to the cloud

Newforma takes to the cloud

It has been a year of good progress for Newforma. The specialist AEC developer has added customers such as Aedas, BDP and Foster and Partners to its customer list and broadened its product portfolio.

by Martyn Day

Document and proj- bers even if they do not use ect management Project Center Newforma. is traditionally Newforma As the client base grew, a seen as a neces- Newforma to Newforma sary evil or something to ‘get Typical startup costs (N2N) link was added to the around to’ at some point in $5,000-$10,000 software, which automatically the future. Far too many installation, plus a yearly fee in 50 seat bundles co-ordinates folders, files and small to medium sized firms ■ newforma.com models without the need for rely on keeping their pre- expensive and limiting ‘vault’ cious work in desktop fold- systems. By linking two firms’ ers, which can lead to lost or duplicated data. Newforma servers for co-shared project doc-

The software developers’ usual answer uments, it is possible to keep internal-only is a hulking big document management documents (such as email) safe and only system that requires data to be stored in a share data from selected folders. The N2N software ‘vault’, which imposes strict poli- link also enables seamless RFI, submittals cy and regulation to all uses. It is relatively and file transfers. common for document management soft- The company then added access support ware to be imposed on project partners. for iPhone, Android and Blackberry with Newforma Project Center Newforma Touch, Since releasing Newforma Project Center enabling remote in 2006, the company has taken a different access to Newforma approach to the management of document Info Exchange. The types including email, CAD drawings, system can handle Requests For Information (RFI) and sub- tagged digital images mittals. From within Microsoft Outlook, and benefits from the documents can be added to related project fast search capability folders within the system. of Newforma’s index

This Newforma system runs on a dedi- servers. cated local server, which indexes the data Newforma Punch that is added by each member to their List is a tablet-based account, making it fast to search even snagging/punch-list across projects. When completed it is pos- capture and managesible to close out a project by collating all ment tool. Here item relevant documentation (drawings, emails descriptions can be etc.) for client delivery in PDF or HTML logged, together with through a simple wizard. adding pictures, vid-

Through the web-enabled Newforma Info eos and sound. Exchange (a secure and smart FTP-like por- External team memtal), documents, large files, action items and bers can use the revision records can be securely synchro- Newforma Punch List nised and distributed to other team mem- app on tablet computers. These items can then be tracked, audited, queried, logged and exported into Excel format. The data collected works with Newforma Project Center and back to the Revit model, where rooms with open punch lists can be colour coded. This is the first of a number of tablet applications that are in development with the aim being that mobile data consumers and gatherers will not be left out of the loop. New developments The company describes its non-vault based solution as a better fit to asynchronous data exchanges that dominate the construction industry’s workflows, and it hasn’t exactly handicapped the company to win over major architectural practices. But how would Newforma fare against cloud-based document management and distribution, software and services? The company has created a number of ‘suites’ to cater to design, construction and owners. Newforma Design Suite is aimed at architects and includes: Project Center, Contract Management, the Add-in for Revit and

Newforma is taking the mobile element of its solutions very seriously. Supporting a number of popular handsets and tablets, it is now possible to send back data from construction sites

1 With Newforma’s Revit plug-in, it’s possible to access the ‘I’ in BIM down to the element level, enabling broad collaboration within project teams wherever they are 2 Building on N2N, Newforma servers can be combined with the omnipresence of the cloud to connect project teams back at base with those on site. In fact projects can be hosted entirely on the cloud

Punch List. Those in Construction get Newforma Preconstruction, Project Management and Punch List. Owners get Portfolio Explorer and Project Monitor. Cloud The company recently launched a hosted cloud service called Newforma Project Cloud for Construction Management.

Using technology from a recent technology acquisition of AEC-Sync from Attolist, Newforma has created a cloud-based service for clients that would prefer to host their data remotely, use online contract administration and wish to have an external space to collaborate. As you would expect, this can link to existing customers’ Newforma servers to provide a private extranet. The suite of mobile apps currently in development will also receive and send data back and forwards to project folders, wherever they are located. VEO In late July Newforma licensed VEO from M-SIX, a hot new Building Information Modelling (BIM) software company. The VEO platform allows project teams to access BIM models in the cloud (such as Revit models) without a full Revit installation.

The technology will eventually let users view and navigate 3D buildings, search for information in the model with visual feedback and tie workflow items to objects in the model.

This all may sound a little like Gehry Technologies’ GTeam but it has certainly got a number of the key Revit and Newforma customers very excited indeed. Back when we used 2D it took ages to develop decent drawing viewers. As we went into BIM, our data was once more pushed into a format that few others could see. It is great that there are so many developers on the case to enable non-BIM users in on the riches of the data that is being created. Conclusion Newforma is expanding into cloud-based project software from a relatively secure base. Autodesk is trying to go cloud-only with its subscription customers; while newcomer Gehry Technologies surprised everyone with its service.

At the start of the year, I got the feeling that Newforma certainly had momentum in UK firms. With a raft of products due to come out throughout the year, together with some very targeted acquisitions and licensing deals, I would say that the company was at a tipping point to becoming an industry standard within the broader AECO community.

While it will certainly face increasing competition, Newforma seems to be getting ever-more entrenched in the way major companys operate and a cloud offering/ extension will only help make it more relevant.