December 2020

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In This Newsletter


Happy Holidays from all of us at AVAware Technologies

AVAware Staff is Helping to Build a 'Mountain of Toys' this Holiday Season

Letter from the President

AVAware Academy: Hardware and Multi-Openings

Bonus Tip: Ensuring your PC is Running Optimally






Watch AVAware Academy Video!


Catalog Updates


 U.S. Price Books:

  • Air Louvers
  • Ceco
  • Falcon
  • Hager
  • Ives
  • Kwikset
  • Mesker
  • Republic
  • Rutherford
  • Sargent
  • Schlage
  • Select
  • Steelcraft
  • Unified
  • Yale



 Canadian Price Books:

  • Rutherford
  • Sargent
  • Stanley
  • Yale





AVAware Staff is Helping to Build a 'Mountain of Toys' this Holiday Season



In what has become an annual event at the AVAware office, rather than partaking in customary coworker gift-buying such as "Secret Santa", the AVAware team has proudly chosen to continue our tradition of celebrating the holiday season by purchasing children's toys to assist families in need. This year, we're contributing to Toy Mountain.

The Toy Mountain Campaign is an annual holiday drive held in coordination with the Salvation Army, Bell Media and other corporate sponsors. Now in its 25th year, Toy Mountain has provided toys to countless families in need enabling their children to share in the joy of the holiday season.

In the months of November and December, Canadians across the country are challenged to "Help build a mountain of toys!" as the campaign is featured on CTV's national news broadcast.

For more information on the Toy Mountain Campaign, please visit: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/toy-mountain




 

From the Desk of the President



To Our Friends and Valued Customers,


As the year draws to a close, it's not unfair to say that most of us are happy to put it behind us. People throughout the world faced a challenge that humanity hasn't seen in decades.

The AVAware offices were forced to shut down for a period of five months this year under a mandatory provincial lockdown order. Our team continued to support our clients and attend to their various responsibilities from home, making that challenging period as seamless as possible to our customers. Throughout the year, many of our customers also endured their own office closures and found themselves working from home. Once again, the support team worked diligently to assist them in that difficult transition.

Given the many lockdowns and mandated closures this year, many of us are facing the prospect of a very isolated holiday season; certainly a departure from the usual string of holiday events and get-togethers that we're all used to. Holiday celebrations will be smaller, and far more intimate than most of us have ever experienced. This is not to say however that this is "unprecedented". Many of our seniors will recall holidays of that past in which they found themselves separated from friends and loved ones during times of crisis. It was during those times that they found the greatest appreciation for the ones they could not be with; an appreciation that stayed with them throughout their lives.

As this year draws to a close - one marked by fear, tragedy, and a sense of division that can truly be described as "unprecedented", it may be worth considering that while we may not get the holiday season we wanted this year, we may just get the one we need.

All of us at AVAware wish to thank our valued clients, vendors and corporate partners for all their past and ongoing support. From our family to yours, we wish to extend our best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season and a very prosperous New Year.


All the best!





Paul S. Kirsch
President & CEO
AVAware Technologies



 

AVAware Academy:
Hardware and Multi-Openings



The ability to specify and schedule architectural hardware is a central feature of the AVAproject detailing and estimating system. The innovative AVAproject "Hardware Groups" are able to offer unmatched convenience to specification writers, while providing boundless versatility to estimators that need to replicate existing schedules.

Hardware quantities in the groups are listed based on door application. There are separate quantity columns provided for active leafs, inactive leafs and off-door mounting. Products such as hinges or closers would commonly appear on both leaves, while pair-specific items such as flush bolts would appear only on the inactive leaf.

This means that both single and paired openings can be assigned to a single hardware group.

 

 

Multi-Opening Elevations

 

While this may be well and good for single and paired openings, it's not uncommon to see openings that are far more complicated. Multi-Opening Elevations consist of banks of separate singles or pairs in a single elevation. These are most commonly seen in entrance ways and separating sections of larger facilities such as arenas, exhibit halls and ballrooms.





Multi-opening elevations can be drawn using AVAcad and inserted into the AVAproject Openings Schedule. Each individual "sub-opening" is treated as its own opening with its own handing and active or inactive leaves.

AVAproject also assigns hardware to each opening individually based on the quantities specified in the hardware group. In the above example, the exit devices with outside pulls, hinges, and closers are assigned to active and inactive leaves of each opening.

In some applications however, it may be necessary to specify different hardware for certain sub-openings or specific door leaves. In an entrance way, for example, one opening alone might require keyed trim for access.





To allow for this level of specification, the hardware groups offer an additional column: "Sub-Opening Number". This column allows hardware items to be assigned to specific sub-openings only, rather to all of them.

AVAproject automatically numbers sub-openings from left to right, beginning with "1" and counting upwards. In this example, the first opening on the left would be sub-opening "1", with the last being sub-opening "4". The two pairs in between would be sub-openings "2" and "3" respectively.

If, for example, keyed trim was required for sub-opening "1", an additional exit device with keyed trim would need to be added to the Hardware Group. Once added, placing the number "1" in the "Sub-Opening Number" column indicates the exit device specified in that line should only be applied to that sub-opening.





Additional sub-opening assignment can be added simply by separating their number designations with commas. To add the same exit device hardware to the rightmost leaf, simply add ", 4" to the "Sub-Opening Number" column. Meanwhile, the piece of hardware that was previously assigned to all the openings is now assigned to the remaining openings only - "2" and "3".





This variation in hardware assignment is also reflected on the hardware schedule and on the material list.

When Door Machining Sheets are generated, a separate sheet is produced for each sub-opening showing their specific hardware assignments.





AVAware Academy articles include accompanying training videos courtesy of the AVAware production team.

Click below to view this month's video!



 




 

Bonus Tip: Ensuring your PC is Running Optimally


We all know that year end is an excellent time to catch up on the little chores that we all tend to procrastinate on throughout the year. One such task is the small bit of routine PC maintenance that can prevent a lot of headaches.

The following article was originally written for previous editions of AVAwire by a senior AVAware developer, and continues to be a favorite amongst our users and our staff alike. The fact that it remains every bit as relevant and important now, as it was the day it was written, has lead to it becoming somewhat of an AVAware tradition to re-publish it in each year's final edition of AVAwire.

Before heading off for whatever holiday tradition you enjoy... may we suggest spending a few minutes with your trusty PC, to ensure it will be waiting for you in top condition next year!






Ensuring your PC is Running Optimally


As another year comes to a close, many businesses and individuals alike take advantage of the opportunity to do a bit of housekeeping to get ready for the new year. A tidy desk, clean work space and properly organized paperwork are all wonderful things to come back to after the holiday break to maximize productivity and efficiency. But what about your PC? The following are a few basic PC maintenance tips and tricks to ensure your computer is performing optimally.


Continue to full article...








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