Dear Colleagues,

The roll out of the NHBC Extranet is now well under way, with over ninety varying companies using this service on a daily basis.

Document submissions are rapidly increasing with over 1500 documents submitted last week and the overall feedback remains very positive.

During these initial few weeks of roll out we have noticed a few things and I'd just like to take a few moments to share these with you.

The intention of the Extranet was to enable NHBC's customers to submit technical information electronically, thereby saving them time and very importantly money. However, you can use the extranet to submit any documentation intended for NHBC. Any technical documentation (drawings, reports, calculations etc) for Building Control or Engineering should be submitted by clicking on the related site. Should you have any other documents (i.e. New SNIN, PPS etc) these can also be submitted by using the non-site specific route , available from the same screen that lists all your sites.

For those of you who have already submitted documentation you will be familiar with the file naming requirements. These require you to index each file you upload with a Subject, Description, Reference & Version, where:

• 'Subject' is the house type name or site description
• 'Description' is what the file is
• 'Reference' is the drawing or report reference
• 'Version' is the revision number/letter or date

Below are a few typical examples:

Warwick house type, Working drawings, 1234/567, A

Green Acres, Site Investigation Report, A019568, Jan 08

To make the upload and index process easier we have built in a facility that will automatically populate the 'Subject, Description, Reference & Version' fields for you. To utilise this facility you need to upload files with the following naming convention.

Warwick housetype_Working drawings_1234/567_A. file extension

As you can see the Subject, Description, Reference & Version are merely separated by an Underscore '_'. If this naming convention is adopted the indexing screen will automatically populate for you.

You are welcome to submit multi file DWF, PDF, TIFF files as long as they are all of the same subject matter (i.e. Warwick house type working drawings or Site Investigation Report), however please ensure you use the 'Reference' and/or 'Version' fields to denote its revision.

Any drawings submitted larger than A0 paper size will not make it through the Extranet, you will receive an e-mail confirming it has failed. If you have such a file please try to reduce it to A0 or prior to submission click on the 'Colour is required to interpret the file', this will transfer the file through in its raw form.

DWF & TIFF files are typically smaller than PDF, so the upload experience will be faster if these are used.

Referenced files must not be submitted, as we rename all files as they come into NHBC, therefore the reference links are then lost.

Remember we have produced a manual for using the Extranet.  This is available by clicking on the help icons when you are using the Extranet.  If you haven't seen this manual please click on it to the right and have a read.  The file is a 3.5mb pdf and may take a short while to download and open on your machine. 

Technical site conditions are updated on a daily basis.

Phase two enhancements are already under way, with advanced functionality that will enable you to complete a new SNIN and PPS on line and provide restricted access to sites, rather than current practice which means you give an individual visibility of all your sites. These changes are planned for Oct 2008.

Should you have any queries on any of the above or wish to feedback your thoughts on the Extranet in general, please contact me.

Regards