Buildout’s Plans feature allows you to customize your lease properties’ site plan images to visualize the Lease Spaces section of the Property Edit Form. These modified Plans can be populated to the Spaces tab of Individual Property Websites and in documents using the Plans Power Page. Best of all, making updates in the future to the lease spaces in the Property Edit Form will automatically update your Site Plans!
Getting Started with Plans
It is important to follow the three-step process outlined below to best utilize Plans in Buildout. This is because Plans are designed to be automatic: like in all Buildout marketing materials, data updates flow from the Property Edit Form to Plans. Jump ahead with these links, or continue reading, to learn how to use the Plans feature.
- Adding Lease Space Information in the Property Edit Form
- Adding/Creating Plans in the Plans tab
- Displaying Plans in Documents and Individual Property Websites
Adding Lease Space Information in the Property Edit Form
Once a property’s Availability is marked “For Lease” in the Property Edit Form, the Lease Space section will appear. There is no limit to how many Lease Spaces are allowed per property, but note that each lease space has required fields to fill out. Any empty required fields will prevent you from saving your work the Property Edit Form.
The Property Edit Form is also where you can determine the display order of spaces in the Plans Tab, the Plans Power Page, and the Spaces tab of the property website. You can learn more about the required fields in the Lease Space form and reordering your spaces here.
Several fields in the Lease Space form populate to Plans images:
- Address 2 (Space Name)
- Tenant Name
- Space Size
- Lease Rate
- Date Available
Uploading and Customizing a Site Plan
In the Plans tab, click the “New Plan” button to open the Plan Editor. Upload a site plan image to get started - this will serve as the backdrop for Plans. It’s recommended to upload the highest quality image file as possible to ensure good results.
Each plan will be named “New Plan” by default but can be renamed at the top left of the editor. The name of your plan is private and will not be displayed anywhere outside of Buildout.
There are four main components of the Plans Editor: Spaces, Layers, Legend, and Settings.
Drawing Spaces
The Spaces tab will be selected automatically when the Plans Editor opens and is the main tool used to create a Plan.
Click the “Draw New Space” button and use your mouse to trace around the outside of a lease space on your image. The drawing tool works like the polygon tool in our Retailer Maps feature - click on each corner of the space to trace and close out of the shape by clicking back on the initial point.
If your plan has clearly defined lines to note each space, you can also double-click on the space to automatically draw the space shape!
Closing the shape automatically adds a new Space under the Spaces tab and closes the draw tool. To exit draw-mode before completing a shape, press ESC on your keyboard.
With a space complete, select the corresponding space/unit from the Lease Space drop-down, which displays a list of all the spaces entered in the Property Edit Form. Choosing a space from the drop-down connects your drawn shape to the Property Edit Form space and pulls in all applicable data onto the Plan.
The Space Name imports into the Plans Editor from the Property Edit Form as the Label. This text can be resized, moved, and rotated on the site plan. Use the “Override Label” checkbox to edit the display label or “Hide Label” to remove it entirely. The Legend Category is determined by the space’s deal status in the Property Edit Form, but it can also be overridden in the Plans Editor. Check out the Legends section of this article for more information. Any changes made to a space in the Plans Editor do not affect data in the Property Edit Form.
Layers
The Layers tab in the Plans Editor is where you can add and manage images and text boxes. These elements are not tied to any data from your Property Edit Form so they can be used to highlight relevant Plans information that doesn’t live in the Edit Form. Layers are useful when adding an image with a neighboring business’ logo, using a text box to share the number of spaces in the parking lot, creating elements that “pop,” or anything else you need to help customize a site plan.
Legend
The Legend shows which colors are associated with each category displayed in Plans. Default categories in Plans are:
- Available
- Available Soon
- Unavailable
A space’s Legend Category is determined by their availability in the Property Edit Form’s Deal Status section located within each individual Lease Space. Off Market, Under Contract, and Closed spaces are categorized in Plans as “Unavailable”. On Market spaces are marked “Available” unless the Date Available field has a date that is in the future; in that case, the space will show as “Available Soon”. Spaces that are available soon will automatically convert to “Available” when the date entered in Date Available comes to pass.
Each category is set to default to your company’s branding colors. Create additional categories on the plan directly by clicking “+ New Category.” From there, you can set a custom name and color. Adding a new category will affect only that Plan. If your team would like to update the branding colors or categories for the Legend section universally for all Plans, that can easily be adjusted in your Company Settings Tab under ‘Styles’.
Settings
The Settings tab stores the original uploaded Plan file. This is where the background of the site plan image can be replaced while maintaining any existing edits that have been made on the Plan. Use this function to replace the existing site plan image with a higher quality photo, but create a new Plan if the image has different content. Space outlines created in the Plan Editor will try to map over to the new image but may need to be adjusted manually if the new image has different dimensions.
Displaying Plans in Documents and Individual Property Websites
All Plans, like Buildout documents, are private by default. You can publish your new Plan on the Individual Property Lease Website and in documents by clicking the gear symbol in the Plans tab and selecting the option that appears. To unpublish a plan from the property website and docs, use the gear option again and select ‘Remove from website and docs.’
Using Plans in Documents
Once a plan is published, display it in the documents by using the Plans Power Page. This page is available in the page library across all offering memorandums, brochures, and proposals and is designed to take full advantage of the Plans feature. To learn more about using the Plans Power Page, check out our article about it.
Viewing Plans on Individual Property Websites
Visitors to your Individual Property Lease Website can see the Plan on the Spaces tab after it has been published. The plan image on the website is interactive - hovering over an available space will display the space’s label, size, and the lease rate. This data is pulled from the Lease Space section in the Property Edit Form. A shape that is not connected to the Property Edit Form will not generate a hover preview.
Additional data for each lease space will display below the Plan image in the same order the spaces appear in the Property Edit Form. Each space’s unique media (floor plans, space photos or videos) will include clickable links to direct visitors to view them.
