Online Planroom Basics: Creating a SAM Filter AKA Searching the Contents of a Spec Book

In our last post, we covered how to create and save a “Spec Index” filter on our online planroom, which finds projects by scanning through the table of contents of every project in our planroom to look for the keywords, phrases and CSI Codes that you tell the search to find.

In this post, I’m going to teach you how to create and save a “SAM Search”, which is also known as searching “…the Contents of the Spec Book”. This search is similar to the Spec Index search, but has one key difference: instead of searching in the table of contents of a spec book, this search combs through every page and every word of the spec book.

This search is particularly useful for finding less common words within a specification. For example, manufacturers and/or suppliers can search to see if specific brands they represent are spec’d out in projects.

LET’S GET STARTED!

After logging into the planroom, follow these steps to create a new SAM Search (AKA “Search the Contents of the Spec Book”):

1. If you’re on the The Deskpad, click on the “Filters” icon at the top right of the page

2. Click on the white “+” sign with the orange background to create a new filter:

3. You are now on the “Create a New Filter” page. This is where you will enter the keywords and settings for your filter.

4. First, under the search term text boxes, choose the option that says “Search the contents of the spec book” by clicking on the radial circle:

Online Planroom Basics: Creating a Spec Index Filter

Builders Exchange of Kentucky reports on approximately 2500 actively bidding projects every year. With such a glut of information, it can be easy to get lost when trying to find projects that fit what you are looking for. The good news is if the online plan room is a sea of information, then filters are navigational maps leading you to your destination.

Filters (AKA searches) are the most effective way to find the projects you want to bid.  A filter is a search that can scan through the details of every project in the planroom so you can find all of the projects you want while avoiding the projects you don’t need.

I will show you how to add a new Spec Index filter that will search for projects by scanning through the table of contents of every project in our planroom to look for the keywords, phrases and CSI Codes that YOU are interested in.

LET’S GET STARTED!