SpecLink Cloud Release Notes Version 2025.1.0 - 2025.05.17

Overview

SpecLink Cloud Version 2025.1.0 provides the following new features, enhancements, and fixes to the system.

• New Features
• Enhancements
• Fixes

Watch the Release Highlight Video to see these new features, enhancements, and fixes in action.

New Features

The following features were added to SpecLink Cloud: 

• Bulk Import Update
• Editing Choice Options Expanded
• Allow Users to Print/Export Individual Sections in Outline View and Short Form View
• Open Sections Automatically in a New Tab
• Retain Comments when Paragraphs are Deleted
• Warning Message when Deleting User Sections that are Referenced in Other Sections
• User Display List

Bulk Import Update

Starting with Release 25.1.0, users will be able to import up to 10 word documents at a time into a a SpecLink Cloud project or master. 

Bulk Import Settings:

In addition to a new import window appearance, there are new settings users can review during the bulk import process.

• "Designate Author" allow users to customize the Author value that will apply to all documents being imported.
• "Capitalization for section names" allows users to set the way that section names will display in the Sections List after import.
  
  

New Import Features:

During the bulk import process, there are now two options to simplify the process, Express Import and Review Files. 

• Express Import: This will allow the user to go directly to the import process after choosing the files for import.
  
  
  
  
• Review Files: This will allow users the opportunity to review the Section ID, Folder, Author, and Section Title and make adjustments for each document before starting the import.
  
  
  
  

During the import process, SpecLink Cloud will perform various validation checks to ensure that Section ID, Folder, Author, and Section Title are all valid. If for any reason one of those options is not valid, the Review Files dialog will appear and highlight the failed items with a red outline. From the dropdown menu for each section, users will be able to edit the Section ID, Folder, Author, and Section Title as needed. 

If desired, the red trash can on the right side can be selected as well to remove the associated file from the import.

If any duplicates exist, SpecLink Cloud will attempt to resolve by appending a new numeral to the end of the Author field for any duplicates (ex. USER to USER-1) or provide the user the opportunity to adjust the Author field before import begins.

Since importing more than one section at a time may take some time to complete (current estimates show importing 10 files may take an average of approximately 5 to 10 minutes), users will see a progress indicator in the bottom-right corner of the dashboard. This indicator can be expanded for additional information and then minimized to allow the user to perform other work in the project. 



There will be a notification that appears as well when the import is complete that will highlight successful imports, as well as any documents that might have failed.



Once the notification disappears, the information will still be available in Activity tab of the Notifications menu.

For more information about importing, click here to see the related guide article.  

Editing Choice Options Expanded

If a choice field is created as a Checkbox or Multiple Choice type, the type of choice could not be changed and users would need to delete and start over. Now, editing choice options have been expanded so users can simply edit the choice type along with all other aspects (including switching between the “AND” option or the “OR” option) instead of needing to start from the beginning.

In addition, to clarify the choice experience, the labels for the type of choices have been changed:

• The “Checkbox” or "Inclusive" type has been changed to “Multiple Select”.
• The “Multiple Choice” or "Exclusive" type has been changed to “Single Select".
  
  

For more information about Choice Fields, click here to see the related guide article.

Allow Users to Print/Export Individual Sections in Outline View and Short Form View

Previously, when printing/exporting in Short Form or Outline view in SpecLink Cloud, users were not able to print individual sections, only full Division or Project printing/exporting was allowed. This has been updated to allow users to print/export by section in Short Form view and Outline view. 

Additionally, when the current view is Short Form or Outline and a user goes to print by Division or Section, only Divisions/Sections that have been tagged as Short Form or Outline will appear in the dropdown menu.

Open Sections Automatically in a New Tab

A new default option has been added to the My Settings menu to allow users to set the way sections open in SpecLink Cloud. Currently all sections open in the same tab unless the the user chooses to open the section in a new tab. That can now be toggled so that the default when clicking to open a section will open in a new tab.

To change the default section opening behavior, go to the dashboard of SpecLink Cloud and click Settings. Under "My Settings", find the "Customize Open Section Behavior" and toggle between open in same browser tab or open in new browser tab.

For more information about the Settings Tab, click here to see the related guide article.  

Retain Comments When Paragraphs Are Deleted

Previously, if a user deletes a paragraph that has comments attached to it, the comments were also deleted. Starting with 2025.1.0, SpecLink Cloud users will be able to choose to retain comments even if the paragraph is deleted. When deleting a paragraph or branch that contains comments, there will now be a pop-up to choose whether to retain the comments or not. 

If the user chooses to retain the comments, the comments will be attached to the parent paragraph of the paragraph or branch being deleted.

If a user paragraph was deleted in error and the Undo option is immediately chosen, if the comments were retained they will be moved back in line with the restored paragraph.

For more on the commenting feature, click here to see the related guide article.

Warning Message when Deleting User Sections that are Referenced in Other Sections

Previously, when deleting user sections, the section would be deleted without any notification if the section being deleted was referenced in any other sections. Now, if a user section is referenced in other sections, upon deleting the section a pop-up message will appear indicating any other sections and locations that the section pending deletion is being referenced. From there, users can either continue with the deletion or have the opportunity to cancel. 

User Display List

Whenever there is an open section, users will now see an icon next to the quick access toolbar that shows all of the users that also have the section open. By hovering the mouse, a tooltip will appear to indicate who has edit access at that time.

For more information about the Quick Access Toolbar, click here to see the related guide article.  

Enhancements

Enhancements that have been made to SpecLink Cloud include:

• Catalog Enhancements
• Contributors will now be able to View/Comment in all Shared Sections
• Allow Users to Share a Project to Multiple Users at Once
• Import from Word - Reference Standards will now be Recognized Regardless of Spaces and Dashes
• Settings Tab Role Permission Access
• Change "Suffix" Label to "Author"
• Section IDs Tooltips will now Display the Author
• Add to Master and Project Note Icons (Accessibility Improvement)
• Allow Contributors to use Document Map
• Add Space Between Sections in Sheet Specs

Catalog Enhancements

There are multiple enhancements that have been made to the catalog aspects of SpecLink Cloud, starting with a new visual indicator in shared projects with a tooltip explaining the level of access to a section.



Going along with the visual indicator, the tooltip seen above acts as a reminder that now, all users will be able to activate, deactive, or exclude sections in the project sections list in all catalogues, regardless of their subscription entitlement. This ability can still be restricted depending on role permissions, user permissions, and permissions granted during sharing. 

Contributors will now be able to View/Comment in all Shared Sections

Previously, if a project was shared to one user but their SpecLink Cloud subscription did not include access to certain sections in the project, that user was unable to view or comment in those sections. Now, all users will have the ability to view and comment access to those sections. This ability can still be restricted depending on role permissions, user permissions, and permissions granted during sharing.

Allow Users to Share a Project to Multiple Users at Once

Previously, sharing SpecLink Cloud projects were only able to be sent to one user at a time. Starting with 2025.1.0, SpecLink Cloud projects can be shared with up to 20 users at one time. This will apply the same sharing permissions for all users during the group share.

Once the project has been shared, individuals can still have their share permissions edited independently without impacting all contributors simultaneously. 
For more about sharing projects in SpecLink Cloud, click here to view the related guide article. 

Import from Word - Reference Standards will now be Recognized Regardless of Spaces and Dashes

In order to improve the import process for users, Reference Standards in the word document that may have spaces or dashes in the reference segment (such as "ASTM E 84" or "ASTM E-84"), will now recognize the Reference Standard properly, even if it doesn't match exactly as shown in the SpecLink Cloud Reference Standards Library (Such as "ASTM E84"). Reference segments can now contains spaces, non-breaking spaces, dashes, parentheses, slashes, periods, and commas, and import correctly into SpecLink Cloud.

For more about setting up your documents for importing, click here to see the related article.

Settings Tab Role Permission Access

Previously, only users with System Manager role permissions could access the Settings menu. In order for all users to be able to access customizable user settings, the System Manager access restriction to Settings has been removed. This will give users access to the "My Settings" tab under the Settings dashboard, so they can customize Email Notifications and Open Section Behavior, as well as any future planned customizable settings.

Change "Suffix" Label to "Author"

To provide clarity when creating or adjusting sections in SpecLink Cloud, the "Suffix" label is being clarified and changed to the "Author" label since this value denotes the source or author of the section (such as 081113:RIB or 081113:User).

To ensure we maintain consistency, any additional menus that previously referred to the "Suffix" label have also been updated to be replaced by "Author". 

Section IDs Tooltips will now Display the Author

When a Section ID and Section Name appeared in a paragraph, users had no way to tell which Section ID was being referred to if the specific section had duplicates in a project (such as the RIB master version and additional user versions of the same Section ID).

Now, as shown above, when users hover over a Section ID in a paragraph, a new tooltip will appear that shows the Author (such as 095100:RIB vs 095100:USER). 

Add to Master and Project Note Icons (Accessibility Improvement)

The Master Note and Project Note icons have received a visual update to aid users in identifying the type of note. Master Note icons will now contain an "M" and Project Note icons will now contain a "P".

Allow Contributors to use the Document Map

The Document Map feature has been extended so that all users and contributors with access to a shared project can now use the Document Map.

Add Space Between Sections in Sheet Specs

Currently, there is very little space between one section and the next on the Sheet Specs print/export (using the default templates supplied with SpecLink Cloud). This can make it difficult to find where one section ends and the next section begins.

To provide clarity, a new default of 21 points/1.5 vertical line space will be added between each section in the Sheet Specs export. 

Fixes

The following fixes have been made to SpecLink Cloud:

• NP/NS (non-printing and non-selectable) tagged sections should not appear in the print/export document, even as blank pages when sequence 0000 is tagged NP/NS. Users will receive a pop-up when printing/exporting that will list the NP/NS tagged sections that won’t be included in the print/export.

• Section ID with Section Title was displaying inconsistently. This has been fixed so the entire Section ID and Title will appear in green font color when it is a single type (not in a choice pop-up).

• Import from Word paragraph levels have been reevaluated to improve consistency of the formatting and have improved the success rate of paragraphs importing at the correct levels.

• "Can not toggle origin for seq 0000" tooltip was appearing where not applicable.

• Various code and data fixes that are project or customer specific have been applied since the previous SpecLink Cloud release.  

Release Highlight Video