It is common practice to add references to related sections in articles and clauses. It can be difficult to coordinate the references and avoid missing sections or sections that do not reference back.

For example, article ‘05 99 99/3.4 Field quality control’ (taken from Canada CMS content) refers to ‘01 45 00 Execution’. The Spec check report will find these references and tell you if the related section, in this case 01 45 00, is missing from the specification or does not include a reverse reference back to 05 99 99.

Check your cross-references using the Spec check report

Run the Spec check report via the Actions button when viewing your spec.

The information is presented on the ‘Cross-reference sections’ worksheet.

Screenshot showing the Spec check report menu option on the Actions button.

About the Spec check ‘Cross-reference sections’

The ‘Cross-reference sections’ worksheet contains four columns:

• Referenced code – is the section number referenced by the article or clause. 
• Referring code – is the number of the article or clause referring to the other section. 
• Referring title – is the title of the article or clause referring to the other section.
• Status (Pass/Error/Warning) – is the status of the reference. There will be one of three values in the ‘Status’ column:
  • Pass: "Referenced" – means the article or clause refers to another section in the specification and it has a reverse reference back to the referring section.
  • Warning: "Reverse reference missing"– means the article or clause refers to another section in the specification. However, there is no reverse reference backwards.
    • Warnings should be reviewed but may be intentional. For example, in Canada CMS and NMS, references to Division 01 sections typically do not have reverse references.
  • Error: "Section missing" – means the article or clause refers to another section that is not in the specification.
    • Errors should be reviewed. Missing sections should be added to the specification or the reference should be removed from the article or clause.
      • There will be situations when the reference is intended, such as inserting a reference from the work section specification to the preliminaries specification (and vice versa) which is normal practice with UK - CAWS and Uniclass-based specifications. In these situations ignore the errors.

Screenshot of the Cross-reference sections worksheet in the Spec check report.

Examples from the screenshot above:

1. Pass: Article ‘09 91 00/1.2 Related requirements’ refers to section ‘05 99 99’. ‘05 99 99’ is in the specification and it contains an inverse reference to ‘09 91 00’.
2. Warning: Article ‘05 99 99/1.3 Related requirements’ refers to section ‘11 11 11’. ‘11 11 11’ is in the specification but it does not contain a reference back to ’05 99 99’.
3. Error: Article ’09 91 00/1.3 Related requirements’ refers to section ’04 05 19’. ’04 05 19’ is not in the specification.

How Lattira Spec and NBS Chorus identify cross-references

The platform queries the contents of the articles or clauses in the specification, looking for section references that match certain patterns. It then checks whether the sections are in the specification.

Section references that match the following patterns

All patterns are case-insensitive.

The platform looks for patterns in the article or clause

1. The article or clause Prefix, Title and Suffix.
2. The article or clause row value.
3. Active articles, clauses and rows.
   • The platform ignores parked articles, clauses and rows.
4. User-created articles, clauses and rows.
   • The platform ignores deleted user-created articles, clauses and rows.
5. The platform ignores section references found in hyperlinks.