AssetGen Cabling Architect V2 Released - Cabling Infrastructure Planning Made Easy

In 2023, Square Mile Systems released the initial version of the AssetGen Cabling Architect (ACA). A solution we designed due to numerous requests from various customers to create a flexible, fast system to help with the design of cabling infrastructures. The ACA was designed to help sales and pre-sales specialists for integrators and installers propose and cost cabling solutions. Specifying a cabling solution is a process that typically evolves, with customer requirements changing over time, as well as designers able to choose from a multitude of new and old technologies.

Each change needs to be reflected in the design, the Bill of Materials (BOM) and the costs - so there is a lot of reworking and checking against tight timescales. Next week on Oct 24 our monthly webinar will show the ACA process and methods in detail. Register Here

Since its introduction, the ACA with its Excel/Visio integration has also been applied to other uses where the integration of data and diagrams gives many benefits.

• Displaying cabling capacity and usage by end customers and managed service providers
• High and low level views of containment architectures - ducts, blown fibre, cable tray
• Network designs - spine and leaf, VLAN, routing, fibre interconnects and splice points
• Industrial systems - pipe and tubing design, valves, control systems assignment and setup

Key to the design of ACA, is the use of Excel/Visio integration to ensure flexibility and tailoring of design solutions. ACA users can use their own equipment shapes, cable types as well as optimise the data for quick updates of changes to quantities and specification. With ACA V2 additional functionality has now been added which is available to new and existing ACA users.

What enhancements does V2 provide?

1. Automate export naming - Excel exports inherit the name as your project.
2. Connection point tool – add/delete/change connection points for easier layout of topology diagrams. (Covered in the Visio corner in the newsletter.)
3. Connect Check – a quick check to ensure all connections will be in the BOM sheet. (Covered in the Visio corner in the newsletter)
4. Show / Hide Cable IDs - easy to identify cables and cable types from a BOM.
5. Auto assigned layers for cabling types - as you draw SM/MM fibre, copper, MTP, etc. auto assign to Visio layers.

These enhancements save manual effort and improves the speed of delivery, based on our own experience and user feedback. Minor issues that caused design or BOM error, such as not quite making a connection both ends, overwriting a BOM file by mistake, or changing a layout. All these issues are minimised with these enhancements.

If you're not familiar with the AssetGen Cabling Architect, then review the materials on our web site or attend the Oct 24 webinar. It could save a lot of time and frustration in creating and updating complex proposals.

Pet Peeves

A question we often get is "why should I use Visio when other teams and colleagues have been using CAD type software for buildings and other schematics?" It's a good question, as CAD and Visio are complementary products with overlap only in a few areas.

My pet peeve for this newsletter is...

When engineers and teams are forced to use the wrong product, typically standardisation is said to be the business reason. Ironically there are often no internal standards or training for either Visio or CAD, so there is inconsistency that creates uncertainty and lack of trust in the information (assuming it is updated). So my take on this is as follows;

1. If a drawing package is to be used as a standard toolset within and across teams, then invest in training and internal standards so it is used well and effectively. Most engineers and designers using CAD and Visio, have never been trained and often create individual standards based on self learning and experience.
2. CAD software is highly developed and used extensively for very detailed building, architectural and engineering system designs. With 3D, BIM and other extensions there is a cost and a complexity, that means it needs a lot of time to understand its capability. Visio is better suited for any types of schematics - network, data centre, process charts, org charts, building and system designs. Visio is quicker to use for the occasional user and its integration with other Microsoft toolsets makes it very effective for documentation that is not just a picture. Visio allows a degree of automation and updates that require little skill compared to the CAD equivalent. The colours, shading and quality of default Visio shapes is much more attractive than single line diagrams that most CAD users start with. Hence why CAD will always be around as well as Visio - both have their own strengths and purposes for different teams.
3. When it comes to lots of diagrams and consistency across multiple teams and locations, then it becomes a different issue. Using a SQL database and the AssetGen application to automate and refresh Visio diagrams on a large scale is possible. We tried it with CAD, but it doesn't work due to file sizes, lack of data features and the need to have a mix of physical and logical symbols. I haven't seen cloud system designers ever use CAD over the last 10 years. Try creating 100 rack diagrams and 50 network diagrams that are consistent in data, scope and symbols in CAD in less than an hour! Then try to refresh those diagrams plus 2 data centre and 25 equipment room floor plans every Friday evening for the operational teams. Choose the product that's fit for purpose, then invest in the people and methods so it becomes the "standard". Don't just choose a toolset and expect everyone to self learn in isolation.

I hope this all makes sense and the square peg/round hole analogy needs to be considered when choosing toolsets that are meant to improve individual and team productivity .

Visio Corner

In this weeks Visio corner some of the additional shapes we created in the AssetGen Cabling Architect V2 for faster, more effective diagramming.

The Connection Point Creator (CPC)

Visio is extensively used for designing and documenting cabling systems and connections, though many would like the process to be less time consuming and error free. To address common pain points, we introduced the Connection Point Creator (CPC) shape within the Cabling Architect. This helps to layout cables and bundles with consistent spacing, rather than trying to use grids and snaps to shapes. Connection points makes it simpler and easier for connecting, but creating and removing them manually can be time consuming, with lots of zooming and precise positioning of the mouse.

The CPC shape creates and remove connection points as required, saving time and removing the need to zoom in and out for manual placement of connection points.

In the example above on the left, we see that some lines don't connect to the edges of shapes, are not evenly spaced, or even at right angle as they're manually drawn within the time available. On the right we see the difference where connection points have been created with equidistant spacing, so it is easy to connect shapes and adjust positions of cabling nodes. The CPC dialog box shows how you can add and remove unwanted connection points at the same time.

There are many uses for the CPC Utility, where multiple paths exist between shapes for cable planning, bandwidth provisioning, resilience awareness and cable tray fill calculations. The CPC can save many hours of frustration!

Connect Check

A new feature of the Cabling Architect Utility checks shapes that are connected for consistent bill of materials (BOM). We found that complex cabling diagrams often introduce manual errors, so a quick check to highlight errors was very useful. You can check all connectors, or just certain types such as fibre, ducts and module interconnects where density makes it difficult to be sure.

As well as the dialog box highlighting the number of errors, the connectors are automatically selected so you can fix them sequentially and recheck as you go along. Simple and effective! You can use the Connect Check on Visio network and process diagrams where it will also highlight mistakes that aren't visible, but easily fixed.

Want to see and learn more?

We have experts that are available to guide you through the ACA and our other software offerings. If you would like to learn more and have a free 1-1 session, feel free to contact us on the website link below or call us on +44 1285 852190

Square Mile Systems Contact And Help Page

Upcoming Events - 2024

You can have a further insight to our ACA in our free webinar taking place next week. Details below:

Oct 24th ??– Free Webinar, Designing and Costing Cabling Infrastructure Using Excel/Visio Integration. Introducing AssetGen Cabling Architect V2 Details & Registration 13:00 UK 08:00 US EDT

I hope you enjoyed this edition of this newsletter, make sure you subscribe by clicking the button at the top of the page to keep updated on future articles and events.