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Shipbuilder Training

Tips and tricks

Ten habits. None of them is a feature you have to learn; each is a way of using what the previous pages showed that saves a minute every time.

Two browser tabs, side by side

Open the same workspace in two tabs and put them next to each other: the document register in one, the transmittal you are assembling in the other; the comments overview beside the revision they are about; the cost code tree beside the document you are filing. It turns “what was that number again” into a glance, and it is the fastest way to compare two records.

They are two views of one workspace: a change made in one is not visible in the other until you press ⟳ on the block, or reload.

A search asks you to know what you are looking for. A sort shows you what is there. Click Status (builder) once and every Approval from Class is together; click Date and the oldest current revision is at the top; click Created by in the comments and one reviewer’s remarks read as a list. Most “find the…” questions are one sort, not a search.

Then filter, and combine

The funnel on a column narrows to the values you tick. Two funnels combine: Status (builder) = Approval from Class and Is of type = Drawing is the list of drawings sitting with the surveyor. Clear them when you are done — Reset on the column, or Reset Columns in the column menu for everything — because a grid you left filtered looks like a grid with rows missing.

Use the grid search for words, the funnel for values

The magnifier at the top right of a block searches every visible cell for a word — the fastest way to find a document when you remember half its name. The funnel is for values a column takes — statuses, types, names — where ticking is quicker than typing.

1 to 20 of 46 means there are three pages. A grid showing twenty rows is not a grid with twenty records; check the count, the page, and the filters — in that order.

Look on the other tab

Nothing is deleted in Shipbuilder. A document, a person, a space or a piece of equipment that has gone out of use is on the Not in use tab of its overview, with every connection it ever had. When a record “is not there”, it usually is — one tab to the right.

Pin the column that tells you where you are

On a wide grid, pin Number (column menu → Pin Column) so it stays put while you scroll to the right. Autosize the rest (Autosize All Columns) after a filter, so long names stop being cut off.

Open things in a popup to stay where you are

Underlined values in a detail page open in a popup; underlined values in an overview open the detail page beside it. Use the popup to glance at the cost code or the person and close it with Esc — the page you were on is still there, exactly as you left it.

Enter saves, Escape abandons

Every editor — text, list, date, picker — saves on Enter and gives up on Esc. Clicking elsewhere also saves. If you opened an editor by accident, Esc is the safe way out; clicking the next field is not.

Right-click first

The right-click menu on a row is named for what you clicked: Edit Document Name, Browse history for Document, Create Document. It is the shortest route to the history browser, and it tells you what the cell you are on is called.