In this article, we will show you how to utilize the net and gross areas imported from drawings or models to manage the spaces in Dalux FM. This can help you organize your building spaces and provide an overview of how each space is utilized. We will cover how to add customized metadata to each area and how you can use this data to create color-coded overviews.
User rights
Locations in Dalux FM can be managed by administrators or user roles with access to Locations.
You can read more about User Roles in Dalux FM in this article: Invite and manage users in Dalux FM.
How to create user-defined fields for rooms
Before you get started with space management, we recommend you look at the user-defined fields for rooms. Creating user-defined fields will let you assign these to the different rooms, so you can manage your spaces to your specifications.
Go to Settings
User fields
'Rooms'.
This will open a new window where user-defined fields can be added.
You can either create a new group or add fields to an existing one. In this example, we will create a 'Space management' group, by clicking on 'Add group'. You can then add user-defined fields to this group, by clicking 'Add' under the group name.
There are different options for the user-defined fields. Here we will create a field called 'Users' using the 'List' category. In this field we can add specific options to choose from.
When you are done creating user-defined fields click 'Save'.
How to manage spaces in Dalux FM
You can manage your spaces by going to Locations tab in the sidebar. Then go to
Rooms.
From here all the rooms in the instance can be seen. Net and gross areas per room can be seen in the list.
To narrow down the number of rooms, use the filtering in the columns. When working with space management it might be beneficial to filter a specific type of room in a specific building. One or more rooms can be selected. Then click on Show room. From here the user-defined fields can be assigned to the rooms.
You can also select one or more rooms and see them on a floor plan. To do so select one or more rooms from the list and then click on Show floor plan.
When in the floor plan view, you can click on 'Show' to show the room and change the properties from here.
This can be helpful if you notice a room being marked wrong when looking at the floor view.
On the floor plan, you can choose to show parameters, colorize areas, and print the floor plan.
To use your user-defined tag to color-code the floor plan click on Colorize areas.
From the list, you can select which attribute to use for color-coding. We will select the user-defined field 'Users' and click on 'Select'.
The rooms are now color-coded based on the attribute selected. On the left, you can see how the color coding is categorized.
Printing floor plans
If you want to print the color-coded floor plan you can click Print drawing. It is possible to customize the print.
In the Drawing material area, you choose to print from several buildings, which floors to print, and what drawings to print. The print settings are then applied to the drawings from different buildings/floors.
In the Settings, you can choose:
- Colorize areas - Choose to include the colorized attribute or not
- Legend property - Choose what legend (explanation box) to include
- Shown area - Shows either the Net or Gross area on the print
- Print visible parameters - Choose whether to include the parameters selected
- Print text background - This will add a white box behind the parameter text to improve visibility
- Print visible cut - If toggled on the print will match what was visible in the main window before clicking print (e.g. a zoomed-in view on a specific area)
- Custom fontsize - Can adjust the font size up and down
- Scale - Will print the drawing on a certain scale. Visible print will zoom accordingly
- Paper size - Set the paper size of the print (A1-A5)
- Timestamp - Adds a date or time to the printed document