Creating a Format Office Master Project

Overview

A "Format" Office Master project can increase the speed of creating projects by acting as a template for a particular firm or project type.

A format office master project typically contains no active specification sections but instead holds all the formatting - basically anything that would affect the "look and feel" of a project manual.

This article will focus on the following:

• Reasons for creating a Format Office Master Project
• Steps for creating a Format Office Master Project
• Additional Information

Reasons for creating a Format Office Master Project

The effort spent creating a format master saves the time of making selections and creating user defined templates and headers/footers multiple times; sometimes many times within the same project. 

An example we see regularly is a consulting firm who has many architecture firms as clients. Each firm wants the project manual to look a certain way with a certain font, numbering, header/footer, etc. A format master lets you start the project with these preferences preset.

A Format Master can include:

• Project Summary Info settings (reference standard settings, section id format, measurement, time & date format settings)
• Selected Formatting template (font, size, attributes) - system or customized
• Header/Footer contents
• Page Setup settings (margins, page size, printing preferences) 

Steps for creating a Format Office Master Project

Follow these steps to create a format office master project. The process begins by creating a new Office Master project.

1. Click to enter the Office Masters Projects tab of the SpecLink Cloud Dashboard.
   
   
2. Click the red Create New Master button.
   
   
   
   
3. From the Create New Project window, select Office Master.
   
   
   
   
4. Select to start with Master Content.
   
   
   
   
5. Select the appropriate Master Content option. This will depend on the options available and the desired need. The image below shows the RIB USA content master selected. In many cases, this may be the only purchased option.
   
   
   
   
6. Click Next.
   
   
   
   
7. Name the project clearly identifying it as a format office master. (“ABC Architect FORMAT MASTER”).
   
   
   
   
8. Enter fictitious project information. This information will not carry forward to any active projects created from this master, but these fields are required to move forward.
   
   
   
   
9. Click Finish. 
   
   
   
   The project will be created and will open to the sections list. 
   
   
10. Click the Summary Info tab.
    
    
    
    
11. Make any necessary changes to the preferences settings.
    
    
    
    
12. Return to the sections list and click on the name of any section. Do not activate the section on the sections list.
    
    
    
    
13. When the section opens, again, do not activate the section.
    
    
    
    
14. Click the format templates menu in the tool bar and select Edit.
    
    
    
    
15. Select the system template that most closely matches your needs.
    
    
    
    
16. Click Duplicate to make an editable copy of the selected template.
    
    
    
    Learn more about Predefined System Templates and Customizing Format Templates. Each of these articles contains a walk-though video.
    
    
17. Click on the “More” menu and select Header/Footer.
    
    
    
    Create the custom header/footer here. Learn more about Headers & Footers here.
    
    
18. Click the Page Setup tab.
    
    
    
    
19. Make any necessary changes to the default page setup settings. Learn more about Page Setup here. 
    
    
    
    
20. When all settings and preferences have been set to match the desired format, close the project by clicking back to the projects dashboard. The new format master will appear in the list of office masters and by default role permissions, only a system manager will be able to access and edit the format master.
    
    

The new format master project is now available to be copied when a new project for the firm or project type is needed. 

Additional Information

There are many concepts and processing involving Office Master projects. Listed below are articles related to creating Office Master projects as well as editing and customizing the content and formatting. 

• Office Master Basics
• Creating a Content Office Master Project
• Creating an Office Master from an Active Project 
• Creating a New Project Utilizing a Format Office Master Project
• Summary Info Settings
• Importing a Section from an Existing Project
• Predefined System Format Templates
• Customizing Format Templates
• Headers & Footers
• Global Terms