For all the objects that you create in BriefBuilder (e.g. systems, spaces, …), it is possible to add labels. Labels are not requirements, but rather a type of categorization that you can add to objects.
In a building project, you may for example want to label spaces according to their primary use (e.g. meeting space, work space, teaching space, …). Whereas in an infrastructure project, you may wish to use the labels to indicate whether objects are existing objects or new ones that need to be built.
Labels can be used to add clarity and context to your tree structures. Most importantly, you can use them as filters in tables and overviews — and thereby more easily manage the requirements of particular groups or categories of objects.
See below for an example and a more detailed explanation of the concept.
Example: space categories
In building projects, labels are often used to categorize spaces. Let’s say that you have a project room, a brainstorm room and a conference room in your project. These spaces have different names, but they are essentially all meeting spaces and many of the requirements will be similar.
If that is the case, it will be useful to label all these spaces as meeting space. You can then use this label to filter in overviews and cross tables. You may for example want to apply the filter in the cross table properties to give all these spaces the same requirements concerning acoustics. This is how you would do that:
- Go to the Spaces and locations tree
- Go to the relevant rooms give them the label meeting space (in the table General)
- Then head on over to the cross table properties, and select:
- Tree: spaces and locations
- Label: meeting space
- Property table: acoustic comfort
- Click on Show, and you will get to see all the meeting spaces (spaces labelled as such) and their acoustic requirements
- You can then fill in the relevant requirements for these spaces
- If these requirements are the same for all spaces, only fill in the requirements for the top object and then pull these cells down by clicking on the small blue square in the lower right corner of the cell
In a similar way, you can edit relations (in the cross table relations), verifications (in the verification table), analysis data (in the analysis table), and requirements concerning room sizes (in the area report).
Adding labels
You can view, create, and delete labels in two places:
(1) On the detail view of an object in the table General, which you will find at the top of the object’s detail view.
This is where you can view, create, add or delete a label for one specific object.
To create a label, just start typing in the empty bar under Labels. If there are already labels in use, these will pop up as suggestions. If you want to delete a label for an object, click on the X button right next to it.
(2) The second way for adding labels is via the settings, assuming you have the right permissions to access those (Settings > Requirements > Labels).
This is where you can create, change or delete a label for your entire project model.
You can create new labels by clicking on the icon and delete labels by clicking on the icon next to a label’s name. If you delete a label that is currently in use (i.e., added to one or more objects), you will receive a warning before doing so.
If you want to assign a label to an object, you need to navigate to that object and add the label via the General table on that object’s detail view, or you can go the Cross table labels (Overviews > Cross table labels) and do it there.
Do you want to delete labels for a large number of objects, but not all of them? Use the cross table labels (under Overviews in the main menu). In the cross table, you can select all the cells for which you want to delete the label (you can use your CTRL button to select multiple cells) and then simply press your DELETE button.
Viewing and hiding labels
Labels are not only visible on an object’s detail view, but also within the tree structure on the left side of your screen. Sometimes, a tree can get a little crowded if a project utilizes many different types of labels.
That is why you have the ability to toggle the visibility of labels on or off. You can do so by clicking on the Hide / Show labels icon at the very top of the tree.
Filter with labels
As mentioned earlier, one of the main purposes of labeling objects, is to be able to use these labels as selections and filters (e.g. “give me all spaces that are categorized asd meeting spaces” or “show me all roads that are labelled as existing”)
The selection possibilities can be found in the following tables:
- Cross table relations (if you want to define/view relations)
- Cross table properties (if you want to define/view property values)
- Area overview (if you want to define/view quantities and sizes for spaces)
- Verification table (if you want to define/view verifications)
- Analysis table (if you want to add/view analysis data)
In (selection)trees, you can filter on labels by just typing the label name in the search field. You can filter on multiple labels at a time.
Cross table with labels
If you want to have an overview of the used labels per tree, you can take a look at the cross table labels, which you can find under overviews.
In this table, you can also assign labels to objects by double clicking in a cell. You will notice that the cell turns blue, which means that the label has been added to the object.
You can delete the link between an object and a label by clicking on the DELETE button of your keyboard while standing with your cursor in the relevant cell(s).
Please note that it is not possible to create new labels in the cross tables. That has to be done on the detail view of an object or under Settings > Labels.