Feature Set
Newforma Project Center capabilities are carefully interwoven to support an intuitive and streamlined project information management process
Summarized below are the major features of the solution, sorted by level of functionality. Our feature list grid also provides a quick, summary look.
Express features
Add-in for Outlook
Project Email
Search
SharePoint Integration for Search
My Project Center
Project Home
Project Files
Project Team
Newforma Viewer
Snapshot
Markup/Markup Sessions
Project Timeline
Professional features
Compare
Action Items
Newforma Info Exchange
Transmittals
Document Sets
Record Copies
Submittals
RFIs
Administration and Help features
Project Center Administration
Newforma Support
Common Questions
Help
Newformant User Community Site
Integration with industry solutions
Deltek Integration
Océ Publisher Integration
Sepialine Integration
Capturx Integration
Express features
Add-in for Outlook
The Newforma Project Center add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook® enables team members to file email with other project documents in one or two clicks, or by dragging and dropping. Then, when it comes time to archive the project, the entire project’s email is located with the rest of the project data. Emails specifically related to action items, RFIs, submittals and transmittals can be effectively processed without leaving the Outlook inbox.
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Project Email
The Project Email activity center simplifies the process of finding emails or any specific information buried in them. Column filters help users navigate quickly to the email they seek. In addition, the Search function makes it easy to find specific items of information in any filed email or email attachment. Members of the internal project team use the Project Email activity center for visibility to all project email whether or not they were included on the original distribution. Duplicates of emails filed into the Project Email activity center are automatically removed.
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Search
The Search function of Newforma Project Center software finds search terms as they appear in documents across all of your project information, including transmittals, submittals, RFIs, action items and markup sessions. It finds terms in nearly 200 commonly used industry formats, such as CAD, PDF, DWF and Microsoft Office files, including Outlook email. It also finds terms in external references, email attachments and ZIP files. It even finds search terms as they appear in image properties, or in the object properties of DWG, DWF and IFC files. Links take you directly to the location of the matching term inside the document. The ability to search within a search, and to filter and sort your findings, lets you narrow results quickly. You can search a single project, or include multiple active or archived projects. Search functionality supports international languages, including Chinese characters.
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SharePoint integration for Search
Microsoft SharePoint® users can now search SharePoint-related project sites directly from Newforma Project Center. By selecting “SharePoint” as the search location on the Search menu, Newforma will retrieve and display results from the SharePoint project site that contain the matching search term. Project-specific blogs, wikis and threaded discussions maintained in SharePoint may also be accessed and searched via Newforma Project Center.
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My Project Center
My Project Center provides a single point of access to a customized list of your projects (which is used throughout the application) as well to the firm’s complete portfolio of active projects, archived projects and project opportunities. The Project Activity Summary displays a broad cross-section of project metrics as each project is selected, including current open items; a chart of historical trends in project activity; up-to-date financials from programs like Deltek Vision; and a list of most recently modified files. The Summary display is configurable to individual user needs. Lastly, team members can generate a series of reports for one or more selected projects from My Project Center to track My Open Items, RFIs, submittals, action items, transmittals, email and markups.
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Project Home
Project Home displays activity centers from which project team members can conduct common AEC work processes such as sending transmittals; managing submittals; creating, sharing and organizing markups; managing action items and more. You can even configure Project Home to display shortcuts to your commonly used applications and links to websites of your choice.
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Project Files
The Project Files activity center establishes a project context for files, allowing access to all folders and documents related to the current project from one place on your desktop, no matter where the files reside on the network. It allows easy browsing and searching, dramatically reducing the time needed to find critical project information. The software identifies duplicate files and missing or incorrect external references. You can cut, copy, paste, delete or rename files just as in Windows Explorer, all without leaving Newforma Project Center.
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Project Team
The Project Team activity center is used to assemble, manage, and group project teams; generate project team reports; and view the ongoing and completed activity associated with individual team members. Most importantly, it facilitates communication between internal and external team members when using functions such as Transmittals, Submittals, Action Items and Newforma Info Exchange. Project Team contact data is stored and managed in a central database on the Newforma Project Center Server; project team members can be added from the database, imported from Deltek Vision or dragged in from your Outlook Contacts.
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Viewer
Newforma Viewer allows you to view graphics files and mark them up with easy-to-use annotation and drawing tools. Newforma Viewer opens the file types BMP, DGN, DWF, DWG, DXF, GIF, JPEG, PDF, PLT, PNG and TIFF, and raster images. The file’s underlying authoring software, and expertise in that software, are not required. Newforma Viewer markup tools do not alter the original source file; instead, they create a new markup file using the underlying source file as a background. Enter search terms in the Find window to see where they appear in the displayed file.
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Snapshot
When working with modeling software such as Autodesk Revit® or Graphisoft® ArchiCAD® software, Snapshot functionality allows you to take a picture of the model as it’s displayed on your screen, then mark it up. You can then aggregate a sequence of annotated model views into a markup session for review and comment by members of the project team.
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Markup/Markup Sessions
Newforma Project Center users can review, mark up and comment upon project drawings and documents just as you do in a physical redlining process. You can quickly create multiple markups for a CAD drawing or BIM model, link them to action items, stamp them as part of a design or CA review process and then email or transmit them via Info Exchange as bookmarked PDF files to members of the external project team.
Using the Markup Sessions activity center, Newforma Project Center users can browse, preview and add comments to each and every markup session created on the project, providing an audit trail of the decisions in a design, submittal or RFI review workflow. After markups have been reviewed and corrections incorporated into the underlying source drawings and models, markup sessions can be closed, but remain a permanent part of the project record. You can also publish multiple markup sessions to PDF and generate markup reports as responses to a multi-sheet design or shop drawing review. Newforma Markup Session functionality also works with markups created by Adapx, Adobe, Bluebeam and Autodesk software.
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Project Timeline
The Project Timeline activity center enables the team to track and manage important project-specific events ranging from phases, tasks and milestones to meetings, phone calls and local holidays. You may import and synchronize items from Microsoft Office Project, Microsoft Office Outlook, and Deltek Vision. Importantly, you can associate events with supporting documents and related items like Action Items. In this way, you can use it to effectively log and track meeting minutes and action items associated with meetings or phone calls. Events can be displayed in either an event log, calendar or journal view.
Project Timeline–Calendar View provides a monthly view of project activities, helping align everyone on both the internal and external teams to a common
set of events, tasks and milestones. Newforma Project Center users can file Microsoft Outlook calendar items into the Project Timeline calendar and subscribe to the project calendar to view it in Outlook as well. External team members can also access and subscribe to the project calendar via your Info Exchange website, although you have the ability to control the types of information that external team members can view.
Project Timeline–Journal View displays project events along a linear scale of dates that can be selected in daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly increments. As date ranges are selected above, the journal below displays a comprehensive list of all project items that occurred during this time range, including project files, emails, transmittals, RFIs, action items and any other activities. You can filter the list by item type or project team member and adjust the date ranges to refine the list.
The Event Log displays project timeline items in a list you can easily sort or filter by team member or type. In this way, it can be used to quickly retrieve phases, milestones, phone logs, meeting minutes and other events on the Project Timeline.
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Professional features
Compare
The Compare functionality of Newforma Project Center graphically identifies differences between iterative sets of drawings, eliminating the time-consuming process of manually comparing different versions. By color-coding additions, deletions and changes, and by providing the ability to animate changes and filter out dimensionally insignificant changes, Compare enables the project team to focus its attention on important coordination issues, and to evaluate the quantity, cost and scheduling impact of design revisions.
The Batch Compare functionality eliminates the time and cost of comparing large drawing sets manually. The software displays color-coded differences between any two folders or document sets you select to compare. Compare functionality can also graphically display the differences between three or more versions of a drawing. A Compare animator shows the transitions between sequential versions of a drawing for a clear understanding of how the design has evolved over time.
When comparing drawing files that are not iterative versions of the same CAD file, you can use Newforma Digital Light Table to electronically call out the differences between versions. It color-codes changes between files of different or incompatible origins. For example, use Digital Light Table to see changes between a PDF and a DWF. It displays raster, CAD or PDF files. To present the changes to others, you can generate an animated GIF that shows the transition from the baseline drawing to the revision.
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Action Items
The Action Items activity center engages the power of the extended project team to identify and manage critical issues, helping to keep your projects on budget and on schedule. Team members can seamlessly create action items while answering email in their Microsoft Outlook inbox; while reviewing a drawing, BIM model or PDF in the Newforma Viewer; or from any other activity center in Newforma Project Center. Action Item users can also import items in bulk from CSV files created outside of Newforma Project Center. Internal team members can access project action items from a common, central list and contribute updates or generate reports. External team members receive email notifications for the action items in which they are involved and use links embedded in the notification emails to access the items on the Newforma Info Exchange web site. As the action items are created and completed, the parties involved are notified via email. Any email correspondence, markups or supporting documents associated with the action item can be electronically linked to it, as well, providing a permanent connection and audit trail of all related information.
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Newforma Info Exchange
Newforma® Info Exchange is an automated and secure means of working with your external team members, allowing the project team to transfer project information,
coordinate distributed CAD or BIM datasets, streamline CA and design review workflows, and gain access to a common set of project phases, tasks, milestones and meetings in a shared project calendar.
File Transfers via Newforma Info Exchange overcome the file size limitations encountered when transferring files via email. Simply select files to be transferred from any activity in Newforma Project Center and designate the recipients. Newforma Info Exchange takes care of packaging the selected files and their external reference files. It posts them to the Newforma Info Exchange website hosted on the Newforma Info Exchange Server within your company’s IT infrastructure. Each recipient then receives an email notification containing a link to the Newforma Info Exchange website, from which the recipient securely downloads the file. This same web interface, which you can customize to your company’s graphical standards, can be used by external team members to upload files.
Info Exchange Folders are used to coordinate the revisions on referenced CAD or BIM datasets by distributed teams. Simply select a file folder or document set in Newforma Project Center, designate the external participants and publish to a Newforma Info Exchange Folder. External participants will receive an email with a link to the Newforma Info Exchange web interface where they can download the published files and also upload their reference files. Newforma Project Center users can then merge these uploads with the current source files on their network. As work progresses, internal and external team members can seamlessly re-publish and receive future revisions, ensuring that all members of the design team are working from a common, up-to-date set of coordinated reference drawings and models.
Through a browser interface, the Newforma Info Exchange website allows the external team to participate in work processes managed through Newforma Project Center activity centers such as those for Action Items, Submittals and RFIs. Newforma Info Exchange tracks download activity and sends reminders to members who have yet to download files. The My Open Items page displays the external team members’ pending file transfers and Newforma Info Exchange folders, as well as pending RFIs, submittals and action items across all their projects.
Finally, Newforma Info Exchange also automates the administrative functions that typically plague FTP and extranet sites. Permissions and password security are maintained automatically, and file transfers are automatically removed from the Newforma Info Exchange website on designated expiration dates. Backup record copies of each file transfer are transparently maintained in a designated project location, allowing users to resend or review the contents of expired transfers, as well as compare them to updated versions, without any IT administrative assistance.
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Transmittals
Use the Transmittals activity center to create and log transmittals that accompany the exchange of both physical and electronic materials with external project team members. Transmittal forms can be customized to match your company’s existing forms or the needs of the project. Transmittals are often created as by-products of other processes, such as file transfers, markup sessions and RFI or submittal responses sent via Newforma Info Exchange or email. The transmittal log consolidates all electronic and physical exchanges into a single view providing the project team with easy access to every incoming or outgoing transmittal transaction on the project.
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Document Sets
The Document Sets activity center enables you to organize related project files and folders without duplicating or modifying the underlying file folder structure. Live links to Microsoft Windows folders and advanced file name filtering allow the document set to be dynamically updated as the underlying folder contents change. Team members can then view, mark up and review the document set contents, send them to other project team members, create record copies of document sets at key project milestones, and compare their contents with record copies or updated versions.
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Record Copies
The Record Copies activity center maintains a ZIP archive of the contents of each and every Newforma Info Exchange transfer and transmittal, submittal or RFI transaction, eliminating the tedious chore of archiving the countless file transfers that occur on a project. Team members can also save record copy archives of document sets or project folders at key project milestones without an associated file transfer or action. All record copies are linked to their source folders, document sets or transactions as Related Info, enabling team members to easily discover and retrieve prior versions and use Newforma Compare to visually identify changes between revisions.
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Submittals
Use the Submittals activity center to log, forward for review, capture reviewer response and respond to submittals. It provides you with the ability to batch import scheduled submittals from Microsoft Excel®; to accept, reject and forward submittals; to request re-submittals; and to track and report submittal status and history – including submittal-related email exchanges between project team members. You can track and review bundled submittals by line item. Notifications keep project team members on track to assure timely turnaround.
Electronic submittals can be logged through Microsoft Outlook or Newforma Info Exchange, and be reviewed and marked up in Newforma Viewer. You can even insert a user-customizable submittal stamp. A bookmarked PDF can be seamlessly generated, logged and transferred as a submittal response via Newforma Info Exchange or email.
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RFIs
An RFI can be logged from an incoming email in Microsoft Outlook, received via Newforma Info Exchange or simply entered from the RFI activity center. You can forward the RFI to an external consultant and track the progress and due dates of all open RFIs from the RFI activity center, which also tracks any related email correspondence or supporting project files and provides a searchable audit trail for each RFI in the project.
Access to contract administration records
The ability to create or modify contract administration records is limited to named users specifically authorized to process CA information. However, all internal project team members can list, view and report the status of all CA records through view-only access to the submittal and RFI activity centers. Similarly, external project team members can view the status of all CA items in which they are specifically involved via Newforma Info Exchange.
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Administration and Help features
Newforma Project Center Administration
All key administrative functions of Newforma Project Center have been grouped in an activity center that can, optionally, be hidden from everyday users. Administrative functions include creation or deletion of projects; administration of contact data, Newforma Info Exchange user accounts and file transfers; administration and monitoring of the Newforma Project Center and Newforma Info Exchange Servers; and support for project templates that automate the setup of new projects according to your preferred project settings. During the initial deployment of Newforma Project Center, this project setup process can be scripted to automate the setup of existing active projects and opportunities, as well as archived projects, making them immediately accessible and searchable from within Newforma Project Center. With Deltek integration, projects and contacts can be automatically imported and updated. Global administrators may designate project administrators who have authority to modify project settings, reset Newforma Info Exchange passwords and delete RFIs, submittals, transmittals and action items.
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Newforma Support
Newforma Project Center Support offers a comprehensive set of customer support resources. A comprehensive knowledgebase provides a wealth of tips, materials and Newforma-validated answers to technical questions posed live and online. A key part of the knowledgebase is the Customer Support Discussion Forum, where Newforma administrators, Newforma representatives and Newforma consulting partners can address technical questions. Finally, a collection of online tutorials, called Take 5’s, supplement Newforma Training Services with just-in-time learning. The Support activity center also provides contact information for those requiring personal attention.
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Common Questions
For new users of Newforma Project Center, or for users exploring new capabilities, the Common Questions area on the left of the user interface provides context-sensitive help for the typical questions that might arise at that particular location of the product. Common Questions is an area that can be expanded or contracted from view as appropriate to the needs of the user. Selected Common Questions also provide links to Take 5 video tutorials that give further explanation of key topics.
Send a suggestion
You can send along ideas and feedback from your personal use of Newforma Project Center to the product design team. Sharing your experience can help to shape an upcoming release.
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Help
Newforma Project Center provides a comprehensive and searchable Help resource that includes Help Topics, Take 5 video tutorials, new feature summaries and more.
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Newformant User Community Site
Directly accessible via Help or Search from Newforma Project Center, www.newformant.com is an online community for Newforma users. Users can search for guides and tech tips provided by Newforma or other users, post a question to the community, or share product suggestions.
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Integration with industry solutions
Deltek integration
If your firm has implemented Deltek Vision software, you can take advantage of several unique integration opportunities within Newforma Project Center.
Projects – When you create or modify projects or contacts in Deltek Vision, Newforma Project Center is automatically updated, keeping your financial and project information management systems in synch. Additionally, when initially deploying Newforma software, you can batch create projects and their project teams by importing them from Deltek Vision.
Planning - You can import the phases and tasks of the work breakdown structure (WBS) defined in Deltek Vision Planning into the Project Timeline, allowing project teams to align the project plan from Deltek Vision with the execution of the project in Newforma Project Center. Activities from Deltek Vision CRM can also be automatically reflected in the Newforma Project Timeline.
Monitoring - A custom tab in the Project Activity Summary of My Project Center can be set up to dynamically display financial, planning and other project-specific metrics from Deltek Vision. Note: These capabilities will require additional configuration of Deltek Vision and Newforma Project Center that is available through Newforma Integration Partners.
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Océ Publisher integration
Support for large-format plotted output is provided via integration with Océ Publisher. Publish selected files, folders or document sets via Océ Publisher from within Newforma Project Center, and reduce waste by previewing the plot-ready files before committing them to print. Automatically keep record copies of drawings published via Océ Publisher, which are tracked via the Record Copies activity center of Newforma Project Center. View drawings contained in these record copies by double-clicking on the individual drawings.
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Sepialine integration
Project expenses such as printing, copying, phone and fax are associated with the current project through an exchange of project identifying information between Newforma Project Center and Sepialine Argos software. As a result, Argos automatically receives default project billing information from Newforma Project Center without any interruption of your work process, facilitating the timely and accurate billing of reimbursable project expenses.
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Capturx integration
Newforma software allows team members to manage project information generated by Adapx™ Capturx™ technology. For example, Newforma Search functionality finds information captured by digital pens, and the Newforma Markup/Markup Session activity center may be used to manage information generated by digital pen markups of paper documents.