Accessing University Estates Space Drawings Online

The Information Services Applications Directorate recently helped provide a stable solution to ensure continued access to digital images of University buildings, floor plans and assets utilised by the Estates Operations Department and other University stakeholders.

The Estates Operations Department is reliant on Archibus, a Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) system. The solution includes a Archibus data, client application and Webcentral browser application used by about 700 users across the University to access University drawings of buildings and floor plans.

The results of these space returns, undertaken by our Space Contacts, are extremely beneficial as it allows us to track and manage the space appropriately for budget allocations for colleges and support groups, finance for the full economic costing reports, utilities and maintenance costs and rentable space. The data also provides a robust baseline, for the strategic planning of the estate,

Jane Brodie

Adobe Flash is typically used to view the Estates Space drawings; however, Flash was scheduled to be decommissioned in January 2021, affecting the delivery and maintenance of the drawings. In response, Information Services worked with the Estates team to identify a solution – offered through a licensed product called Harman – that allows users to open a separate browser to access the drawings previously offered through Adobe Flash.

The project team operated quickly on the time sensitive issue, having been notified of the decommission prior to the holidays and resolving the issue by the end of March 2021. ISG collaborated with the Estates administrative team in the testing of the new product and rollout and communications to Estates users and the wider audience.

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“The significance of the implementation of the Harman packaged browser to Estates is huge as it allows users to continue to view floor plans now that Adobe Flash has been decommissioned in standard web browsers,” said Jane. “Presently there are 75 Nominated Space contacts who submit their space usage for each College, School and Business unit online via the Space Planning Console in Web Central. These Space Contacts would not have been able to carry out this core process without the implementation of this software as it is essential to their role to be able to view floor plans.”

This effort is a milestone in the broader aspiration to improve and enhance CAFM processes, procedures, templates and documentation to ensure Archibus remains operational until it is updated and replaced with a new CAFM system in the future.