Advanced specification writing with Chorus Premium

This article looks at the NBS Chorus Premium feature set. Short videos showcasing each video are also provided for each feature.

The set of features highlighted in this article have been developed exclusively for the new Chorus Premium subscription. Each feature has been developed with customer feedback along the way.

1. Detailed revisions

Over the years, one of the most valued features in NBS specification products has always been the ability to show which clauses in your project specification have been revised. The new ‘Detailed revisions' feature now goes one step further. In addition to showing which clauses have been revised, this new feature clearly shows how the clause has been revised.

Any newly added or removed text is visually indicated. Similarly, for any amended text, the old and new text are clearly presented side by side.

With the introduction of the new Building Safety Act and associated secondary legislation, the need for a process covering managing revisions to specifications is greater than ever. ‘Detailed revisions’ within NBS Chorus now provides greater clarity to the whole project team regarding specification decisions as they are tracked through the life cycle of a project.

The video snippet below previews this ‘Detailed revisions’ feature.

2. Variables

Specifications for large, complex projects will most likely be many hundreds of pages long. NBS has always helped users create well-structured documents with a robust editorial style. The new ‘Variables’ feature allows specification writers to improve consistency in language across all their specifications, and also allows the development of phrases that can be instantly changed depending on the stage of the specification or the type of project.

For example:

A variable could be developed for the project title or address that will be instantly updated depending on the variable’s value.

A phrase could be used that changes depending on the language used either in a JCT or NEC contract (e.g. ‘the client’ or ‘the employer’).

A variable could be defined that, early in the project, refers a decision to the client and then, as the project progresses, refers to an architect’s or engineer’s schedule.

This is a powerful feature that has been used both by the NBS UK and Australian specification consultancy teams throughout 2023, and we’re pleased to introduce it now in this Chorus Premium.

The video below demonstrates this feature.

3. Cross-project and master search

The third feature that was introduced for the launch of Chorus Premium is the ability to search across all the specifications or masters that your organization has ever produced using NBS Chorus.

Chorus was launched in 2019, and some of our larger practices now have over 1,000 specifications that have been developed across multiple offices. This represents a huge wealth of information from a variety of projects and, with ‘Cross-project and master search’, this information can now be at the fingertips of all colleagues across your organization. Even for a smaller practice that may only have a handful of specifications in Chorus, it’s a very useful feature to be able to quickly search through old projects to find something you have previously specified.

The video below previews this new search functionality.

4. Tagging

The specification is primarily a document that is produced for tendering, procurement and then quality verification. However, the content in 100s of pages of PDF is valuable for many other purposes. The tagging functionality within Chorus Premium allows specifiers to add user-defined tags to any section, system or clause. Use cases could include generating a fire safety or sustainability report from all clauses tagged with a fire safety or sustainability tag. Equally, for managing the construction phase of a project, tags could be added where prototypes, samples or spares are required to be provided.

The video below demonstrates the tagging functionality.

5. Master change notifications

NBS Chorus has the feature where specifiers are alerted to any changes the NBS authors make to clauses and guidance. Chorus Premium now extends this functionality to practices that manage their own office master specifications. The author of a specification master can now add notes to accompany any changes made. These changes are then pushed to all specifiers for their consideration when working on a project specification based on the master.

The video below demonstrates this.

6. Group permissions

One pain point for administrators of NBS Chorus, especially where many colleagues need specification and master access, is how to efficiently manage access control. With the group permissions feature, project or master administrators can define access control at the level of a group of colleagues. For example, allowing all administrators may contribute to an office master, or every colleague in the practice to have read access to an office master.

This feature is demonstrated below.

7. Single-sign on

NBS Chorus access can be configured to work within an organization’s ‘single sign-on’ authentication scheme. This can improve security by:

• Ensuring that, when they leave the business, colleagues are removed from all applications they may have had access to.
• Allowing administrators to apply enhanced rules on password strength.
• Enabling multifactor authentication, such as two or more pieces of evidence (e.g. remembering a password and receiving a code on a mobile device).

Single-sign on is a feature that forms part of the overall approach to data security on the Chorus Platform.

Find out more

If you would like to find out more about Chorus Premium or book a demo then please get in touch.