Cadac Organice Explorer 2010

Last year, we explored some of the established and upcoming solutions for collaboration, project management, and project information management in AEC in a feature article. These included Newforma Project Center, the leading application for project information management and collaboration targeted towards AEC firms; Attolist, a relatively new web-based solution for document management, construction administration, and project information management; and Cadac Organice, a suite of solutions for engineering document management, document control, and project collaboration based on Microsoft SharePoint.

We saw that while BIM has become firmly established as a critical technology in the AEC industry, BIM deployment by itself is not sufficient to successfully execute and complete building projects while meeting the demands for efficient processes, fast-track design and construction, minimizing waste and construction errors, sustainable design, higher quality buildings, less budget over-runs, and many others. In particular, the growing push for IPD (integrated project delivery) necessitates BIM to be supplemented with tools for better collaboration, project management, and project information management. Last week, we took a detailed look at how the latest version of Newforma Project Center helps AEC firms. Let’s now explore the latest release of another application in the same area, Cadac Organice Explorer, which is the central application of the Cadac Organice suite of solutions. We will start with an overview of the entire Cadac Organice suite. 

The Cadac Organice Suite of Solutions

Cadac Organice is a suite of solutions for engineering document management, document control, and project collaboration that is entirely based on Microsoft SharePoint. It has been developed by Cadac Organice BV, a subsidiary of the Cadac Group, a 24-year old software company with offices in Europe, the United States, and Australia, which develops design automation, management, and collaboration solutions for project driven industries such as AEC, Process, and Manufacturing. Microsoft SharePoint is currently one of the leading collaboration platforms, providing an integrated suite of server capabilities for developing all the web-based applications required by a firm, including Intranet, Internet, and Extranet, and a central repository for shared workspaces and documents. However, it is not an AEC-specific solution, which makes the process of deploying it a complicated process for the average AEC firm. There is where a solution like Cadac Organice comes in—it takes the powerful collaboration capabilities of SharePoint and customizes it for AEC and related industries, making it a lot easier to deploy. Cadac Organice BV is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and also partners with leading AEC technology vendors like Autodesk and Bentley to integrate its applications into its SharePoint-based collaboration solution.

The Cadac Organice product suite comprises several different applications that work together, as shown in Figure 1. They are divided into three categories: Input & Creation, Management & Control, and Output & Distribution. As shown, the central application is Cadac Organice Explorer, which falls in the Management & Control category and provides all the fundamental document management functionality to create, store, search, retrieve, view, check in, check out, edit and revise documents. We will be exploring this application in more detail in this review.

In the Input & Creation category, the Cadac Organice Scan application allows incoming correspondence and other hardcopy documents to be scanned and stored into the SharePoint document environment, making all documents centrally and digitally available to all users. Scanned documents are interpreted using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and converted into searchable PDF documents, allowing users to execute a full text search on these documents. The Cadac Organice CAD application, formerly called Cadac Organice Connect, includes connectors that allow the Organice/SharePoint environment to be integrated with other third party CAD, BIM, or ERP applications used by a firm. The final application in the Input & Creation category is a new one called GateKeeper, which is used for defining and checking AutoCAD standards to ensure that a drawing is compliant. It includes over 250 different types of rules related to attributes, blocks, layers, text, and so on, and can batch check multiple drawings. The standards checker is freely available and can be used by external team members to ensure that their drawings are compliant with project standards before submitting them.

The two applications in the Output & Distribution category include Cadac Organice Transmit and Cadac Organice Publish. The former is used for distributing multiple documents efficiently to multiple recipients at once and keeping track of transmittals that have been sent. A distribution matrix specifies exactly which recipient needs to receive which documents, and in what form (see Figure 2), while a distribution tracking list in SharePoint keeps track of who received what and when. When documents are updated, the application indicates which recipient needs to receive the updated documents. The Cadac Organice Publish application, as its name suggests, allows publishing of the documents that are stored in SharePoint, either in their native format, or by converting into independent file formats such as PDF or DWF, so that they can easily be opened, viewed and annotated by others without the native application. The published documents can be used for distribution, printing, or archiving.

And finally, the Cadac Organice suite includes Workbox, a new web based application introduced in the 2010 release that is deployed and activated as a feature in SharePoint. Categorized in the Management & Control category along with the main Explorer application, Cadac Organice Workbox allows a firm to design typical engineering workflows in SharePoint to automate business processes. A typical engineering workflow moves a document through various states of the document lifecycle and back. Workbox provides a graphical interface that allows serial and parallel state workflows to be created by dragging and dropping workflow states between the start and end point of the workflow, and by defining the routing from one state to another (see Figure 3). These workflows can be executed automatically when a document or item is created or changed, or manually on one or more selected documents or items in SharePoint. The application provides visual feedback on the status and history of a workflow when it is executed, as well as an overview of all running and completed workflows with their full histories. By helping to automate workflows, the use of Workbox can help a firm increase its efficiency and productivity. Cadac Organice recently hosted a webinar demonstrating how this application can be used to support an IFC-based workflow between the different disciplines in AEC.

Using Cadac Organice Explorer with SharePoint Documents

As mentioned earlier, Cadac Organice Explorer is the central application of the Cadac Organice suite and works by providing a user friendly interface to SharePoint and enhancing it with engineering document management functionality. Unlike an application like Newforma, for instance, Cadac Organice Explorer is targeted towards all industries using engineering documents, including AEC, manufacturing, utilities and telecommunications, transportation, and so on. Another differentiating factor between Cadac Organice and Newforma is that the use of SharePoint is a precondition to using Cadac Organice Explorer, while Newforma is a self-contained solution. Cadac Organice does not come with SharePoint-like capabilities built into it and can only work if SharePoint is available in some form, either through a firm’s own SharePoint server or as a hosted service. 

The application essentially works by being a “smart client” for SharePoint—it utilizes local PC resources and works with a local workspace. This greatly improves the performance of working with documents in SharePoint, even when working with large files. The application is easily installed through click-once deployment, and automatically downloads and installs software updates, keeping the user up-to-date. A new feature in the 2010 version of the application is offline support, which allows users to select the SharePoint documents that they want to take offline and check them out. Users can continue to use Cadac Organice Explorer to work with these documents while they are offline. Any changes that are made to the documents are synchronized when the user is back online again and returns the documents by the check-in process. The application also comes with “best practice site templates” that can be used to create new SharePoint project sites and provide an efficient project environment to manage project documents and collaborate with project partners. These templates include predefined items like libraries, content types, document types, metadata fields, document statuses, and views.

When Cadac Organice Explorer is launched for the first time, the user interface is empty. Users can start by dragging and dropping the URLs of their SharePoint sites into the Site Navigation pane on the left or by adding them through an “Add SharePoint Site” tool. After the username and password of the user is entered and verified, the entire structure of the selected SharePoint site is added to the Site Navigation pane, including site collections, sites, sub-sites, libraries, lists, folders and views (see Figure 4). These can now be navigated by the user. Multiple SharePoint sites can be added to the Site Navigation pane, allowing users to quickly jump from site to site or between lists and libraries, without losing track of where they are. The contents of a library, document, folder, etc. are listed in the Content pane in the middle of the screen, where items can be displayed in groups based on properties such as Type, Name, Date, Status, etc. as well as sorted or filtered (as shown in Figure 4). A Properties pane on the right (shown in Figure 5) can also be opened to show document properties, attachments, history, and Workbox status, if a workflow has been defined for the document using the Workbox application mentioned earlier.

By presenting the SharePoint site structure, content and document properties all in one view, and with its grouping, sorting, and filtering capabilities, Cadac Organice Explorer makes it easier for a user to find a specific document among the increasingly large number of documents that are created in a firm. Users can also perform a full text search on a SharePoint site collection, site, sub-site or the full server and can search only for documents or for all content. The results are presented in a tabbed Search Result window, from where you can drill down into the search results. Cadac Organice Explorer also includes an integrated viewer, powered by technology from Rasterex, which supports over 250 different file formats, including Microsoft Office documents, email and compound documents like CAD drawings in which even reference files are resolved. It allows content to be viewed immediately without requiring the native application to be opened, or even installed on the user’s computer. In addition, the viewer can be used for markup and redlining, and to compare documents and the different versions of documents, which is very useful in document review or approval processes (see Figure 6). Cadac Organice Explorer also supports additional viewers such as Adobe Acrobat Reader for PDF files and Autodesk Design Review for DWF files.

Integration with Microsoft Office, Outlook, and CAD and BIM Applications

One of the most compelling features of Cadac Organice Explorer is its integration with key applications used in everyday AEC practice, including Microsoft Office, Outlook, and various CAD/BIM applications. The integration with Office, for example, allows users to easily open, save, check out and check in Office documents from SharePoint. This is done through a Cadac Organice ribbon that gets installed in every Office application (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), as shown in Figure 7. When documents are saved or checked in into SharePoint, the user is automatically prompted to enter or update metadata. Cadac Organice also includes an Advanced Document Creation functionality, which allows new Word documents to be created using templates for specific layouts like letters, faxes, memos and reports and automatically populates these documents with SharePoint metadata like company, sender, recipient or project information. When documents are saved or checked in, the SharePoint metadata and document properties are automatically synchronized.

Cadac Organice integrates with Microsoft Outlook in a similar fashion. Through the Cadac Organice ribbon in Outlook or by using drag and drop from Outlook to Cadac Organice Explorer, users can save email and attachments directly into SharePoint and automatically derive metadata from the email properties. Cadac Organice analyzes the email and recognizes attachments and gives the user the possibility to save the email including attachments, or import attachments separately. When a new outgoing email message is created, the Cadac Organice ribbon allows the user to add any document from SharePoint as an attachment. A “Send and Save” command can be used that sends the email as well as saves it into SharePoint (see Figure 8). Users can also automatically be prompted to save their email messages into SharePoint. Thus, like Newforma, Cadac Organice allows firms to effectively manage the proliferation of project-related email; however, unlike Newforma, which has extended email integration to other email applications including Google Gmail, Lotus Notes /Domino Server, and Novell Groupwise in the new release, the email integration in Cadac Organice is still limited to Microsoft Outlook only.

Cadac Organice Explorer also integrates SharePoint out-of-the-box with leading CAD/BIM applications including AutoCAD, BricsCad, MicroStation, and Revit, making it a particularly attractive option for AEC firms that use SharePoint. The integration works in the same way as with Office and Outlook—a Cadac Organice toolbar is installed within the CAD/BIM application, making document management easier and more intuitive for users. It allows users to open and check out the drawing or model files directly from SharePoint. When the updated files are saved or checked into SharePoint, Cadac Organice prompts the user to enter or update their properties (metadata). For CAD applications, Cadac Organice provides full support for reference files, blocks, and images that can directly be inserted from SharePoint into the CAD drawing (see Figure 9). It also lets SharePoint metadata to be mapped to CAD title-block attributes according to company standards. When a CAD drawing is saved or checked in from the Cadac Organice ribbon into SharePoint, it automatically synchronizes SharePoint metadata with the title-block attribute information in the drawing. The integrated viewer, as described earlier, lets users open, view and redline drawings, even if they do not have access to the native CAD application.

The Revit integration with SharePoint, enabled by the Cadac Organice ribbon installed in Revit, allows RVT and RFA (Revit family) files that are stored in SharePoint to be easily retrieved and directly opened in Revit, as well as to save new or revised Revit RVT and RFA files directly into the SharePoint document environment (see Figure 10). Cadac Organice also supports the “load family” function in Revit, with which all the components that belong to a family and that are stored in SharePoint can be loaded into Revit in one step.

Analysis and Conclusions

For any AEC firm that is already using Microsoft SharePoint for document management and collaboration, the use of Cadac Organice Explorer is a no-brainer. SharePoint out-of-the-box is far from user-friendly, with just a browser-like interface that is hard to navigate, and no special integration with frequently used applications. Cadac Organice Explorer works with SharePoint, thus taking advantage of all its capabilities, while at the same time offering a much better user interface and experience. In addition to navigating documents from multiple SharePoint sites, it provides all the fundamental document management functionality to create, store, search, retrieve, view, check in, check out, edit and revise documents. The user interface has a Microsoft Outlook look and feel, making it easy to learn and use. It allows users to literally perform all of their daily document management tasks from one screen.

In addition to the Explorer application, all the other products in the Cadac Organice suite combine to provide an end-to-end solution for engineering document management, document control, and project collaboration, including document scanning, importing data from other applications, standards checking, transmittals, and publishing. The application suite is well supported by a comprehensive Help portal with lots of video tutorials, demonstrating and explaining how to use the different applications and their various functionalities. A handy tutorial is also available that provides a quick introduction to using Cadac Organice Explorer. The new 2010 release of the application has new enterprise licensing capabilities that allow it to be deployed more cost-effectively in large firms; in addition, it allows licensing to be centrally managed online from a management site, which also functions as a centralized environment for project management and best practices. For individual users who do not need the full capabilities of Cadac Organice Explorer, a light version of it is also available at a nominal price.

The use of Cadac Organice may not be as compelling to firms not using Microsoft SharePoint, as it would require them to start with a SharePoint installation in some form, in contrast to say an application like Newforma which is stand-alone. Cadac Organice is also lagging behind Newforma in email support, with its email integration only limited to Outlook at the moment. But given that it is strongly tied to Microsoft technologies, it is probably operating on the assumption that most of its users are using Outlook for their email. The other key limitation of Cadac Organice in comparison to Newforma is that it is targeted towards many industries and is not just AEC-specific, and could therefore be missing some of the finer nuances of AEC processes and workflows.

However, as emphasized in the beginning of this review, there is little doubt that document management and collaboration solutions are critical to helping a firm streamline its operations and processes, operate with greater efficiency and less duplication of content, and collaborate more effectively, within the firm and with external team members. Cadac Organice is a comprehensive and well-designed solution providing these capabilities and is therefore a compelling option for AEC firms to consider. For those AEC firms that may have held back from implementing SharePoint until now because of its complexity and lack of user-friendliness, the availability of Cadac Organice could even encourage them to go ahead with it. 

About the Author

Lachmi Khemlani is founder and editor of AECbytes. She has a Ph.D. in Architecture from UC Berkeley, specializing in intelligent building modeling, and consults and writes on AEC technology. She can be reached at lachmi@aecbytes.com.

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