Microvellum, Cabinet Vision and INNERGY: keeping job history when switching

What job history lives in each system?#

Job history at a millwork or casework shop is usually split between a design and engineering tool and a business system. Microvellum and Cabinet Vision are design-to-manufacturing tools that produce shop drawings, material lists, cut lists and CNC output. INNERGY is an ERP built for woodworking and millwork businesses, holding estimates, purchasing, scheduling and job costs.

A shop switching between any of these, or adding one to another, needs to know which records live where before deciding what moves. The table is a starting map; your own setup may put some records in spreadsheets, accounting software or a shared drive.

Export checklist before you change platforms#

The export checklist below covers what most shops regret leaving behind. Run it while the old system is fully licensed and supported, because exports are harder once a subscription lapses or the person who administered it has left.

Test a sample before the full run. Pick one closed job with change orders and open every exported file outside the old software to confirm it is complete and readable.

• 1A job list with job number, customer, general contractor, architect, dates and status.
• 2Estimates and bids with line items and every version, including jobs you did not win.
• 3Change orders with dates, scope and price, linked to the original estimate.
• 4Product and material libraries, saved as a dated snapshot alongside the jobs that used them.
• 5Material and hardware lists per job, as CSV or spreadsheet files.
• 6Cut lists and nesting reports, plus CNC output where the machines still run the same post.
• 7Shop drawings and submittal sets as PDF, with approval stamps and dates.
• 8Job costing actuals: labor hours by phase, material costs and purchase orders.

Why product libraries are the hardest part to keep#

Product libraries are the hardest part to keep because they hold the shop's construction standards in a form that only the original software can read. A cabinet box, its joinery, its machining operations and its hardware rules are all encoded in parametric products that a shop has refined for years.

Old jobs depend on the library as it was when the job was engineered. If the library is updated or converted, an old job may open with different construction or fail to open at all. Save a dated copy of the library at the time of the switch, and record which library version each archived job used.

Do not count on a vendor or implementer to convert libraries between platforms without loss. Ask what converts, what is rebuilt and what is left behind, and keep the original as a reference even if the new platform has its own version.

Questions to ask vendors and implementers#

The questions to ask vendors and implementers are about history, not features. Sales conversations focus on what the new platform does; the export and archive questions decide what the shop keeps. Get the answers in writing.

Keep the link between estimates, engineering and actuals#

The link between estimates, engineering and actuals is what turns a millwork archive into a usable history. An estimate shows what the shop thought a job would take, the engineered job shows what was actually built and the job costs show what it cost. Together they explain where estimates miss.

That link breaks easily during a switch, because the design tool and the ERP may use different job numbers or none at all. Before exporting, build a crosswalk of job numbers across systems, and keep it with the archive so later reviews can join the records again.

Architect drawings and shop drawings: whose files are they?#

Architect drawings and shop drawings have different owners, which matters when deciding what to archive and what could ever be shared. On projects using the AIA A201-2017 general conditions, the architect and its consultants are deemed the owners of the instruments of service, including the drawings and specifications, and contractors, subcontractors and suppliers do not own or claim copyright in them.

The same form lets contractors, subcontractors and suppliers use and reproduce those documents only for performing the work, and bars use on other projects without written consent. Keep architect drawings in the project archive for warranty and reference, but treat them as restricted. The shop's own shop drawings, libraries, estimates and job costs are its operating records, subject to its own contracts, and counsel can confirm how a specific contract applies.

Illustrative: an architectural millwork firm changes platforms#

Illustrative: a fictional architectural millwork firm builds reception desks, wall paneling and casework for commercial interiors. It has engineered jobs in Cabinet Vision for years, with estimates in spreadsheets and job costs in accounting software, and is moving to an integrated platform.

The IT lead runs the export checklist on a sample job and finds that change orders lived only in email. The firm assembles a job number crosswalk, exports material lists and shop drawings to neutral formats, saves a dated library snapshot and keeps one licensed workstation for opening old native jobs. Architect drawings are filed by project and marked restricted.

Estimators now look up closed jobs by job number to check past hours and material against new bids. When the owners later consider a data review, the archive already separates the firm's own records from the architects' documents.

How SourceX approaches millwork job history#

SourceX looks first at whether a millwork shop's estimates, engineering files and job costs share job numbers, along with the systems in use and the years covered. This metadata-only review makes up Supply, the opening stage of the SourceX five-step transaction, which continues through Rights, Preparation, Approval and Delivery.

Architect drawings and other third-party documents fall out at the Rights stage. The shop licenses its own records, keeps ownership and approves the scope, and a SourceX Evidence Packet records the origin of each record set, the rights relied on, the permitted use, privacy handling and release sign-off.