BEXEL Manager – October 2024

Version: 24.9

Account/Login

• The BEXEL Account login control within BEXEL Manager has been changed. The fixes are mostly of a security nature (upgrade to a newer version) and there are no visual changes. On the first subsequent run of BEXEL Manager, the user will be prompted to log in with their user credentials.

API Scripts

• Accelerated execution of “Select Elements within monthly interval” API script.

BEXEL BCF.Server

• Added possibility to use BEXEL BCF.Server directly from BEXEL Manager.From now on, all BCF functionalities already available within BEXEL CDE (issues, document approvals, discussions, document sets, related documents, tags, notifications, etc.) are also available from BEXEL Manager.
  • The user interface is the same as the one on the CDE portal, only in a lighter version adapted to BEXEL Manager.
  • The BCF Manager window should be located in the lower group of windows (Schedule Editor, Clash Detection, etc.). If it is not visible, it can be shown using the command View → Workspace → Windows → BCF Manager.
  • Using this feature requires to be connected to a project on the CDE that has BCF project created/linked. Connecting to a specific project from BEXEL Manager can be done with the following command: Ribbon → BEXEL CDE.

BEXEL CDE Publisher

• Added option to publish IDS/Property Checker results to BEXEL CDE when creating a new or updating an existing model.
  
  • For this option to work, the latest version of the Property Checker plugin must be installed within BEXEL Manager. After that, the user should perform at least one check on the specific model.
  • More about available functionalities for this feature on CDE portal can be found here.
  • * When you start BEXEL Manager, the latest versions of plugins, including Property Checker, will always be offered.
• Added option to select properties that will be published to the CDE when publishing a new version of the model.
  
  • By default, only properties from the elements (instance properties) and a few additional properties from the parent (Category, Family, Document Title, Building Name, Storey Elevation, Storey Name) are published.
  • It is possible to select any set of properties, from elements or parents, at the category level, as when exporting an IFC file or exporting properties in Excel.
  • It is possible to choose predefined templates from the knowledge base, as well as save your own templates and use them later.
  • * This option can optimize the speed of publishing the model to CDE, and later loading and using it because unnecessary properties will not be loaded.
• Account Administrator are now disabled to select projects and versions of projects for which the user does not have direct access rights when publishing a new project, updating an existing project, importing projects from CDE, or publishing Power BI reports with CDE. Previously, it was possible for the Account Administrator to see and select projects to which he was not directly added, only after attempting to publish would he be informed that publication was not possible due to access rights.
• Changed the display format for some units when publishing Cost to the BEXEL CDE so that some of them are now in superscript (e.g. m² → m², m3 → m³)
• An indicator has been added to the window for choosing selection sets when publishing to or importing from BEXEL CDE, indicating whether or not a particular selection set exists on the CDE.
• Within forms for publishing data to CDE or importing data from CDE, the indicators showing whether an entity is available within CDE or not have been reduced.
• Within the wizard for publishing a new project on CDE, it is possible to select the sections (Selection Sets, Custom Breakdowns, Quantity Takeoffs, Cost Estimate, Schedule Animations, and IDS Check) to be published. Screens for selecting specific data will be displayed only for selected sections.
• When starting the wizard for updating an existing CDE project, no section is selected by default, which allows for much better control by the user.
• Removed the notification that appeared if no selection set was selected within the wizard for updating CDE project.
• Fixed an issue that caused the publishing of a project from the BEXEL Manager to the BEXEL CDE to fail when the option to publish selection sets was not checked.
• An issue has been fixed cost that elements are displayed much later in the animation in some situations when the option “Animate Opacity” is turned off.

Clash Detection

• Enabled option to create relations between elements for any type of clash job. Until now, it was only possible to do this for a clash job of Containment type.
  • The option can be accessed by right-clicking on the clash pair or group, then Set Relation.
  • The most frequently used relations, Contained In Room and Hosted By, have been moved to the very top.

Cost

• After filtering is applied inside the Cost Editor, the cost items and classification items that pass the selected filters will be selected.
• Added the ability for the user to choose whether to create Selection Sets containing check results when running the Check Applicable Elements option from the Cost Editor. A new column, that displays a Warning about cost items that did not pass the Applicable Check Elements check, has been added inside the Cost Editor, as well as messages that further explain why the cost items did not pass the check. The number of the cost item with a warning is also displayed in the status bar of the cost editor window.
• Added an option to select elements that did not pass the Check Applicable Elements check due to an error in the Element Query. The selection is made based on the selected Cost Item with Warning.

Cost Estimate

• Fixed an issue that caused the fixed value of Quantity of the Cost Assignment entered in the Cost Estimate window to not be displayed.

Geometry

• The possibility of optimizing the geometry of the model when creating a new project was introduced.
  
  • This option can significantly reduce the weight of the geometry and LOD (Level Of Details) and thus enable easier and faster work even on very large models.
  • This option can be configured in detail so that for different phases of the project or different participants the appropriate optimization will be performed. All created configurations can be saved, shared, and used later on new projects.
  • This feature is experimental (BETA) for now.
  • You can find more information in the user manual at this link.
• The long-awaited feature for geometry cutting inside the BEXEL Manager is finally here.
  
  • For now, this feature is experimental (BETA), but it definitely already has most of the functionality that the final feature should have.
  • Through the configuration, the user can choose the type of cutting between Split By Storey, SplitGlobally, or SplitAlongElement.
  • Several types of cutting can be combined on one element too. All settings are made on the category level.
  • More about this feature, as well as detailed instructions for use, can be found at this link.
• Fixed a bug that caused scattered geometry to be seen on some models.
• Fixed a bug that caused some models (sources) to be at the wrong positions when some other models (sources) within the project were more than 10 KM away from the source reference point.

IFC

• Fixed an issue that caused the geometry to look not smooth in the case where certain elements (probably placed there by an error) are very far from the rest of the model.
• Fixed an issue that caused a crash when importing IFC files due to not being able to load the IFCEngine library. This error occurred on a negligible number of computers (< 0.1 percent).

Knowledge Base

The following 3 (three) new templates for Property Export have been added to the Knowledge Base:

• Property Export – Basic template for CDE.json
• Property Export – Intermediate template for CDE.json
• Property Export – Advanced template for CDE.json

They can be used when publishing a model on CDE, exporting to IFC, and exporting properties.

Also, the following new templates have been added to Knowledge Base:

• Mesh Optimizer → MeshOptimizerConfig.cfg,
• Mesh Splitter → MeshSplittingConfig.cfg,
• Quantity Calculator → CalculatedQuantitiesConfig.cfg,
• Custom Breakdown → CBS_MeshOptimization.cbstemplate – can be used after Mesh Optimizer,
• Custom Breakdown → CBS_MeshSplitting.cbstemplate – can be used after Mesh Splitter,
• Ids Checker → Bexel Manager IDS Basic.ids.

Power BI Report

• Within the wizard for exporting Power BI reports, an option to select sources that will be automatically loaded within the Power BI report has been added.
  
  • The Autoload sources option has been removed because the new system is much more flexible. This option is available within all Power BI reports available within BEXEL Manager (Ribbon → Manage → Power BI → Publish Report with BEXEL CDE).
  • This option will not work on old Power BI reports, but only on reports exported from BEXEL Manager version 24.9.0.0 and later.
• A Schedule Delay analysis Power BI report has been introduced. This report presents color-coded elements based on the element delay on a specific date and allows the selection of elements based on the delay.
  
  • The Planned vs. Actual Delay analysis is now much easier to present interactively and insightfully.
  • This report is available in the ribbon tab by clicking on the following button: Manage → Publish Report with BEXEL Viewer →  Schedule Analysis.
• Fixed an issue that was caused when exporting a Power BI report that uses cost data, cost items would not be exported if they were not at the lowest level of the classification hierarchy they belong to.

Properties

• The following new properties that can be calculated from geometry have been introduced: CalculatedNetSideArea, CalculatedNetTopArea, CalculatedNetUndersideArea, and CalculatedNetEndArea.
  
  • The option can be run the same as for calculating other Calculated Properties (Ribbon → Properties → Reevaluate Calculated Properties).
  • Options for selecting and reviewing configuration are located under Load Quantity Calculation and Manage QTO Configuration respectively.
  • A detailed user manual for this function is available at this link.
• Introduced the option to save the template defining which project properties will be exported when publishing a model on CDE, exporting to IFC, or Excel.

Projects

• An issue has been fixed that caused an error when committing changes in a Team Works project if the commit message contained special characters. The following characters are not allowed to be used in commit messages:
  (‘/’, ‘\’, ‘:’, ‘*’, ‘?’, ‘”‘, ‘<‘, ‘>’, ‘|’, ‘”‘).

Property Checker

• Support for IDS version 1.0 import has been introduced.
• A basic IDS template has been added to the Knowledge Base. By default, clicking the “Import IDS” button opens this template from the Knowledge Base.

Schedule

• Introduced Excel-like filtering in the Gantt window. The filter can be activated by right-clicking any Gantt column and choosing “Filter Column”.
• The introduction of the “Task Information” window allows users to view detailed task information without needing to open the Task Editor.
  
  • This feature can be accessed through the Ribbon tab by navigating to View → Windows → and clicking on the Task Information toggle button.
  • This enhancement streamlines workflow by providing quick access to task details in a separate window, improving overall efficiency and user experience.
  • The following tabs are currently available in the “Task information” window:
    • Cost
    • Quantities
    • Element Quantities
    • Resources
• Introduced the ability to set the Date format in the Schedule Editor Settings window.
  
  • Supported Date formats are available in the Bexel Help Center via this link.
• Linking selected elements to any task has been made much easier. Simply right-click on the desired task and choose the “Add Selected Elements” or “Remove Selected Elements” option from the context menu.
• Introduced the option to export custom task grouping from Gantt to PDF (Schedule Editor → Export → Export To PDF (Gantt)).
• You can now choose to update only specific, filtered tasks in the Gantt view from Primavera or MS Project. This feature is especially useful when you want to track progress for some tasks in an external tool (e.g., MS Project or Primavera) while managing progress for other tasks directly in Bexel Manager.
• An issue has been fixed that caused the color scheme of a task property to regenerate when changing the coloring from one task property to another.
• Introduced is the option to select all Predecessors or all Successors of the currently selected task. These two options are available under the context menu (right-click on task → Selection).
• Added the following columns in Gantt:
  
  • Start Year
  • Start Month
  • Start Week
  • End Year
  • End Month
  •  End Week
• The option to skip “inactivated tasks” from MS Project during the import process has been introduced.
• The regular update of libraries used for export and import schedules from MS Project and Primavera.
• The performance of the Schedule and Schedule animation has been enhanced in certain situations.
• An issue has been fixed that caused custom task properties not to be exported to PDF.
• An issue has been fixed that caused boolean task properties to be displayed as “False” instead of “N/A”.
• An issue has been fixed that caused the “Total Cost” exported to Primavera not to include the “Other Cost” and “Subcontractor Cost.”
• Fixed an issue causing the error when adding the Gantt column by clicking on the last column header in the Gantt chart.

User Interface

• General update and addition of translations for all languages.