Sage Timberline Office News & Tips
The Future of CSI MasterFormat 95
Introduced in the 1960s, MasterFormat has long been recognized as the construction industry standard for organizing project manuals, detailed cost information and relating drawing notes to specifications.
In 2004, Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) and Construction Specifications Canada (CSC) introduced the most significant update to MasterFormat since its inception. The new structure was designed to foster more detailed construction specifications, helping reduce costly changes or delays in projects due to incomplete, misplaced or missing information.
Since the release of this updated version, many companies were quick to adopt the new structure. However, some have still not yet made the transition. In an effort to further promote the newer 2004 format, industry standardization and interoperability, CSI announced plans this summer to no longer license or support MasterFormat™ 95 as of December 31, 2009.
The question of course is how does the future of CSI MasterFormat affect Sage Estimating users? The good news is that the discontinuation of MasterFormat 95 will not affect you because the Residential/Commercial Knowledgebases and the RS Means databases have already been transitioned to the new format.
Below is a list of several helpful resources in making the transition to MasterFormat 2004.
Visit www.masterformat.com or www.csinet.org and find the following:
- Order MasterFormat 2004 Edition
- Visit www.masterformat.com for a transition matrix
- Download the numbers & titles (PDF)
- Convert MasterFormat 95 numbers to MasterFormat 2004 numbers on your iPhone! Get the app, or just search for MasterFormat in iTunes!
- Ask a question in CSI’s MasterFormat Forum
- Find a MasterFormat expert to invite to your office in CSI’s Speaker Database
- Request MasterFormat 2004 bookmarks to handout in your chapter or at your CSI event from csi@csinet.org
- Hear the What’s My Number AudioCast or the Using MasterFormat AudioCast
- Download the MasterFormat White Paper, and learn how others have implemented the format!
- Watch this video posted by Daily Commercial News and Construction Record. In it, Keith Robinson, CSI, FCSC, and Gary Beimers, FCSI, CDT, of the MasterFormat Maintenance Task Team discuss with REED Construction Data how revisions are made to MasterFormat.
For more information, please give ICS Support a call at 425-820-6120.
