Automated Drawing Changes

We are excited to offer the ability for users to update drawing files themselves using our Tru-Measure software. For many years, clients have been able to instantly update stacking plans and availability reports. Drawings, however, had to be updated manually.

Now we have a system that will create new PDF files every time changes are made. Unlike many other data driven drawing systems, the files created are regular, stand alone files. You don't need special, dedicated software to view the files and access the data. What you get out of the system are PDF files, plain and simple.

Space Database Self-Serve Drawing Changes

View more presentations from Mikael Sandblom.

Now, there are a few limitations on this service and what the technology can do. Here's the downside:

• First, there is an extra monthly fee to run this service. It's a modest amount and we anticipate that in nearly all cases, it will be cheaper to run the automated system than to pay for manual updates.
• Next, There is a setup job required to enable this functionality. Changes will have to be made to the hosted files before the service can run.
• The service applies to data changes, not physical changes to the building. It works fine for changing tenant names and creating marketing drawings for new vacancies. If walls have been reconfigured, we still need to go on site and accurately measure the changes.
• Finally, the system works for full-floor marketing drawings. At this time, we don't automatically generate single suite marketing drawings. If you require single suite drawings, we can still do these, but it is a manual process that brings along an additional charge.

I think most clients will find the benefits of this new service compelling. Here's the upside:

• You get unlimited updates for one basic fee. It should now cost far less to maintain an up-to-date set of files.
• There'll be fewer work order tickets to issue and approve. Instead of creating a ticket and explaining what needs to be done, you'll just go ahead and make the change yourself.
• Updates are instantaneous. You don't need to wait for one of our staff to make the updates.
• Data is synchronized across the web. Once you've made a vacancy change, not only is the drawing updated but so are all of your stacking plans, availability reports and websites.

We're currently setting up a couple of pilot projects and it may take some time before we can convert all the buildings that will benefit from this service. We'll be in touch with clients individually as we work this through.

CBRE Stacking Plans

We were faced with an interesting problem. Adgar is the owner of 1881 Yonge St and 1867 Yonge St. We had created unique stacking plans and availability reports for each of their buildings, but now this data had to be moved and integrated into a CBRE branded site for leasing purposes. The timeline was very tight. Thanks to our new flexible API, we solved this problem very quickly.

This solution demonstrates the flexibility of our API. We can serve up data any way you want it. Adgar's other buildings still appear at www.adgar4lease.com as well as under specific building addresses such as www.55yorkstreet.com . A nice feature of the API is that it can be used to run pages on clients' servers or on ours. The information can appear anywhere and in any form. It's always up to date because it is fed from the same consistent back-end data source.

How to 'degrade' a page for non-Flash browsers

On the front page of our website we have a Flash movie that I think explains our business very well. I really like it and I think the little animations help to tell the story. The problem is that on browsers without Flash, there used to be a big empty space on the most important part of the page. To address this, we have built in a detector that will identify visitors that don't have Flash installed. For these users, the page will serve up a series of still images animated using JQuery. For those browsers that don't even support jQuery or JavaScript, the page serves up an animated gif as a very basic slide-show. We no longer get empty space or ugly missing plug-in messages. An animated gif is served to visitors without Flash or JavaScript

To see how it works, take a look at the source code of http://www.spacedatabase.com/index.html . Feel free to use this method on your site!

An easy way to test what a site looks like is to temporarily turn off Flash in your browser. Here are instructions for the most common browsers:

• Firefox: go to the 'Tools' menu, select 'Add-ons', then 'Plugins' , scroll down to 'Shockwave Flash' and click on 'Disable'
• Internet Explorer: go to the 'Tools' menu, select 'Toolbars and Extensions', pick 'Shockwave Flash Object' and click 'Disable'
• Chrome: use the address bar at the top and type in 'chrome://plugins'. On the web page, scroll down to 'Shockwave Flash' and click 'Disable'.

Don't forget to turn Flash back on again by clicking 'Enable'!