San Francisco, CA, November 3, 2022 – Ideate Software, an Autodesk® AEC Industry Partner and Autodesk® Authorized Developer, presents its latest customer spotlight. This story highlights how Evolve Consultancy, one of the UK’s premier BIM and design consultancies, uses Ideate BIMLink to populate Revit models with COBie (Construction to Operations Building information exchange) data to satisfy ISO 19650-2 requirements. ISO 19650 is an international standard for managing information over a built asset’s lifecycle using building information modeling, and part 2 concentrates on the delivery phase of assets. COBie is one of the open data formats accepted in the UK by the National Annex to ISO 19650-2.
“Although required, taking the time to understand and accurately deliver the COBie data consistently across all delivery phases can take a backseat to producing ongoing design and construction information,” said Glynnis Patterson, Director of Software Development, Ideate Software. “In this success story, Evolve Consultancy details how they use Ideate BIMLink to streamline the process of creating quality COBie deliverables.”
Nigel Davies, Director, Evolve Consultancy, said, “What could amount to months of work has been simplified into a remapping exercise thanks to the power of Ideate BIMLink.”
Daniel Heselwood, Director, Evolve Consultancy, continued, “One of the big advantages Ideate BIMLink gives is that we can work on the active model while the architects also work on it. If part of the model was locked for editing, Ideate BIMLink doesn’t just give up but continues with the rest of the import and reports back the items it couldn’t update, avoiding downtime and delays.”
Visit www.ideatesoftware.com to learn how Ideate Software add-ins for Revit help users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables, and elevate design. Download trial versions or purchase the bundle for access to Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager for six months.
About Ideate Software - Ideate Software, an Autodesk® AEC Industry Partner and Autodesk® Authorized Developer, empowers Revit users to gain unprecedented control over their data. They developed Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager to solve persistent problems in architecture, engineering, and construction, and owner-operator (AECO) workflows. They developed Ideate Automation to boost the power of their Revit plugins by running time-intensive activities in the background.
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Failure to manage the health of your Revit project could result in poor performance, slow synchronization times, and model crashes, which can lead to delays, file corruption, and missed deadlines.
Keeping your Revit model healthy is essential to any successful project. A healthy model will prevent crashes from happening, ensure all the correct data is contained within the model, and be efficient and productive to work on.
Using Ideate BIMLink, you can set up a comprehensive Revit model health check and publish to a single Excel file with relevant information about the health of the selected Revit model.
How can I use Ideate BIMLink to perform a health check?
Ideate BIMLink is delivered with many health check link definitions that can be exported from the Revit model. Each link can be exported to the same Excel file to build a comprehensive health check.
Health check link definitions that ship with Ideate BIMLink.
Each link definition has a description to show exactly what the link contains.
The link definitions can be exported one by one to the same Excel file.
The resulting Excel file has a separate tab for each exported Ideate BIMLink health check link definition.
Once the Excel has been created, it can be formatted using Pivot tables and macros to display the information more efficiently. Or the data can be pushed into Power BI to create a more visual interpretation.
Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software add-on products help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to the Revit plugin solutions Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.
About the Author
Steve Deadman - Customer Success Manager - EMEA
Steve provides support to customers and helps them get a strong return on their software investment. He has a B.Eng (Hons) degree in Mechanical Engineering and various certifications in engineering. Before joining Ideate Software, he worked at several top architectural firm in the United Kingdom where he specialized in the implementation and management of BIM processes and technology. Find Steve on LinkedIn.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a collaborative process that allows architects, engineers, contractors, and other construction professionals to plan, design, and construct structures within a single 3D model. It also supports owner-operators in building maintenance and management processes.
The Road to BIM
Initially, designers, architects, and engineers created drawings and blueprints to express their visions and information about building plans. Then, computer aided design (CAD) brought the plans into a digital environment. Next, CAD evolved to 3D, enabling more realistic illustrations. The concept of BIM came around in the 1970s, and today it is the standard and increasingly becoming a mandated process to ensure that the planning, design, and construction of buildings are efficient.
The Power of BIM
The power of BIM is the information, or the “I” in BIM, because it is actionable; BIM components are intelligent, have geometry, and store data, and when they are changed, the BIM software updates the model to reflect that change. These automatic and instant updates dramatically reduce the chance of problems associated with outdated information and version control.
Structural engineers, architects, MEP engineers, civil engineers, designers, project managers, contractors, and owner-operators can all access the information in a BIM model through a common data environment, and it can be used in all stages of a structure’s life, from inception through operation and even renovations.
The 4-Step BIM Process
Plan
Design
Build
Operate
Generate context models of the existing built and natural environment
Perform conceptual design, analysis, detailing, and documentation
Begin fabrication using BIM specifications; share construction logistics with trades and contractors
Strip unneeded data from models; leverage remaining data for operations, maintenance, and renovations
BIM Tools
BIM is a process, not a tool. There are several tools available that support the BIM process, and Autodesk leads the pack with:
Revit – One of the industry’s most popular BIM authoring tools used by architects, designers, engineers, contractors, and others
Navisworks – More of a project review solution for AEC professionals than an authoring tool like Revit
BIM 360/Autodesk Construction Cloud – Unifies the design, project, and construction processes into a single process
Civil 3D – Designed on top of AutoCAD for civil engineers; typically broken up in to separate pieces, like grading, alignments, and pipe networks
User Requests
As powerful as Autodesk software is, it does have limitations. And even though Revit is the leading BIM tool for architects, engineers, and construction teams in the world, users need more. Anyone who checks out the Autodesk Revit Forums can read feature requests submitted through various channels, including Revit Architecture Forum, Revit MEP Forum, Revit Structure Forum, Revit API Forum, and Revit Ideas. Autodesk created Revit Ideas as a way for users to communicate their frustrations with the software, including what they wish the software could do and how existing features can be improved. Other users can give “kudos” to ideas they also deem important. There are also independent Revit forums, such as www.RevitForum.org, where people post questions, share knowledge, and discuss Revit software.
Ideate Software Responds
Regularly reviewing these public channels is just one of the ways the professionals at Ideate Software remain aware of the needs of the Revit community and able to develop Revit tools that address the needs expressed by Revit users. We also sponsor and participate in industry events, host webinars, lead virtual and in-person user group meetings, attend Autodesk University every year, and regularly ask our customers for feedback. Then, we take all the knowledge we gain to determine how to bring exceptional value to our customers by investing in product enhancements and new product development.
Gathering information about the needs of Revit users is our first step. Then we create beta versions and ask our customers to give them a try. Because our professionals have been developing Revit tools since 2008 and have proven over and over again that we deliver products that help Revit users do their jobs better, we have a large and loyal group of people who regularly help us fine-tune our products and updates, ensure they meet real needs, and verify that they perform as described.
Today, our suite boasts six products, each developed and iterated in direct response to requests from Revit users. These Revit plugins for architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator industries automate time-consuming manual processes, streamline repetitive processes, make it much easier for designers and engineers to build models that look good, perform well, and help construction professionals and owner-operators perform their duties with fewer errors, less waste, and greater job satisfaction.
Here's how our tools can help you:
Quickly find and delete incorrect, obsolete, and hidden problem items—including imported or linked DWG drawings—as well as find, refine, and revise elements, even those not included in the Revit project browser. This functionality dramatically decreases the amount of time spent on model management and enhances model performance. Included with Ideate Explorer are three additional features that will also help you keep your models in top working order:
Warnings Manager – Audit and address Revit warnings that are ranked by importance and fix problems using tools in Revit while the Warnings Manager dialog box is open
Navigate – Navigate through view-based elements and find unused sheets and views; find and filter legends, schedules, sheets, or views by category and/or keyword; and customize working environments without altering the project browser
Query – Search within set parameters for elements like unused annotations, design options, in-place usage, structure usage/area scheme, and revisions
Instead of working inside of Revit to verify and/or edit data one element at a time, you can use Ideate BIMLink to export the data you need to review to Microsoft Excel where you can view and manipulate massive amounts of data at the same time. You can then use Ideate BIMLink to import the verified or updated data back into Revit, and the model will immediately update.
Share accurate and nicely formatted non-BIM data with Revit teams by live-linking Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and PDF documents to the Revit file with Ideate Sticky. These “stickies” look nice, are easy to read, and can be easily updated within Revit when changes are made to the original file. Whether it’s building codes, consultant data, abbreviation lists, general notes, or any of the many other non-BIM data critical to a project’s success, you can be sure your team always has access to current information.
Eliminate the problems frequently caused by pasting data from one Revit file to another. Often, styles associated with the original file get copied along with the data, clogging up the model with incorrect information that can take a long time to remove if working in Revit. Not removing it isn’t an option, because extraneous data can cause model performance problems. With Ideate StyleManager, a top Revit plugin, you can quickly and easily analyze, merge, or delete non-standard Revit styles. You can also use Ideate StyleManager to see the view filters applied to views and to clean object and line styles and patterns, text, fonts, parameters, and more.
Run time-intensive BIM tasks silently in the background while you do more meaningful work with Ideate Automation. Either started manually or scheduled to run at a convenient time, Ideate Automation can increase your productivity, eliminate the need to train staff of repetitive tasks, and ensure task outcomes are highly predictable, free of user errors, and standardized.
Examples of tasks to automate include:
Exporting key Revit model health data
Creating document issue records
Preparing COBie data drops
Generating quantity take-off data
Generating regular, automated PDF exports
Delivering CSV reports on key Revit family and project metrics
Here’s a short video that shows how to use Ideate Automation to perform Revit model health checks:
If you have any questions, reach out to us. We are here to help you understand and use our Revit plugin solutions.
Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software add-on products help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to the Revit plugin solutions Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.
Ideate Software has been addressing persistent challenges in Revit workflows for a long time.
In 2008, we launched our first Autodesk Revit addin, Ideate Explorer, and since then, we have made frequent, meaningful enhancements to Ideate Explorer and launched and made significant enhancements to Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Sticky, IdeateApps, and Ideate StyleManager. Most recently, we launched Ideate Automation.
Ideate Explorer – Find, refine, and revise many elements excluded from the Revit project browser
Ideate BIMLink – Export Revit data to Microsoft Excel for faster verifying and editing
Ideate Sticky – Integrate and format non-BIM data into Revit projects
IdeateApps – Simplify everyday Revit tasks with the 10 tools in this collection
Soon, we will write a similar blog post about Ideate StyleManager and Ideate Automation. Like the four tools above, our professionals developed these pro Revit tools to address challenges faced by Revit users. Here are the launch blog posts:
When looking into what makes a company successful over the long term, you will find lists with a varying number of items. Three components make it to almost all the lists:
A strong mission
A focus on customers
A solid team
Our Mission
Our guiding mission is to provide our customers with the most extensive, highest-quality information solutions possible. We strive to accomplish our mission every day by developing and supporting Autodesk Revit plugin solutions that give people in the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator spaces unprecedented access to and control over the data in their Revit models so they can 1) create better Revit models in less time, and 2) leverage the data in the models to streamline operations.
We consider ourselves successful when we improve our customers’ productivity and their return on investment in both Revit software and Ideate Software tools.
A Focus on Customers
Because our success depends on making our customers successful, we must know what they need to be successful. If we presume or speculate, we most certainly will miss the mark. Missing the mark creates a negative customer experience, which will lead to fewer sales, unrenewed contracts, and low referral rates. We ensure we know that customers need to be successful by talking with them.
We pay close attention to Revit forums including Revit Ideas, Autodesk Community, and the Revit Roadmap, and we take those ideas into consideration when enhancing our existing tools and developing new ones. Here’s a recording of a webinar in which we highlighted the top user requests addressed by Ideate Software tools.
We track calls to our Support Desk and post frequently asked questions and responses in Support Blog Series.
We consider our customers are a critical part of our product development cycle. We frequently solicit feedback from our customers on our existing tools, ask for new feature requests, and discuss our ideas before beginning the software development process. We also work with customers during rigorous beta testing processes to ensure the tools work as promised and deliver significant value.
Our People
Ideate Software has an extensive team of technical experts who are obsessed with providing Autodesk Revit plugin solutions to meet the needs of Revit users. Employing architects, engineers, BIM and technology experts, and other professionals, our diversity and real-world industry experience position us to provide premium services that ensure improved productivity and return on investment.
Robert Palioca – President
Bob was an original founder of Ketiv Technologies, Inc., one of the first Autodesk value added resellers and a leading developer of third-party applications for AutoCAD software. He became president of Ideate, Inc. in 2005 to retool the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator (AECO) industries through design technology, education, and solutions.
Glynnis Patterson, NCARB – Director of Software Development
Glynnis is a registered architect and has worked within the BIM industry since 1998. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, she has worked as an architect, educator, and construction site manager.
David Haynes – Director
David is a registered architect and a project management certified professional. Before joining Ideate, he had his own architectural practice and was president of a commercial design-build construction company for 15 years.
Richard W. Taylor, Associate AIA – Technical Evangelist
Richard has more than 33 years of experience working for companies that develop architectural and engineering software solutions. He was part of the original development of Revit while at Revit Technology Corporation and spent 12 years at Autodesk, where he presented, taught, and worked to improve features in Revit.
Jesika DiGregorio – Development Manager
Jesika received her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon in Eugene, where she also spent time studying advanced math. Before joining Ideate Software, she worked as a junior designer at an award-winning firm specializing in architecture and land planning. After working in architecture design for several years, Jesika decided to pursue her interest in programming.
Ben Bishoff – Senior Software Engineer
Ben has been a software engineer for more than 30 years and has been developing Ideate Software applications for more than 16 years to help customers save time, increase accuracy, improve project deliverables, and elevate design. With a bachelor’s degree in Physics, he has worked at several software companies that develop applications for the AECO industry.
Hank DiVincenzo – Senior Software Engineer
Hank has been a software engineer for more than 24 years. With a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, he has developed applications for a variety of companies. Before joining Ideate, Hank worked on immersive 360° video applications used for situational awareness within the National Security Agency and Department of Defense.
Stephanie Fitzgerald – Software Developer
Stephanie earned her Ed.M. in Technology, Innovation, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from University of Oregon. In past roles, Stephanie wrote C# and web design curriculum for Zaniac, where she was also the project manager for development, managed a research study of student motivation to learn math for Harvard University, and redesigned the website for a Tufts University library.
Michael Coffey – Software Developer
Michael has a Bachelor of Architecture from New Jersey Institute of Technology and is a registered architect in New York, LEED accredited and a Revit Architecture Certified Associate. Before joining Ideate Software, he worked at an architecture firm, and in his latest position there, he coded and implemented tools using the Revit API, documented and trained in BIM and Revit tools, and managed content and standards.
Jan Sako – Support and Q/C Manager
Jan holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications. He brings in extensive experience in customer issue resolution and general IT troubleshooting. His other passions are green technologies, specifically reuse and recycling, and various other environmental initiatives. Jan previously worked within the sustainability movement in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Steve Deadman – Customer Success Manager — UK/EMEA
Steve’s CAD/BIM experience stretches back to his first job as a CAD Coordinator 2001. Since then, he has built a proven track record of BIM implementations at award-winning architectural practices, including several on The Architect’s Journal’s Top 20 list. At his most recent employer prior to Ideate Software, Steve was the Head of BIM for nearly five years.
Nivin has a background in architecture, visual arts, and computer science. Before joining Ideate Software in 2022, she worked at several architecture and design firms where she learned about Ideate Software products, used them, advocated for them, implemented them, and trained others on how to use them. She earned her Bachelor of Architectural Science degree from Toronto Metropolitan University.
Team with Us
If working with a company with a proven history is important to you, look into Ideate Software. Explore our range of Autodesk Revit addins and see how they can make your Revit projects faster, simpler, and more productive and efficient.
If you have any questions, reach out to us. We are here to help you understand and use our Revit plugin solutions.
Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software add-on products help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to the Revit plugin solutions Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.
At Ideate Software, we like to provide a wealth of support to our customers, either via our website, which has a ton of useful information, or within our products. For example, Ideate BIMLink ships with a great extent of preconfigured content; you get more than 350 predefined link definitions to help you get up and running as soon as possible.
All the content provided within Ideate BIMLink is displayed as shown below and can be manually imported as needed into the Revit project.
The Ideate BIMLink content is saved and loaded from this folder C:\ProgramData\Ideate\Ideate BIMLink\en-US\Samples
You might not be aware, but you can also load additional content for some of our other applications too, for example, Ideate ViewCreator, one of the tools in the IdeateApps collection.
Start from the settings cog and select Manage View Rules.
You can also import additional Room rules.
From here you can choose to import additional rules into your projects to help with your workflows.
You can also Export custon rules from this dialog, for wider use within your company.
This opens a folder where you can load the additional rules that ship with Ideate ViewCreator. The default folder shown below, called Basic Rules, contains the list of rules that automatically import into any new Revit project where Ideate ViewCreator has been previously used.
Lots of additional content is available.
If that wasn’t enough, there is also a Bonus Rules folder! My favorite bonus rule within Ideate ViewCreator is the one called “DUPLICATE - Phase New.” This rule can be used to copy existing views to make '-New' views. Newly created views have a hard-wired Phase and Phase Filter override.
Bonus time!
For more information see our Help file on this topic.
Additional content is also available for Ideate ReNumber, another tool within the IdeateApps collection. See more in our Help file.
Our European and UK customers might find the bonus rule called “Sheets - BS ISO 19650.rule” particularly valuable. This rule is designed to work with customer parameters within a title block as described in my earlier blog post, Renaming Sheets to ISO 19650.
Browse our website to learn more about how Ideate Software add-on products help Revit users save time, increase model accuracy, improve deliverables and elevate design. You can give them a try by downloading trial versions or purchasing the bundle for access to the Revit plugin solutions Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Sticky, Ideate StyleManager, and IdeateApps for six months.
About the Author
Steve Deadman - Customer Success Manager - EMEA
Steve provides support to customers and helps them get a strong return on their software investment. He has a B.Eng (Hons) degree in Mechanical Engineering and various certifications in engineering. Before joining Ideate Software, he worked at several top architectural firm in the United Kingdom where he specialized in the implementation and management of BIM processes and technology. Find Steve on LinkedIn.
Steve Deadman - Customer Success Manager - EMEA
Initially, designers, architects, and engineers created drawings and blueprints to express their visions and information about building plans. Then, computer aided design (CAD) brought the plans into a digital environment. Next, CAD evolved to 3D, enabling more realistic illustrations. The concept of BIM came around in the 1970s, and today it is the standard and increasingly becoming a mandated process to ensure that the planning, design, and construction of buildings are efficient.
As powerful as Autodesk software is, it does have limitations. And even though Revit is the leading BIM tool for architects, engineers, and construction teams in the world, users need more. Anyone who checks out the 
