What Data an Interactive Floor Plan Needs From Your Team
An interactive floor plan needs five things from your team: current floor plans in the best format you hold, a unit schedule whose identifiers match those plans, a decision on which numbering is authoritative, a stated availability source with a named owner, and a publication boundary saying what may and may not appear. Gather them in that order. Each stage produces an artifact the next one depends on, and skipping the numbering decision is the reason we most often see a project stall after it has started.
Production time on an interactive plan is predictable. Data assembly is not, and it is where we see nearly every schedule overrun originate.
These are the five stages we walk clients through before an interactive floor plan build begins.
| Stage | Decision made | Artifact produced |
|---|---|---|
| Stage 1: collect the plans | Which drawings are current | A set of floor plans, one per level, in the best available format |
| Stage 2: produce the unit schedule | What a prospect needs to know about a unit before selecting it | A spreadsheet, one row per selectable unit, with the identifier in its own column |
| Stage 3: settle the authoritative numbering | Which identifier wins when the plan, the marketing material and the lease administration system disagree | A reconciliation list mapping every plan boundary to one system identifier, with conflicts explicitly resolved |
| Stage 4: name the availability source | Does live status get built at all, and if so from where | Either technical access to a feed, API or scheduled export, or a written statement that there will be no live status layer |
| Stage 5: set the publication boundary | What appears publicly | A short written list of what is in and what is out, approved by whoever above marketing has authority over pricing disclosure |
Stage 1: collect the plans
Decision: which drawings are current. Not the ones in the marketing folder, the ones that reflect the building as it stands after the last renovation.
Artifact: a set of floor plans, one per level, in the best available format. CAD or a vector PDF is ideal. A scan is workable. A photograph of a printed plan is workable but slower and less exact.
The frequent surprise here is that the marketing plans and the operations plans disagree, usually because a renovation was reflected in one and not the other.
Stage 2: produce the unit schedule
Decision: what a prospect needs to know about a unit before selecting it. Typically area, bedroom and bath count, plan type, level, exposure and any premium attribute.
Artifact: a spreadsheet, one row per selectable unit, with the identifier in its own column.
Export it from the system of record rather than assembling it by hand. Hand-built schedules carry the errors of whoever built them and no way to refresh.
Stage 3: settle the authoritative numbering
Decision: which identifier wins when the plan, the marketing material and the lease administration system disagree.
Artifact: a reconciliation list mapping every plan boundary to one system identifier, with conflicts explicitly resolved.
This is the stage that stalls projects. It cannot be delegated to us because it is an internal governance question, and nothing downstream can be built until it closes. Choose the operations identifier when in doubt, since it outlasts every campaign.
If the reconciliation looks like more work than your team has time for, send both lists and we will produce a draft mapping for you to approve.
Stage 4: name the availability source
Decision: does live status get built at all, and if so from where.
Artifact: either technical access to a feed, API or scheduled export, or a written statement that there will be no live status layer.
Both answers are acceptable and the written statement is worth as much as the feed, because it prevents a status layer being added later without an owner.
Stage 5: set the publication boundary
Decision: what appears publicly. Rents, availability dates, lease expirations, phase timing, unsigned tenants.
Artifact: a short written list of what is in and what is out, approved by whoever above marketing has authority over pricing disclosure.
Getting this in writing protects the marketing team. A published rent that ownership did not intend to publish is a difficult conversation that a one page approval prevents entirely.
What happens after the five stages
With those artifacts in hand, production is scoped precisely and moves without interruption. Without them, production starts, hits the first identifier conflict, and waits on an internal meeting.
Related reading: what sets interactive plan pricing shows how data condition maps to price, property marketing teams covers who owns each decision, connecting to an availability feed is stage four in technical detail, and how long a build takes assumes these five are done.
Send us what you have at whatever stage you are on and we will tell you exactly which artifacts are still missing.