Ofivio AEC, explained: one product for architects, engineers and contractors

Ofivio AEC is the Ofivio product for architects, engineers and contractors. It arrives ready for the practice, with its departments, design stages and job titles such as Project Manager and Associate Architect already in place, so a firm starts on its first project rather than on configuring a tool. This guide covers what is inside it, what a firm adds, what each plan costs and carries, and what it deliberately does not do.

Who it is for

• —Architecture and interior practices. The design stages, drawing sets and client approvals are what the product is built around.
• —Engineering consultancies, structural, MEP and civil. The drawings, revisions and transmittals a consultancy issues live in the same Studio.
• —Contractors. A contractor runs Ofivio AEC with the Build module, which brings Site and Operations.
• —Firms that design and build. One workspace holds the drawing register and the site record, instead of two systems.

If your firm does none of these, Ofivio Business is the product for you: the same engine, with nothing preset.

The four departments

Studio: the design spine

Studio is where the practice's work lives: eleven design stages, drawing sets organised by discipline, revisions with a history, transmittals that record what was issued to whom, and the delivery desk. A drawing belongs to a set, the set to a stage and the stage to a project, so the question of which revision the client approved is answered by the record rather than by memory. Why version history is not revision control is the long version.

Manager, HR and Finance

Manager carries projects, tasks, approvals, milestones, workload and delivery tracking. HR holds employees, departments, teams, tasking, attendance and leave. Finance holds invoices, expenses, budgets, wallets, milestone cash, receivables. Finance starts in single entry; the Accountant module turns it into double entry, with the chart of accounts and vouchers.

Built in, on every plan

• —Company Email — Your company mailboxes inside Ofivio.
• —OfiCalendar — One calendar for the whole company.
• —OfiDrive — The subscription's storage: manage and measure what is used.
• —OfiRoom — Meeting rooms for the team and its clients.
• —VO Chat — Text VO, free on every plan.
• —Oficiate — Everyday work automated with triggers.

Modules a firm adds

Modules are bought inside Ofivio from OfiMart, at $15 a month each on top of the plan. Nothing has to be bought in advance: add a module when the work needs it, and its departments join the workspace you already have.

A contractor's Build module brings the site record and execution across the firm — who is doing what, where, today. A quantity surveyor runs Ofivio AEC with Planning & QS, which brings bills of quantities with volume groups and per-unit cost breakdown, a rate library of priced resources and build-ups, tender bills, Excel import, snag lists and the completion desk. There is no separate QS product. How to prepare a BOQ that survives the site is the working guide.

Plans and prices

Premium membership on Ofibe, OfiGrid, OfiVibe and OfiNews, and on Ofilo, comes with every plan from Professional up, for the principal and every employee. The monthly bill is the plan, plus $15 a month for each module, plus VO Voice or ARKA only when the plan does not already include it.

VO in the practice

On site, VO Voice matters most: a site engineer asks and is answered out loud, in Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, English, Spanish and French. It is included from Firm; on a paid plan below that it is $5 a month for the workspace. ARKA goes further and carries out the work, with 500 credits a month and the Brass Room; it is included from Corporate, and $15 a month on the paid plans below it. Conversation spends no credits. Work that ARKA carries out does: 25 credits for a minute of voice, 60 for a drafted document, 120 for an agent job and 500 for a watcher standing for a month. Extra credits come in one-off packs, never a subscription.

What Ofivio AEC does not do

• —It does not author drawings or models. CAD and BIM stay where they are; Ofivio holds the register, the revisions and the issue record.
• —It does not run structural analysis, load calculations, MEP sizing or energy models. Those tools are specialised and correctly separate.
• —It does not take quantities off drawings on screen or extract them from a BIM model. Quantities are entered or imported.
• —It does not federate BIM models or detect clashes.
• —The Estate module, for the inventory of very large developments, is not available yet.

Getting started

1. 1Go to get started and choose Ofivio AEC.
2. 2Choose a plan. Solo is free, for one account and one project; the paid plans each begin with a free trial.
3. 3Studio, Manager, HR and Finance open with the practice's stages and job titles already set.
4. 4Invite the team and open the first real project.
5. 5When the work needs it, add a module from OfiMart inside Ofivio.