Introduction

This is the User Manual for the ITS Space Inventory System.  It is one of a series of user and technical manuals that are available for the ITS Systems. The complete list of manuals may be found in the General Support System User Manual.

The reader is referred to Section 2 for an overview of this system.

It is assumed that the reader is already familiar with the general operation of the menus and the keyboard.  These matters are fully discussed in the “Operational Aspects of ITS Systems - Integrator 1” Manual.  

The reader is reminded that the copyright of the ITS systems and documentation remains with ITS, and that users thereof are contractually prohibited from disclosing information therein to third parties, such as other educational institutions.

The ITS Space Inventory System maintains data of building space in order to provide information both for STATS and for internal use.

• Information from this system is used in the Lecturing and Examination Timetable Subsystems, in the Personnel System where staff members are linked to offices, in the Student System where residence students are linked to residence rooms, and in the Asset System.  In each case the input into the other system is validated against the Space Inventory.  



• This approach has the added advantage that the user of the Space System need not allocate offices, lecture rooms or laboratories to PCS programmes or CESM-categories, as such allocations are taken from the other systems consistently and accurately.



• The system can report on the allocation of space to departments within the institution, taking into account the pro rata portion of space shared between departments.  Reports on space per building and by different space categories are also available.



• STATS Tables 6.1 to 6.10 can be produced on request from the inventory information.  The system also keeps information on land and buildings as required for the production of  STATS Tables 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3.
  

• Space in buildings being planned and under construction can be carried in the system, but suppressed for the purposes of STATS reporting via option {STG6MN-1} in the STATS Reporting Subsystem.  This provides a useful tool for planning projects and calculating cost units.
  

• The STATS requirements in respect of building space reporting (see SAPSE 009), requires only information on assignable space to be included.  Whilst it is possible to enter non-assignable space into the system, this becomes necessary only when this particular space contains furniture or other assets, as the Asset System will not operate without such a space being recorded in the Space System.



• In all other cases, the entering of non-assignable space is optional. The Gross Area of a building, as required by STATS Table 5.2, is input directly when the building is created in the system, and is not calculated as the sum of the areas in the building.  Leaving out some non-assignable space in the space inventory will, therefore, not affect Table 5.2.

The ITS systems are highly integrated, in order to eliminate the duplication of information across the various systems.  This means that systems become interdependent as regards certain information.  The implications of such interdependence, as seen by a user of the Space System, are explained in this section.

1. Systems Requiring Information from the Space System

1. Personnel System


An office cannot be allocated to a person in the Personnel System unless this office already exists in the Space System. It is therefore advisable that all offices be entered into the system at an early stage, to enable the Personnel Department to carry on with their input.

2. Student Information System


The Lecturing Timetable Subsystem cannot be implemented unless lecture rooms and laboratories, in which lectures and practicals are scheduled, are already known to the Space System.  The same applies in the case of the Examination Timetable where various examination sessions are linked to venues that have been defined on this system.  Similarly, residence students can only be placed in existing residence rooms.

3. The Asset Inventory System


When assets are recorded, they must be allocated to a specific building space, which must already exist.

When STATS Tables are produced by the system, the Asset System will refer to the Space System to obtain the allocation of expensive equipment to PCS programmes and CESM-categories, based on the allocation of the space in which the equipment is housed.

The foregoing will happen without involving anyone operating the Space System, as long as the required information is in place.

2. Information Required from other Systems


STATS require office areas to be allocated according to the timesheet information of the person who occupies that office.  Similarly, lecture rooms and laboratories should be allocated within PCS 1.1 to Subjects, according to the usage pattern of these facilities.  The Space System will transfer this information from the Personnel System and the Student Information System upon request, by using menu option {SPOPS-3}.

The successful implementation of the Space System requires the input to be done in a particular sequence, as follows:

1. Campus Codes


An institution can operate on a number of campuses.  For STATS purposes, each building and each piece of land that the institution uses or owns, must be linked to a campus.  A “campus” is defined in SAPSE 011, p5.2  (see {SPCS-1} for detail)

2. Land Codes


Each “Campus” can consist of one or more pieces of land. The input of land codes is not a prerequisite for the entering of building spaces, and can be left to a later stage from this point of view.  STATS Table 5.1 requires certain information about land, however, and this information must be supplied to the system before the next STATS reporting cycle comes to an end  (see {SPCS-2} for detail)

3. Building Codes


All the buildings, which an institution owns or uses must be known to the system before the actual building spaces can be entered  (see {SPCS-4} for detail).

4. Accessory Codes


Any number of accessory codes may (optionally) be defined in respect of spaces.  Should the user want to make use of this facility, these codes must be created before commencing with the actual entering of building spaces (see {SPCS-6} for detail).

5. Space-Use Categories


The standard STATS list of Space-Use Categories is supplied with the system.  This list may be extended to make it more useful for internal purposes (see {SPCS-5} for detail).  If this is envisaged, it should be done before the input of building spaces is started.

6. Building Spaces


Once the above codes are in position, the actual building spaces may be entered, thus creating the space inventory  (see Chapter 3).

7. Copy Office and Lecture Room Utilisation Data


Once the room inventory has been completed and the timesheet information for personnel has been entered, into the Personnel system, option {SPCOPY-4} may be run, and after the timetable has been entered, option {SPCOPY-5}.

8. Link Service Space to Parent Space


Service space can be linked to Parent space via {SPOPS-1}, TAB - b6}.  This option allows a user to link a specific space to other venues from which it should take the allocations in {SPOPS-1}, TAB - , TAB - and TAB - b3/4/5}.

9. Validate Space Data


The data will now be complete, and can be validated using option {SPSCU-4}.  Once the validation error report is clean, the system is ready to produce STATS Tables 6.1 to 6.10. 

10. Copy Space Data to STATS Structures

The SAPSE reporting year is normally one year after the current year of operation.   This means that the Space Inventory data for the current year cannot be updated until all the SAPSE reports for the previous year have been produced.

In order to keep the Space Inventory data for the SAPSE year clear of recently occurred changes to spaces; a so-called “Shadow Space Structure” is kept separately.  This Shadow Structure freezes the space inventory for the SAPSE reporting year, while enabling users to keep the “normal” space inventory up to date.  All the SAPSE Series 6 Tables are generated from the Shadow structure.

Once the space inventory data has been cleared of errors and the PCS and CESM allocations and the SCU values have been updated for the current SAPSE year, the data can be copied (“frozen”) into the Shadow structure, as explained below.

1. "Copy structure for STATS" {SPOPS-6}

Option {SPOPS-5} allows the user to copy the Space Inventory data to the Shadow space structures that are kept as part of the SAPSE System.  Note that this copying should be done after all the data has been updated on {SPOPS-1} and validated with {SPOPS-5}.  The copy process will first delete the current information in the Shadow structure, since the shadow structure is intended to keep only one year’s data, namely the current SAPSE reporting year’s data. 

The SAPSE Tables are actually generated from the shadow structures. These structures are maintained in the SAPSE system via {STG6-24} / {STG6MN}.  Changes done on the normal Space System after copying to the Shadow structure will not be reflected in the SAPSE Tables, and required changes for a new year may hence be done without affecting the generation of the tables. 

More detail on maintaining the shadow structures follows below. 

2. "Buildings Excluded from Tables"{STG6-24-1} / {STG6MN-1}

The SAPSE Series 6 Tables can be limited to certain buildings only, which means that a building and its spaces can be entered into the database while it is being planned or under construction, but excluded from the generation of SAPSE Tables.  These buildings must be identified in option  {STG6MN-1} before the Table 6 Series is produced to ensure that they will indeed be excluded.

3. "Maintain Shadow Space Inventory" {STG6-24-2} / {STG6MN-2}

Minor adjustments to the Space Inventory details can be made under {STG6MN-2}, however, it is important to note that any changes made under this option will only affect the production of the current set of SAPSE Tables.  If the error that was encountered also applies to the present structure, it should be corrected separately under option {SPOPS-1} as well.  Block 1 of this option corresponds directly to block 1 of {SPOPS-1}, and blocks 2, 3 and 4 correspond directly to blocks 3, 4 and 5 of {SPOPS-1}.  The user is therefore referred to the User Manual, Space Inventory System, for details in this regard.

4. "Maintain Shadow Building Codes / Detail" {STG6-24-3} / {STG6MN-3}

Option {SPOPS-6} will also copy the Building details to the SAPSE System.  The same warnings apply here as for the Shadow Space Inventory (above).

The details under this option are identical to the details under option {SPCS-4}.

5. "Validate Shadow Structure for SAPSE" {STG6-24-4} / {STG6MN-4}

This option corresponds to {SPOPS-5}, but works only on the Shadow structure data. 

6. "Validate Shadow Data/ Calculate SCU" {STG6-24-5} / {STG6MN-5}

This option applies the four steps carried out in menu {SPSCU} directly one after the other.  It also works on the Shadow structure data only.