Suppose you have several different major project types – such as hospitals, schools, and retail stores.  One “master” specification probably won’t be as efficient as a detailed master for each of these projects.  You can have more than 1 master, so feel free to make as many masters as you need.  You can also base a master on a code municipality or on specific client requirements.

Creating a Specification Master is easy.  There are 2 ways:  1) Create a project from scratch, using a descriptive name that includes “master,” then make all of the common edits and selections you would normally make project to project.  2) Copy a recent project that already includes common edits and call this your master.  Fine-tune your masters over time to suit your needs.

If you find yourself making many of the same selections and edits from project to project, consider creating an office master.  A Master is simply a project that you can copy and then use as a new project – since many of the edits have already been completed, you can complete new projects more efficiently.

The Master and LME Groups database part of LinkMan-E is tied to the server location of SpecLink-E, so LinkMan-E must be moved if SpecLink-E is moved – SpecLink-E and LinkMan-E need to be kept together.

Changes made within your LinkMan-E Groups are saved automatically to the LME Groups Database where your LME Groups are stored. User added Products, Assemblies, and Links are also stored in the LME Groups Database.

Where does LinkMan-E need to be installed?  If you have a standalone version of SpecLink-E, then LinkMan-E needs to be installed at that standalone.  If you have a server version of SpecLink-E, then LinkMan-E has to be installed at the server to the same location as SpecLink-E.

LinkMan-E has supported Revit for 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.  Coming soon, we will incorporate support for 2014.  On the other hand, we do anticipate dropping support for older versions of Revit at some point.  Autodesk has stopped supporting Revit 2009, and we anticipate they will stop support for 2010 at some point.  Accordingly, we are keeping support for the older Revit versions for about 1 year longer than Autodesk.

To see which SpecLink-E and Revit projects your LinkMan-E group is connected to, click the File menu in LinkMan-E, then click Summary Info.  This box will show the names of the SpecLink-E and Revit projects you are connected to with this LinkMan-E group.

The SpecLink Project Tab, one of the views in LinkMan-E, displays the status of the products in the specification.  The SpecLink Project Tree reflects the hierarchy of the SpecLink-E project.  Active paragraphs that are tagged as PL in SpecLink-E will appear in the SpecLink Project tab.

The Revit Project Tab, one of the views in LinkMan-E, displays data about Revit objects that are present and active in the Revit project, as well as objects that are included in the LinkMan-E master data.  The folders in the Revit Project Tree reflect the hierarchy of the Revit project.