AppliCad releases their latest offering

Further consolidating AppliCad’s position in the roofing and cladding industry is the new release which is the combined result of nearly two years work by the development team.  This release represents the biggest single update AppliCad has developed in its 20 year history.  Documentation of suggested enhancements from customers in 39 countries was collated and prioritised according to resulting benefit to users.  Top of the list was improved speed followed closely by digitising aerial imagery and solar design tools.  Below is a brief overview of several features included in the new version and how it can add value to your business.

Various key functions were identified by AppliCad users the most noteworthy of these include the report generator.  All the templates are user defined as has always been the case, but may now be created in Microsoft Word or Excel.  This provides enormous flexibility to the operators who can create the most detailed reports with as much artistic flair and imagination as they can muster.  Detailed professional presentations have long been a feature of AppliCad and these new functions takes it to a new level of graphic detail and design.

Further integration with external programs includes the ability to create and maintain all the user’s material definitions in Microsoft Excel.  As most users have some experience with operating Excel, this feature provides considerable capability for quickly creating or modifying large material definition tables.  Major bug bears such as global price changes are now very simple to make. 

The complete review of application functions has resulted in noticeably faster response times for all functions, especially those that require intensive calculation such as the generation of the reports, cutting lists and proposals.

A new material data structure has been defined that allows for part filtering so that only the applicable fittings and accessories relevant to a profile are displayed for that profile, thus substantially speeding up the selection of materials, but also ensuring that the correct parts are selected.  This is especially useful for commercial metal roofing manufacturers and contractors.

Given the ready availability of aerial image libraries to the construction sector, accessible via the web and from specialist vendors, the re-designed image digitising tools in the new AppliCad enable every contractor to prepare accurate client proposals from the desk without the need for an expensive site visit at least until  a commitment from the customer has been received.  This results in huge savings in time and gas and improves turn-around time from initial enquiry to professional proposal.  It also saves lots of money spent on third party service providers doing this for the contractor, who can now do it for him/herself without any delay.

A major re-structuring of the file folders with-in AppliCad allows any business enterprise from the most modest to the largest to manage access to data files from just about anywhere a network connection can be established.  A lot has been made recently of the notion of ‘cloud computing’ or ‘computing in the cloud’.  Much debate has surrounded this notion, but to AppliCad it means the ability to access jobs and data via whatever network is available and often that is the World Wide Web using a broadband internet connection.  With AppliCad’s support of advanced folder structures, corporate data can be shared (or not) as required by the enterprise.  Outside sales and client managers can now operate as effectively from their car as they can from their desk – all they need is access to the ‘net.  All data may be shared and most important of all, backed up in real time.

Integration with other stakeholders is an essential component for running a professional roofing or cladding business these days and one would expect nothing less from one of the leaders in the world such as AppliCad.  The new AppliCad now exports data in various text file formats including XML.  Even the 3D roof geometry may be exported as an XML version of AppliCad’s Roof Exchange Format (RXF) file.

Other new functions include sun shadow calculation; solar radiation calculation; developing material lists based on wind zones on a roof (especially for high wind areas); retro-fit purlin layout; various data sharing alternatives for exchanging estimating data with the rest of the business and a completely re-written 850+ page user manual in hard copy, inline and electronic format.

 With the latest release AppliCad software takes another quantum step in useful functionality that delivers for the user, no doubt raising the bar for other developers once again.