v8.3.0 - a South Africa construction pack, the first of our African coverage.

8.3.0 opens a continent. Until now our regional coverage spanned Europe, the Americas and Asia, but Africa was a gap. The South Africa pack closes the first part of it, and it is not a thin label change. It carries the measurement standards, the contractor grading, the public procurement rules and the cost structure a South African team works with every day, so the platform speaks the local language of construction from the first project. Around it, the most recent feature screens are now translated everywhere, a fresh install starts faster, and the BOQ templates page follows the project switcher like the rest of the app.

What is new in version 8.3.0

• A South Africa construction pack. The first pack in our African coverage, pre-configured for South African work. It carries SANS 1200 civil works and ASAQS building measurement, CIDB contractor grading from 1 to 9, the PPPFA 80/20 and 90/10 preferential procurement scoring, the National Treasury infrastructure delivery and procurement stages, the nine provinces with editable location factors, and the rand with 15 percent VAT.
• Johannesburg regional cost data. A published reference catalogue for Johannesburg that downloads on demand and caches locally, so the pack arrives with priced cost data to estimate against rather than an empty shell.
• The newest screens, in every language. The feature screens added most recently are now translated across all 26 other languages, so the latest work reads correctly for every team rather than only in English.
• A faster fresh start. A new install starts faster: the search index now builds in the background instead of on the boot path, so the first window appears sooner and the index fills in behind it.
• BOQ templates follow the project switcher. The BOQ templates page now follows the global project switcher like the rest of the app, so changing the active project updates the templates view in step instead of leaving it behind.

South Africa, set up the way the country builds

A regional pack is only useful if it knows the local rules, and South African construction runs on a specific set of them. Civil works are measured to SANS 1200, building work to the ASAQS standard system, and a bill that does not follow them is not a bill anyone will accept. The South Africa pack ships with both, so a quantity surveyor starts in the right measurement system rather than bending a foreign template to fit.

Public work adds another layer. Contractors are graded by the CIDB on a scale from 1 to 9, and tenders are scored for preference under the PPPFA, on either the 80/20 or the 90/10 split depending on the value of the work. The pack carries the CIDB grading and both PPPFA scoring models, and it lays the project out along the National Treasury infrastructure delivery and procurement stages, the gates a public project passes through from planning to close-out. All nine provinces are present with editable location factors, so a Gauteng rate and a Western Cape rate can differ the way they do in practice, and money is the rand with 15 percent VAT applied the way the country applies it.

The pack does not arrive empty. A published reference catalogue for Johannesburg downloads on demand and caches locally, so there is priced cost data to estimate against from the first project. As with every other region, the catalogue lives outside the install and is fetched when you want it, which keeps the download light while leaving the local market a click away.

The newest screens now read in every language

New features ship in English first, and a translation sweep brings them to the rest of the platform. 8.3.0 catches the screens added most recently up to the rest: they are now translated across all 26 other languages, so a team working in German, Portuguese, Japanese or any of the others sees the latest work in their own language instead of a patch of untranslated English. The platform has carried 27 languages for a long time, and this keeps that promise current as the surface grows.

A quicker first run, and templates that keep up

Two smaller changes smooth the edges. A fresh install now starts faster: building the search index used to sit on the boot path, so the first launch waited on it before the window appeared. That work now runs in the background, so the window comes up sooner and the index fills in behind it without holding anything up.

And the BOQ templates page now follows the global project switcher like every other screen in the app. Switch the active project and the templates view moves with it, instead of staying pinned to whatever project was open when you arrived. It is a small thing, but it removes a moment of doubt about which project you are actually looking at.

By the numbers

Install or upgrade

pip install --upgrade openconstructionerp

The desktop installers for Windows, macOS and Linux carry the same one-installer setup, and the Linux build includes the CAD and BIM converters for AutoCAD, Revit and IFC. You can grab the latest installers from openconstructionerp.com/download. If you run an external PostgreSQL through DATABASE_URL, nothing about that connection changes. Questions or trouble upgrading, write to info@datadrivenconstruction.io.