Overview
SpecLink Cloud Version 2025.2.0 provides the following new features, enhancements, and fixes to the system.
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:
- Enhanced Text Visual Indicators
- Document Library
- Audit Trail
- Individual Tag Reports - Export to Excel
Enhanced Text Visual Indicators
SpecLink Cloud includes a variety of enhanced text options, such as choice fields, fill-in-the-blanks, global terms, reference standards, Section IDs, and Units of Measure. Each of these enhanced text options can be used by themselves or as part of a choice list. Since the colors used to indicate the type of enhanced text could change depending on the situation and may cause confusion, the color scheme for the Enhanced Text in SpecLink Cloud has been standardized and visual indicators have been added to further clarify each of the types of enhanced text within a section.
Enhanced Text Color
To keep consistency in the color scheme, the following adjustments have been made to the colors of the Enhanced Text:
- Choice List: Blue text.
- Global Term: Purple text.
- Reference Standards: Green text.
- Active Section ID (both Section ID and Section ID+Title): Green text.
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Removed Section ID: Red text.
- Unit of Measurement: Green text.
Enhanced Text Visual Indicators
To assist users where the enhanced text colors are not easy to distinguish, SpecLink Cloud will now have a visual indicator to go alongside the Enhanced Text options. The indicators will be as follows:
Enhanced Text Visual Indicators – Global Setting
Users will have the ability to toggle whether or not the visual indicators appear on screen. To toggle the show/hide of the visual indicators, navigate to the Dashboard, then the Settings tab. Under My Settings, find the “Show/Hide Enhanced Text Visual Indicators” and simply toggle it to your preference.
Document Library
Users will now see a new tab on SpecLink Cloud dashboard – the Document Library.
Quite often, there is a need to include documents with a SpecLink Cloud project, but they are not standard specification sections or forms. The Document Library will allow users to upload PDF files to their SpecLink Cloud, and then attach the files to sections or subdivision folders within a project.
The Document Library will allow users to:
- Create main folders and subfolders to group uploaded files.
- Upload PDF files to the folders.
- Obtain usage reports on where the documents have been inserted into projects.
Documents can be uploaded and managed in the Document Library tab. For more information on the Document Library, please see this related guide article.
Once documents have been uploaded to SpecLink Cloud, you can then attach the documents to sections or subdivision folders using the 3-dot menu or right-click menu on the Section Tree listing:
And after selecting this option will open the "Attach Document" menu to select the desired document and then click "Attach."
Once attached, there will be a new indicator next to the the section or subdivision folder to indicate attached documents. The subdivision folder indicator will show how many documents are directly attached to the folder followed by a "+" and then how many documents are attached to sections within.
Audit Trail
With Audit Trail, users can look to see who made the latest edit to a paragraph within a section. This feature will work independently from Track Changes.
Under the "More" menu, you will find two options for Audit Trail.
Show Audit Trail
Click "Show Audit Trail" to see who modified a paragraph, both edits and activation/deactivation, which will be shown as red text below the paragraph and include the editor’s name and date/time of edit. While the Audit Trail is active, users will be in read-only mode for the section. Simply toggle "Show Audit Trail" again to return to editing mode.
Export Audit Trail to Excel
By clicking "Export Audit Trail to Excel", users can export the editing information for the section to an Excel file for sorting and filtering by Section, Editor, Date, Time, etc.
Individual Tag Reports - Export to Excel
Previously, users could create a tag report that indicates when a tag is actively used in a section, but were limited to PDF or Word options. Now, there is a new report type under the reporting menu, "Individual Tag Reports (Export to Excel)".
With the new Export to Excel option, it will function very similarly to the usual Individual Tag Reports, but will give users more details, including the ability to include full text on a multiple tag report, and in a filterable Microsoft Excel format.
Running the report will work in the background until it completes. Users will be notified when the tag export to Excel completes, and it can additionally be found in the SpecLink Cloud Export Files Menu.
Enhancements
Enhancements that have been made to SpecLink Cloud include:
- Import from Word Enhancements
- Search the Section Tree by Author
- Project Note Visuals Will Match the Thumbnails
Import from Word Enhancements
There are multiple enhancements that have been made to the Import features of SpecLink Cloud:
- Improved Recognition of Project Notes
- Improved Recognition of Global Terms
- Add a Cancel Button to the Import Processing
- Modified Placement of Reference Standards Article
- Increase the Maximum Imported Files to 20
- Images in Word Document Will Import into SpecLink Cloud
Improved Recognition of Project Notes
Previous to this release, in order to get a Project Note to populate during Import from Word, a line of at least 10 asterisks above and below each project note prior to import was required. The asterisks are still supported, but are no longer necessary.
Now, Project Notes can be recognized by "Style" in the Word Document. If the Project Notes in the Spec Section being prepared for import have consistent styles, they will import automatically without any precoding required.
Generally, text in Word documents that refer to project notes use a different style compared to the regular paragraph text. In this example, the blue text uses a "Note" style, while paragraphs uses a "CSILvl03" style:
When this document is imported into SpecLink Cloud, then the "Note Style" text will automatically convert into a Project Note. No more need for precoding in Word with asterisks for notes!
Review details as well as a list of styles that will automatically import as notes here.
Additional Improvements to Importing Project Notes:
- Images in Project Notes will now Import from Word
- If multiple notes impact a single paragraph, users now have the option to combine notes from a Word document into one Project Note card in SpecLink Cloud.
Improved Recognition of Global Terms
Previously in SpecLink Cloud, users could only prepare five types of Global Terms in a Word Document that would convert into Enhanced Text after importing into SpecLink Cloud. This has been expanded so Global Term Conversion now covers all Master and User-Added Global Terms.
When you now access the Edit Global Term menu, you will see a new column: Import Marker.
Import Markers have been created for all master Global Terms and any user Global Terms in your SpecLink Cloud database. These markers are used when pre-coding Word documents for Global Terms prior to importing.
Pre-Coding Global Terms in Word Documents
Prior to importing Word documents into SpecLink Cloud, any Global Terms you want to convert automatically on import need to be pre-coded.
For example, if you want the term Owner in the Word document to convert to the Global Term “Owner's Spec Term” in SpecLink Cloud, you would make this edit in Word:
- Previously: Change the text for “Owner” to #O#
- Now: Change the text for “Owner” to #O#Owner's Spec Term#
When a pre-coded Global Term in Word is also part of a multiple-choice option, both the choice and the Global Term functions will be maintained after import into SpecLink Cloud.
Add a Cancel Button to the Import Processing
Once an Import from Word batch has started processing, users now have the option to cancel the import in progress. A Cancel button has been added to the bottom-right of the expanded import processing dialog.
Any documents that have completed processing before the cancel button had been pressed will still appear in your SpecLink Cloud project. A notification of which documents made it through the import process prior to cancellation will appear.
Modified Placement of Reference Standards Article
Previously, when users imported Word documents while converting Reference Standards enhanced text, the Reference Standards Article heading had two options for placement in SpecLink Cloud; either where it appeared in the Word Document or as the first article in Part 1 General.
Now during import, SpecLink Cloud will now intelligently look for other specific title headers to place the Reference Standards Title after to be more accurate to standard placement and at the correct level. Please see this article for more details.
Increase the Maximum Imported Files to 20
With this release, the limit for batch Import from Word has been increased from 10 to 20 at a time.
Images in Word Doc Will Import into SpecLink Cloud
When importing Word documents into SpecLink Cloud, images will now be imported as well, provided they meet the following guidelines for the import process.
- Only 1 image per paragraph.
- The image will appear in it's own paragraph, not combined with text.
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Image import guidelines:
- Minimum image size: 50x50 pixels
- Maximum image size: 600x600 pixels
- Maximum image file size: 1 MB
- File image file types: JPG, PNG, GIF
Search the Section Tree by Author
Users can now search the Section Tree Listing by Section Name, ID, and Author. The addition of Author search will allow quick location of master or user sections. The Author is indicated along with each section, such as in “Section 062000 – RIB – Finish Carpentry” RIB is the author, where for a User Section RIB would be replaced by USER or some other phrase to match an individual or company’s name.
You can also access the Author search by clicking the Sections drop-down from within a section:
Project Note Visuals Will Match the Thumbnails
Previously in SpecLink Cloud, when creating or editing project notes, they could be formatted one way in the editing window, but once saving, the Project Note thumbnail did not consistently display the paragraph breaks.
Now, users will be able to see all paragraph breaks in the thumbnails for project notes. This will include Hard Returns (ENTER), Soft Returns (SHIFT+ENTER), and any other blank lines. This will apply both for project notes created in SpecLink Cloud, and also for project notes that were imported with Word Documents.
Fixes
The following fixes have been made to SpecLink Cloud:
- Removed the ability to add HTML <scripts> in multiple locations in SpecLink Cloud.
- When Importing from Word, the Reference Standards Article Paragraphs would import at the incorrect hierarchy level.
- The "None - N/A" option will be added to any single select choice types on Import from Word.
- Fixed Notes not being imported when paragraph consists of multiple styles.
- After removing all files from an import, it will cancel the import and close the window.
- Preventing Cross Customers from accessing each others API.
- Fixed duplication of user sections when importing from Project.
- Various code and data fixes that are project or customer specific have been applied since the previous SpecLink Cloud release.
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