Dear Colleagues,

The NHBC Extranet has now been live for over four months, with its usage steadily growing week on week.  I would just like to give you an update on progress.

We now have over 160 companies using the Extranet on a daily basis, made up of over 550 individual users.

Last week saw the highest quantity of document submissions to date with over 4000 files submitted through the Extranet.

Best of all we are getting plenty of positive feedback such as "It allows us to submit information with very little fuss and without the need for producing huge amounts of paper - the submissions can also be tracked so there is no ambiguity as to whether or not NHBC have received the information." Persimmon Homes West Midlands and "its fantastic, marvellous, excellent" Higgins Homes Plc.

Performance anomalies experienced during the initial rollout have now been fully investigated and resolved.  (Please continue to feedback on any performance issues experienced).  We are also aware that the upload progress bar on the applet does not always reflect the actual progress of the upload.  For instance this bar may jump to 100% quite quickly, but the actual upload may take three or four minutes longer to complete.  We are looking at ways to make this progress bar work in a better way.  In the meantime - please be patient when uploading large files. The upload speed is dictated by the type and speed of your connection to the Internet, an upload of 20Mb through a typical 2Mb broadband will take 8-10 minutes. If the upload fails you will get a message telling you this at the end of the process.

The bug relating to the filing of documents on sites with more than one Building Control job has been resolved.

An updateable electronic version of the SNIN is now available on the main Extranet logon page (Adobe Reader 7 or above required to edit). You are now able to complete the form, save to your PC and upload through the non-site specific route.

A recent cost comparison has comfortably demonstrated that submitting documentation through the extranet is at least 70% cheaper than the print and post alternative. This was based on a user earning £35,000 per annum, uploading twenty 1Mb files over a 2Mb broadband, against the cost of the same twenty drawings being printed and posted second class (details of this comparison are available upon request).

We are aware that some users are not receiving the username and password e-mails, due to the mechanism the extranet uses to dispatch them. Some company e-mail firewalls consider these e-mails as spoof and do not deliver them. We are currently working on a solution to address this, however in the meantime if you are an administrator please check that these e-mails are received when you create your first user account.

Document Submissions:

You can upload up to fifty files in one submission, as long as the total submission size does not exceed 20Mb.  DWF & TIFF files are typically smaller file sizes than PDF, therefore the upload process is quicker.

The file naming convention on some of the uploaded files is not consistent, please see below for examples of the correct naming convention:

The above uploaded file is the GF-FF Floor Plans for Plot 12 and the drawing number is 08.511 and is revision B.

The above uploaded file is a Site Investigation report by Mud Kickers Inc, with a report number of 01234-56 and is dated Jan 08.

The above uploaded file is the SAP Summary Calcs for Block A, they do not have a reference but are dated Jan 08.

Unfortunately, if the above indexing protocols are not followed then when the files are received at NHBC they are very difficult to manage. If we persistently receive files where no attempt has been made to follow the above protocol, then we may be forced to withdraw Extranet access to the individual user and/or their associated company.

Please also remember that the Extranet does have a mechanism that enables the automatic completion of the four fields highlighted above. The automatic indexing function works based on the actual file name, the above three examples are all files that were auto indexed, due to the file names following the "Subject_Description_Reference_Version" convention, i.e.:

 Block A_SAP Summary Calcs_-_Jan 08.tiff,
 Site Investigation Report_by Mud Kickers Inc_-1234-56_Jan 08.tif,
 Plot 12_GF-FF Floor Plans_08.511_B

Thank you for continuing to use our Extranet, if you have any queries regarding any of the above or the Extranet in general please contact me.

Regards