The hierarchical structures used in Bentley Facilities Planner form the foundation on which the structure of the FM Model is based. In building a computer model of an organization's corporate structure, or the sites and buildings it occupies, it is important that this structure is correctly reflected in Bentley Facilities Planner's hierarchies. These hierarchies not only allow movement about the FM Model in an intuitive way but also set up the structure of the model that provides the power of Bentley Facilities Planner's reports and queries.
Bentley Facilities Planner supports different parallel hierarchies. Navigation can be carried out using any of these. The demonstration configuration model(excel spreadsheet) delivered with the product contains two hierarchies, organization and location, but other hierarchies (such as heating zones, fire compartments, and so on) can be created by customization where required.
These hierarchies are used in every aspect of Bentley Facilities Planner. They are the means by which every asset in the database is allocated to areas and organizations. For example, a desk is automatically linked to a room when it is placed. This room can be linked through the hierarchy to a department and, of course, to the owning zone, floor, building, and so on. These links then allow you to create a report listing, for instance, desks by department.
The Browse window in Bentley Facilities Planner is used to find information based on areas which have been defined in your FM Model. Bentley Facilities Planner provides tools to allow you to create areas of several predefined types, for example floor, zone and room. The list of types can be added to if required. You can also create logical Organizational entities such as companies, divisions and departments. Both the logical and physical items can be linked together in one or more hierarchies that reflects the structure of the organization being modeled.
You can expand the hierarchies by double-clicking the entries or clicking on the + symbol to the left of each entry. Those that have entries below them expand.