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House Areas and Measurement Types

Understanding House Areas

House Areas is a widely used part of the system. It is used to speed up selection, restrict what can be used where, and generally make a massive amount of data make more sense.

Note

The concept of a House Area is typically handled differently between functions:

  1. Base Contract - normally just one House Area called "ALL" or "BASE". The system requires a House Area to function correctly, we enter one House Area to each Base Contract Item just to fulfill the system control requirement.
  2. Color Chart - Commonly 20-40 House Areas are defined. Most of this page is focused on the requirements for the Color Chart. Put simply: "When the home buyer is making Color Chart selections for upgrades and extras; in how many areas in the home do they need to make a decision?". Anticipate entering many House Areas for each Color Chart Item.
  3. After-Sales - Inspections are generally carried out by the House Area. Unlike the Base Contract and Color Chart processes; the inspection itself determines the House Area before the Item is chosen. Because there is no requirement to pre-determine the House Area on the Item, no House Area is entered to After-Sales Items.
Important

For Color Chart (a.k.a. Lot Selection Packages); you will be using the mix of House Area AND Construction Item Category. The purchaser will need to make a decision for each House Area and Construction Item Category mix.

Tip

Color Charts is the area where your biggest focus should be.

You should expect that you have hundreds, if not thousands of Items and selections for the user to make. Carefully chosen House Areas will make using the system easier in the long run.

Note

House Areas have global scope, which means once configured in one company, they are available for use in all companies.

Examples of House Areas

  • Internal for the unit: Master Bedroom, Stairs, Attic, Furnace Area.
  • External for the unit: The examples of exterior House Areas: Driveway, Roof, and Porch. The whole house can also be represented by a House Area.
  • Common area (Complex Buildings or Condominiums): Gardens, elevator, floor structure.

See the Demo Database for more examples:

Examples of How House Areas can be used for restrictions:

  • You might create a House Area called "Cold Room" and assign it to the Construction Item Category "AC Units". When you create a Construction Item, for example, called "AC Model 99-10" and assign the "AC Units" Construction Item Category to it, the House Area "Cold Room" is automatically assigned. If you do not have this House Area on the Model that you associate with a Lot then this Construction Item is not available for you to Pick.
  • You might create a House Area called "Kitchen" and assign it to the Construction Item Category "Appliances". When you create a Construction Item, for example, called "Stove Model PA123" and assign the "Appliances" Construction Item Category to it; the House Area "Kitchen" is automatically assigned. If you have this House Area on the Model that you associate with a Lot then this Construction Item (and any other Stove in this category) is available for you to Pick.

Applicable Items and Applicable Checklist Items Actions

Applicable Items Action

Search House Areas, then select the Applicable Items button. The Page "House Area Applicable Items" shows which construction items can be installed in the House Area. The list of applicable items is non-editable and serves informational purposes. The relation between construction items and house areas is to be set in the page "Item House Areas" (see sections "Construction Items", "Construction Item Card", "Item House Area").

To open a "Construction Item Card" for a selected Item, run the action "Construction Item Card" from the page "House Area Applicable Items".

Applicable Checklist Items Action

Search House Areas, then click Applicable Checklist Items Action.

The Page "Applicable Checklist Items" defines what checklist items can be checked in the House Area during after-sales service inspection.

Note

Sorting Order determines in which order the checklist items will be listed in the "Checklist Entries" list for a service inspector during an inspection.

House Areas Follow this Route Through the System

  1. Start in Construction Item Categories.
  2. Copied to Construction Items.
  3. Copied to Models
Note

Each Time you Push a Construction Item to a Model, the House Area is automatically added to this Model.

Warning

You are not restricted from manually removing the House Area from the Model. However, if you do this you will not see the Item on this Model listed in the look-up screens. Reporting will still work for any transaction already done with this Item prior to the removal of the House Area

  1. Copied to Lot Planning Lines (not to Lot Budgets)
  2. Copied to Vendor Contracts - specifically the Contract Revision Items within the Vendor Contracts.
  3. Where applicable, copied to Lot Selection Choices a.k.a. Color Chart

Adding House Areas to Construction Item Categories

Search Construction Item Categories and select the Category that needs new House Areas. Click House Areas Action to open the Item Category House Areas page where you hit Add House Areas Action. Select multiple House Areas by holding the Control Button and click Add House Areas to Item Category.

Note

On adding a House Area to an Item Category, the system does the following:

  • Add the House Area to the sub-categories of the Item Category.
  • Add the House Area to the Items of the Item Category or its sub-categories.
  • House Areas have a global scope, which means once setup in one company, they are available for use in all companies.

Removing House Areas from Construction Item Categories

In order to maintain data integrity, the process of removing House Areas from Item Categories is necessarily difficult. It is not automated as it can cause harm to your setup. We suggest that this is restricted to a system administrator to make sure you do keep your data clean and intact.

If you have just added the House Area and not processed much information through the system, this is not a big task. However, if you have been using the Item Category and/or House Area for some time, you should expect this task to be time-consuming.

Warning

Deletion of a House Area is possible only if the combination of Item Category / House Area does not exist in Planning Lines or in Lot Selection Choices of Lot Selection Packages that are closed. On deletion of a House Area from an Item Category, the system does the following:

  • Delete the House Area from the sub-categories.
  • Delete the House Area, from the Items of the Item Category or its sub-categories.
  • Delete Model Item House Areas with the House Area and with the Items of the Item Category or its sub-categories.
  • Delete Color Selections with the House Area and the Item Category or its sub-categories.
  • Delete Lot Selection Choices with the House Area and the Item Category or its sub-categories from open Lot Selection Packages.

Setup "Measurement Types" for Each House Area

Although not mandatory, setting House Area Measurement Types allows you to control pricing better when you get to setting up Vendor Contracts.

Purpose of Measurement Types

The purpose of Measurement Type is to pre-define how you want to measure a standard feature within a House Area.

For example, you may define a House Area as Bathroom 1, within each Bathroom 1 you may have e.g., 3 features that you need to focus on (typically for the purpose of Vendor Contract quoting – 1. Shower Floor, 2. Shower Walls, and 3. Floor Tiling).

Associated with each of these Measurement Types is normally either measured in Sq Ft/Meters or is just regarded as a single unit.

Tip

If your Trade Contractors quote you a price to e.g., floor Bathroom 1 for Model "XYZ" and give a different quote to floor Bathroom 2 for the same model, then use a single unit Measurement Type such as "EA" or "PCS".

If your Trade Contractors just quote flooring per Sq Ft., use this as the Measurement Type and make sure that you define the area to be covered in the "Model Item Applicable House Areas" Page accessible from Model Items within Models.

Note

Measurement Types have global scope, which means once setup in one company, they are available for use in all companies.

Setting up Measurement Types

To define measurement types, open the page Measurement Types by searching it or by navigating to a Roles Center (i.e. Homebuilder - Setup - Measurement Types).

On deletion of a measurement from a House Area, the measurement gets deleted in all Model House Areas and Lot House Areas in all companies upon confirmation by a user.

On adding a measurement to a House Area, the measurement gets added to all Model House Area Measurements and all Lot House Area Measurements in all companies.

The page House Areas has the following actions:

  • (House Area) Applicable Items.
  • (House Area) Applicable Checklist Items.

House Area Applicable Items

On the page House Areas, click Action House Area Applicable Items. It shows which Construction Items can be installed in the House Area. The list of applicable items is non-editable and serves informational purposes. The relation between construction items and house areas is to be set in the page "Item House Areas" (search "Construction Items", select "Construction Item Card", and click "House Area" Action Button to arrive on the Item House Areas page).

  • from this page you can open "Construction Item Card" for a selected Item, (Click action "Construction Item Card").

House Area Applicable Checklist Items

On the page House Areas, click Action Applicable Checklist Items.

The Page "Applicable Checklist Items" defines what checklist items can be checked in the House Area during after-sales service inspection.

Sorting Order

  • Determines in which order the checklist items will be listed in the "Checklist Entries" list for a service inspector during an inspection.