Are You Sacrificing Updating for Control?

Maintaining control of your text doesn't mean you have to give up SpecLink's comprehensive updating. Many users assume that in order to completely control what goes in their specifications they have to prevent or avoid updating. This would be true if SpecLink were word processing-based, but it isn't — updating and control are completely compatible when you use SpecLink. We would like to suggest to all our users that copying SpecLink master sections to make minor modifications and importing whole sections instead of editing the corresponding SpecLink master section are poor practices that will quickly lead to obsolete documents. We strongly urge you to use our sections as the basis for your customized specifications. Why? Because copies of SpecLink master sections DO NOT GET UPDATED when the master section itself is updated.

1. Are you using your own sections instead of SpecLink’s? It's true that importing existing word processing sections is the easier course of action when initially developing an office master. If you're happy with using SpecLink only as a word processor, OK. But if you wish to take advantage of BSD's updating (not to mention the linking and specifier notes), the better approach is to edit the appropriate SpecLink section to suit your practice, rather than importing whole sections.

2. Are you making multiple versions of the same section? An example taken from an actual project is described as "this section has been pre-edited to apply only to interior masonry work limited to modifying existing CMU assemblies. Use.... for more substantial projects." The user apparently felt he needed two different versions in their office master and didn't want to make a separate office master project file, which would be an alternative that wouldn't require copying the section. A better use of SpecLink would be to use the NONPRINTING CHECKLIST feature. In the case cited, it would be relatively simple to add a non-printing option to the beginning of the section for "ONLY modification of existing interior CMU" and add links to pre-edit the section to that scope. Then the same section could be used for both the limited scope and the full scope.

3. Are you afraid of updates? Copying the section certainly does prevent updating completely! But there is no need to fear SpecLink updates. Our updating process won’t change the text of a project that is underway. Updates will never overwrite customized text under any circumstances. In addition, updates will never change text, delete text, or add text – unless you, the user, specifically choose to have that happen. You can also choose whether to update a particular project or not. Many users update their office master project each quarter but don't update the projects made from it -- this is a reasonable compromise. Wouldn't you rather keep your office master up to date so all your future projects will be current?

4. Are you copying to change the section number? The only plausible reason we have found for doing this is that the section is referenced by documents under the control of others. Because such a copied section cannot be updated automatically, however, you will probably find that the trade-off is a poor one.