The Foundation module is designed so that the engineer can enter a minimum amount of data and quickly arrive at a design. Additionally, the option to use more advanced features under the criteria and assign menus to fine tune the design always exists. This section explains the minimum steps necessary to achieve a foundation design.

Before the RAM Foundation program can be used to design spread, continuous, or pile foundations the following steps are required:

1. The foundations must be laid out in RAM Modeler.
2. Gravity and/or lateral loads must be defined for the model using RAM Modeler and/or RAM Frame.
3. All columns must have sizes assigned to them. Gravity steel columns are sized by the RAM Steel Column module. Steel columns may also be assigned sizes within RAM Modeler, and frame steel columns may be assigned sizes within RAM Frame.

   Gravity concrete columns may be assigned sizes within RAM Modeler, RAM Concrete Analysis, or RAM Concrete Column. Frame concrete columns may also be assigned sizes within RAM Frame.

4. For footings supporting lateral members, the lateral analysis must be performed in RAM Frame. If the lateral analysis has not been performed only footings supporting gravity members only will be available for design.

Once these four conditions are satisfied the engineer can invoke the RAM Foundation program and achieve a foundation design.

Upon entering the foundation module, all foundations will be drawn in white. This indicates that not all necessary information has been defined for a design to be completed. The user must provide three pieces of information before a design can be completed.

1. Soil Properties: Use the Assign - Soil command to provide the program with information about the soil for a given footing. Note that this assignment is not needed, nor possible, for pile footings.
2. Base Plate Size: For steel columns, a base plate size must be defined using the Assign > Base Plate command.
3. Load Combinations: Before a design can be run, at least one load combination for concrete and one load combination for soil must be entered. This can be done either by having the program generate combinations based on a specific building code (see Section 2.9 for more information) or by entering user-defined combinations.

Once this information has been entered, the foundations will turn from white to yellow indicating that they are ready to be designed. Foundations can be designed individually by issuing the View/Update command, or in batch mode by using the Process-Design commands.

When the foundations have been designed, their color will change from yellow to either green, if the design was successful, or red, if the design failed.