 2016

Updates to CERL hosted sites will be scheduled with individual customer leads. Self-hosted customers and licensing partners can receive installers on or after the release date.

BUILDER Web Application

New Features

Custom Configuration of Building Templates

In previous BUILDER versions, a Building template could be used to create a target Building only if the area of the target Building was within 10% (either more or less) of the area of the template. Starting with Version 3.4, that percentage range can be configured by a BUILDER Administrator.

New Information and Checkboxes at the Building General Info. Tab 

The following additions have been made at the General Info. tab on the Building inventory screen:

• Building "Current Status" Suboptions. The selection procedure for a Building's "Current Status" has been changed to allow more than one status to be selected at one time. (For example, a Building may be both vacant and scheduled for demolition.) To accomplish this, sub- status options have been provided for some, but not all, of the initial options. If a Current Status option is selected (currently, "Active", "Vacant", or "Transferred") that contains substatus options, then a field for substatus options will appear to the right of the "Current Status" field; suboptions are provided in the field's dropdown.
• Building Not Inspectable ("Unable to Inspect"). A checklist has been added for situations where an inspector has been unable to enter a Building to perform a condition assessment. Selectable reasons are shown in the dropdown list:
• Excluded Systems Checkboxes ("Building Does Not Contain"). A series of checkboxes allows the user to mark that any one or more of the following Systems are not present in the Building.
• Building Renovation Year ("Year Renovated"). This field should contain the year of the most recent renovation of the Building, if renovation has been performed.

Component Importance Index Books

BUILDER has long used values of the Component Importance Index (CII) to rank the relative importance of components against one another (used for example, in Work Configuration to hold different Component-Sections to different thresholds, or to prioritize them differently based on relative importance settings). In BUILDER 3.4, the "Reference Book" design methodology has been applied to the Component Importance Index, allowing users to create custom CII configurations. Individual Organizations or Sites within the same BUILDER tree can have their relative component importance values ranked differently; or "what-if" scenarios can be run with different CII configurations to compare outcomes. This is in contrast to the original CII design, which forced a single determination of CII across the entire BUILDER Inventory tree.

New "Current Status" Field for Component-Sections

At the Component-Section screen in Inventory, an optional status field has been added where the user can assign a status to the Component. Current options are shown in the dropdown list.  Technical Note: The Component-Section "Current Status" value is not set (is null) unless a user selects one of the listed values for it.

New Condition Assessment Option: Preventative Maintenance Inspections

Both the BUILDER and BuilderRED interfaces have been updated to accommodate a new condition assessment option alongside direct ratings and distress surveys. Preventative Maintenance (PM) inspections function in a similar way to direct ratings, using a nine-point scale. However, a PM inspection is performed at the subcomponent level, rather than at the Component-Section level.

Bug Fixes and Enhancements

Display Work Items at Organization Level

Previously, the top inventory level at which work items could be viewed was at the Site level. Work items can now also be viewed at the Organization level.

Note: Although work items can be viewed at the Organization level, they may not be generated above the Site level.

Work Plan Prioritization

1. Work Plans Prioritized for all Scenario Years. Previously, work pri- oritization was enabled only for the current fiscal year and next fiscal year. In contrast, a work plan generated from the Scenarios module can contain up to ten years of work items. Work Prioritization is now enabled for all years of a scenario.

2. Prioritize Work Items at Organization Level. Work item prioritization can now be performed at the Organization level.

Export Entire Site Work Plan

Work plan export will now export the entire Site work plan rather than just the currently visible page of work items.

Work Item Details Enhancements

1. Section Name. The Section name is now displayed immediately above the "Description" field in the work item "Details" popup window.

2. Warranty in Effect Indicator. If an item is under warranty (and only if it is under warranty), an indicator to that effect with be displayed in the work item "Details" popup window.

 Select Multiple Work Items for Deletion

Users can select multiple or all work items in a BUILDER work plan for dele- tion, instead of having to delete them one at a time. For details, see "Delete a Work Item" in the online Help documentation.

Inventory: Component-Section Cost Book Edits

In Cost Books, the bug that caused changes to the Component Section Replacement Cost to be dropped during the Save process has been fixed. The Component Section Replacement Cost can be edited.

Condition Assessment: Distress Severity

Previously, whenever an existing distress was edited, the Distress Severity field would be reset to "Low" regardless of the previous value. This behavior has been changed, to avoid inadvertent modification of a higher Distress Severity to "Low" while editing another distress parameter. All previously entered values should now persist, to ensure that data is not lost during the editing process.

Database Optimization

A modified database schema speeds up data acquisition by about 15% in most cases.