Below is a brief description of the global criteria that pertain to the Member and Joint Code Checks performed by all the steel design specifications. Technical descriptions of how each criterion is used in the Code Check are provided later in the manual.

The system administrator sets default criteria at the time of installation. They can be modified on a model-by-model basis by issuing the commands described in this section. Changes can be made on a permanent basis by selecting the Tools-Defaults Utility in the RAM Manager.

Note that these criteria are "global" in that they apply to all the appropriate members in the model. However, the user also has the ability to override these global criteria on a member-by-member basis. Refer to the description of the Assign commands for additional information.

The Criteria menu items are divided into three sections based on functionality. Namely there is a codes command, followed by the group of member criteria items, followed by the joint criteria items.