“I have to say, this year’s event was the best AU I have been to over my long career of attending and exhibiting at these shows,” said Ideate Software President Bob Palioca, who attended his first AU in 1986. 

There were two significant differences between this year’s conference and prior ones: 1) We increased the number of workstations at our booth from two to five, and 2) We had a large group of team members there from leadership, software development, support, customer success, sales, and marketing. In addition to the Ideate Software professionals, Ideate Software advocates Brian Mackey, owner of BD Mackey Design, and Sash Kazeminejad, project manager at Annex Architecture and former customer success manager at Ideate Software, were also at our booth. 

 
The extensive resources enabled us to devote more time to individuals, demo our products in more depth, and even help customers with specific workflow issues they were facing.

As always, our main purpose in attending AU was to show our customers how much we appreciated them. We did that this year through several ways, including:

1. Delicious Latin food at Chica in The Venetian
2. A digital photo booth where many customers took pictures of their teams and with Ideate Software personnel
3. Fun swag, including Ideate Software socks that were a huge hit
   
   
4. A drawing for a box of Recchiuti Gourmet Chocolates, a true San Francisco treat

In addition to connecting with the AECO community, visiting with many of our 350 beta testers, and attending learning sessions,:

• Ideate Software hosted the Women in BIM event and provided space for the organization to hold meetings with current and prospective mentors 
• Our leaders saw what our partner Modulus Consulting is doing with autonomous scanning and reality capture
• Nivin Nabeel, our North America Customer Success Manager, led a well-received session called, “Clone Yourself and Save Time on Repetitive Revit Tasks”
  
  
   

We are all back to work and reviewing our notes for opportunities to continue delighting our customers with outstanding BIM tools that save users time and improve the quality of their Revit models.

Fun Memories      

Autodesk released Revit version 2024.2 in November. The purpose of this blog is to:

1. Communicate about that release relative to the Schema issue, which is the theme of our earlier posts on that topic.
2. Share new information about how to fix Ideate Software-related schema problems 

Version 2024.2

Frankly, I’m confused about this 2024.2 release. The release notes here indicate a 8 November release date but my Autodesk Access tool indicates a 26 November release date. There are two important things I want our Ideate Software customers to know about the Revit 2024.2 release:

• Revit version 2024.2 does not fix any schema errors that were caused by versions 2024.0 or 2024.1.0. Revit Version 2024.1.1 is the important version related to schema (so far) because it prevents new conditions from occurring. 
• Revit version 2024.2 release notes contain this somewhat ominous warning that was not previously included: 
  
  

 
So, should you install 2024.2?

If you’ve already deployed version 2024.1.1, you’ve done the best you can, as it relates to mitigating future schema errors. We have confirmed with Autodesk that 2024.2 does not further improve this condition.

How to Fix the Schema Problems in Revit 2024 – Nuclear Option

As described in our earlier posts on this topic, versions 2024.0 and 2024.1.0 of Revit have created new schema errors in files that were migrated from an earlier version of Revit. Once these errors occur they are extremely difficult to fix. Per Autodesk’s documentation on this subject, your best option is to re-migrate these projects after deploying version 2024.1.1.

If you are in the group of people who don’t have that luxury, then Autodesk has said you should start a support case with them.

We have been able to successfully purge the corrupted schema data for a few of our Ideate Software customers, so we wanted to share the process here in case it helps others. We refer to these steps as the “Nuclear Option,” so proceed with caution and only as a last resort if you cannot get the help you need from Autodesk.

***NOTE: These steps will IRREVERSIBLY delete Ideate Software data from the model, including Ideate BIMLink definitions, settings states, and/or the Stickies already in the model. All of these will need to be recreated again. Ideate Software customers with an Ideate Software schema problem should contact [email protected] before completing these steps.***

1. Ensure you and everyone in your organization is already using Revit 2024.1.1 or higher
2. Close Revit if it’s already open 
3. Open a new session of Revit
4. Open the affected file only. Make sure no other Revit sessions or models are open
5. Save the file (save button). This is the crazy part of the process. Be sure to do this!
6. Go to Purge Unused
   1. Press ‘Check None’ button to unselect all elements on the list
   2. Navigate to ‘Extensible Storage Schemas’
   3. As instructed by our Ideate Software support team, select only the specified GUID values
7. Press OK to purge the selected Schemas
8. Sync the file with Central
9. Close Revit
10. Reopen Revit and the model
11. Confirm that the Ideate Software application now works correctly and that schema messages related to Ideate Software are no longer present
12. Wash, rinse, repeat for all other models that have a schema problem. Remember to close Revit completely and restart

Finally, be sure your organization and Revit file collaborators are all using Revit 2024.1.1 or later!

Ideate Software is delighted with our partnership with Women in BIM, a diverse network of female professionals within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries that is dedicated to supporting women who work in BIM-related roles.

Recently we were proud sponsors of their conference in London, which women from across the AEC industries attended for personal development, education, and mentoring. The conference was held at The View, home of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. 

 
Representing Ideate Software at the event were our UK/EMEA Customer Success Manager Steve Deadman, and our UK/EMEA Territory Lead Nick Johns. Both commented on the large number of attendees, the range of topics covered by speakers, and the high level of engagement of all those present. We send out our congratulations to everyone involved in putting on such a compelling, relevant, and valuable event.

As sponsors of the Evening Drinks Reception, Steve and Nick had the opportunity to connect with people from across the UK as well as other European countries in a casual environment. They enjoyed positive, insightful, and inspiring conversations on several topics, including BIM and women within the BIM arena, and Ideate Software tools for Revit. 

A key topic for us at the WIB London conference was Ideate Automation and the time and effort-savings that it entails. If you couldn’t attend the event, join our two December webinars showcasing this solution.

1. Clone Yourself and Save Time on Repetitive Revit Tasks with Ideate Automation – A reiteration of the class delivered by our Customer Success Manager Nivin Nabeel at Autodesk University 2023.
    
2. Dynamically Export DWG, PDF, and NWC files with Ideate Automation and Ideate BIMLink

You may know that you can create new Revit elements with Ideate BIMLink. Did you know that following a similar process, you can also create new Revit revision sequences? 

1. Review Revision Sequences in Parent File
    
   • Open a project with Revit. If the project has linked files, select the one that represents the primary source of revision data
   • Select the Revision button from the Sheet Composition panel on the View tab
   • You’ll see that any issued sequence will not be editable. Before opening Ideate BIMLink, uncheck the Issued box for the sequences you want to edit. Note: The editable fields for Revisions not issued are Date, Description, Issued, Issued to, and Issued by.
     
     
      
2. Edit Revision Data in the Parent File with Ideate BIMLink
    
   • ​​​​​​​Launch Ideate BIMLink
   • Hit Load Revit Sample
   • Select “Revisions” from the list of samples
   • Review the properties and hit OK
   • Select Export Revit Elements to Excel then open the Excel file
   • You can now edit any data within a cell that is white. Due to the nature of the Issued property, we recommend that you don’t edit it if you are editing other properties from the same sequence
   • Save the changes to the Excel file and select Import Excel Values into Revit to complete the changes
   • If you made a change to Issued, use Ideate BIMLink again to edit only this property or manually reset the property using the Revision button in Revit
      
3. Copy Revision Data to a Linked File
   
   With Revit Revision data set up to standards, you can use the same data to create matching data in another file. The instructions below assume that the revision sequences have not been set up.
    
   • Open the Revit project file that you would like to mirror in the Revision sequences defined within the original parent file.
   • Launch Ideate BIMLink
   • Hit Load Sample
   • Select Revisions
   • Review the properties and hit OK
   • Select Export to save the results to a new Excel file and open that new file
   • Copy the Excel data from the original file to the new file. See image below. Don’t copy data from Column A, B, or C
   • Write the word “NEW” in Column A for each new Revision sequence to be created in the Revit project file. The values for Column B and C will be automatically setup by Revit when imported
   • Hit Save in Excel and then Import in Ideate BIMLink to complete the changes
     
     

Browse our website to learn more ways you can use our Revit addins to streamline processes, improve model health, and elevate design. 
 

Ideate Software was on the road again visiting the beautiful city by the Bay in late October! 

San Francisco is the headquarters of Ideate Software, but Technical Evangelist, Richard Taylor, hopped across the country from Boston to present a lunch and learn session for the AIA San Francisco Center for Architecture.

Massachusetts Bay to San Francisco Bay! Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge to Golden Gate Bridge!

Massachusetts Bay	San Francisco Bay

Richard delivered a presentation called “Clone Yourself and Save Time on Repetitive Revit Tasks,” where he showed how Revit users can stop wasting time on tedious, repetitive tasks and reduce intense boring work with top BIM data management workflows that essentially allow you to clone yourself and gain an employee.

The 30+ attendees learned how to create new Revit family and project parameters using Ideate BIMLink, how to easily manage materials to ensure Revit model accuracy, and how to automatically create comprehensive document issue and revision data. 

In addition, attendees learned how to avoid annotative clashes and ensure accurate documentation within their Revit projects by using IdeateApps. 

Ideate Automation was the breakout star of the 90-minute presentation. You can review the eye-popping breakout star by watching our Ideate Automation video without leaving your computer or visiting either Bay!

Joining Richard at the event for lively discussions about all things BIM and data management were Ideate Software team members Rahul Verma and Moe Kress.

Taking advantage of his cross-country trek, Richard also took the opportunity to visit some important Ideate Software customers in the San Francisco area, visit the Autodesk office, and have some excellent coffee along the way!

Before you could say “Revit’s your Uncle,” Richard was flying back across the country from the Pacific to the Atlantic shores.  

Ideate Software is spanning the country from sea to shining sea with Revit productivity and BIM data management workflows for all Revit users.

We will see you in Las Vegas for AU2023!