Upload Specifications

The spec book usually arrives as a thousand-page PDF, and "what do we owe on this job" is answered from memory. Upload it once and the book becomes a register that drives your Submittal Log.

Upload the book

On the project's Specifications page, choose Add Specification and drop in the PDFs. Upload the whole book at once or division by division; the title and MasterFormat section number are read from each file, and the sections roll up under their divisions automatically. A scanned book is read as well; its pages are recovered on upload so its sections work like any other.

Each PDF can be up to 250 MB. A strip above the workbench shows each file on its way, then Checking, until it lands under Uploads. A file that fails says why there; choose Remove and upload it again.

Section numbers are read whatever separator the engineer used, so 40 64 01, 40-64-01, 40.64.01 and 40_64_01 are the same section. A single-section file whose pages print no readable heading takes its number from a filename like 40_64_01 PLC Controllers.pdf. If a file came in with no sections, or with fewer than it holds, choose Detect sections again on its row under Uploads. Its sections are rebuilt, and your claims and scope lines keep their link because they follow the section number.

Work one section at a time

The page is a list of the sections you own on the left, and one section on the right. Pick a section and you get everything about it in one place: its pages, what it asks you to submit, and anything that has changed it. The list is short by design, because a project owns a handful of sections rather than the two hundred in the book.

A number beside a section means it still owes you a decision. A section that could not be read says so on itself, with the reason, rather than in a list somewhere else.

Claim what is yours

Most of a spec book belongs to other trades, so the sections that are yours come from what you provide rather than from reading it. Say what you provide on the Scope page: tick it from your catalog, paste your scope, or upload it as a PDF of up to 250 MB. Each line comes back with the section that specifies it, and those sections appear here. Nothing you do not supply is ever put in front of you.

You can still claim by hand. Open All sections to browse the whole book by division and claim a section or a whole division in one action; sections you have already decided are left alone. That is the way in for a section that specifies a system rather than a device, which no single line of supply reaches.

Run the spec check

A submittal linked to a section can be checked against it. Every datasheet on the submittal is read against the section's Part 2 and Part 3 requirements, and each requirement comes back as Meets, Does not meet, or Look at this, with the value the datasheet states and the page it is on. The check never runs on its own: pick Run spec check from the submittal's More menu, and re-run it after a part, a datasheet or the section changes. See Spec check.

Answer what a section demands

A claimed section is read for what it requires you to submit, and each demand is quoted with its article reference so you can confirm it is real before acting on it. Answer each demand with Create, Already covered (pick the submittal you already have, then That answers it), or Not required; Undo or Restore reopens a decided demand. Take the whole section at once with Create all or None of these. A section that names nine deliverables is one decision, not nine.

Claimed sections are what the Submittal Log reads, so what you owe on the project comes from the book instead of from memory, and a For Record requirement buried in Part 1 does not surface for the first time at closeout.

1. Upload the book on the Specifications page.
2. Say what you provide on the Scope page, and check the section filed against each line.
3. Claim anything else by hand from All sections.
4. Open each section you own and answer what it demands.
5. On a submittal tied to one of them, run the spec check to read its datasheets against the section.