Recently, I was fortunate enough to work with one of our customers on a challenge they were facing managing revision issuances for a large project with several revision issuances. While they were using our Document Issue Record (DIR) Excel template, which enables users to push out Revision Sequences and Revision on Sheet data to generate a comprehensive sheet list with each revision listed for each sheet, they ran into some troubles with how to include consultant sheets in the same DIR template, since the consultant sheets were not in their Revit models.

Limitations in Revit

While Revit allows users to create a sheet list and include linked element sheets as part of the sheet list, there are limitations that can arise, especially if one team is in charge with managing a master sheet index for an entire project. For example, if each team uses different sheet parameters or revision sequence names (can be problematic with the DIR), including linked elements in the master index may yield unwanted results. Since Revit does not allow changes to linked model data, the team in charge of the master sheet index may have to constantly ask their consultants to manage the information in their models in a very specific manner so that when the models are aggregated in a federated model, the information comes in correctly via the Sheet List.

Because of these situations, many architects request that their consultants send them a sheet list, so that they can manually generate the consultant sheets (typically as placeholder sheets) in their models, for the purpose of generating the master sheet index.

Expedite the Process with Ideate BIMLink

To expedite the creation of the placeholder sheets, we can use the Ideate BIMLink plugin for Revit. Depending on the situation, we have a couple of options to create the sheets:

1. If the consultant models are linked into the project that will maintain the master sheet index, such as a federated model, then we can use Ideate BIMLink to report on the linked model sheets and use that sheet data to generate the new sheets using Excel. See below for detailed steps on how to create placeholder sheets using linked Revit models and Ideate BIMLink.
    
2. If the consultant models are not linked into the project that will maintain the master sheet index, then we can use Ideate BIMLink to export the sheet parameter data we need (sheet name, number, appears in sheet list, etc.), and add the consultant sheet info to the exported Excel file and import the data back into the Revit model to create the placeholder sheets. For more information on this workflow, refer to this Help topic and this blog post.

Step-by-Step Instructions

The following steps outline how you can create consultant sheets from linked Revit models using Ideate BIMLink: 

1. In Ideate BIMLink, start with a pre-configured link called 02 Sheets-Create_New:
   
   
    
2. By default, this link is designed to filter out any existing sheets that exist in the project. Since we need to display the sheets from the linked Revit models, we will need to remove this filter: 
   
   
    
3. To reveal the sheets from the linked Revit models (the consultant sheets), check the “Include linked elements” option under the Properties tab. After doing so, you will see the primary sheets from the main model (highlighted in red), which has editable information, such as Sheet Number, Sheet Name, and Appears in Sheet List, and the sheets from the linked Revit models (highlighted in blue), which has non-editable information. The element ID numbers (highlighted in green) look different here, since we are displaying the element ID for the linked Revit models, followed by the element IDs of the sheets from the linked models: 
   
   
    
4. Before exporting this data to Excel, if you are interested in exporting only the linked model sheets (highlighted in blue), then return to the Filters tab and set the values to be Sheet Number is not editable. This will filter out all the sheets from the primary model and leave you with only the sheets from the linked models. If you will need to edit the sheet data from the primary model, while creating new sheets, then you can skip this step:
   
   
    
5. Once complete, export the information to Excel and open the Excel file to reveal the results: 
   
   
    
6. Since we are interested in creating placeholder sheets in the federated model by using the Sheet Name and Sheet Numbers from the consultant links, all we need to do is erase the element ID numbers (column A) and replace them with the word NEW. For the Title Blocks (column B), you have a few options:
    
   • Leave the values blank, which will generate placeholder sheets. This is a typical workflow.
      
   • Use the value: <None>, which will add the sheets to the Project Browser, without titleblocks. This is not a typical workflow, since views will not be placed on these sheets.
      
   • Assign a loaded titleblock (family:type format, as seen in above image), which will add the sheets to the Project Browser, with titleblocks. This is not a typical workflow for consultant sheets, but a very typical workflow for creating new sheets in a primary model in which views will be placed.

Because we are interested in creating placeholder sheets for the consultant sheets, we will clear the existing values in the Title Blocks column. Finally, since we want these sheets to appear in the sheet index, we will ensure that the Appears in Sheet List value is set to TRUE for each sheet:  

 

7. Once the data has been edited, save the Excel file and import the changes back into the Revit model using Ideate BIMLink:
   
   
    
8. Verify that the new placeholder sheets have been created by either using the new sheet function (blue arrow) or by going to a Sheet List schedule and selecting the Isolate function under the Filter Placeholder Sheet panel in the Revit ribbon: 
   
   

After your placeholder sheets are created, you can then modify any of the sheet information, such as Revisions on Sheets, and even use these placeholder sheets as part of your Document Issue Record (DIR).

More Training Tips

For additional training tips, check out our Training blog post series.

Send us an email with questions or visit our website to explore Ideate Software’s range of Revit tools and see how they can make your Revit projects faster, simpler and more accurate.

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Check us out on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

If you have any questions, reach out to us. We are here to help you understand and use our Revit plugin solutions. 

We recently showed how to find unused Legend or Schedule views using the Query function within Ideate Explorer in this blog post. 

Ideate Query finds where legends have been placed or not.

But how can you find which sheets the legend or schedule views are placed on? 

While Ideate Explorer and Query can identify the number of sheets with legends and schedules, it can’t identify the sheet names or numbers, as this is information is not yet accessible.

However, using Ideate SheetManager, one of the tools in the IdeateApps collection, you can easily find which sheets have legends or schedules placed on them by using the Search function.

You can also use the Search to find other view types.

Using Ideate SheetManager can help make preparing your drawings sets an easy and efficient process.

For additional training tips, check out our Training blog series.

Visit 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 plugins Ideate Explorer, Ideate BIMLink, 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.

We all know and love how we can duplicate a sheet AND swap the viewports using Ideate Clone, one of the tools in our IdeateApps collection. If you want to clone multiple sheets at the same time, is there another way to do it?

Within Ideate SheetManager, another IdeateApps tool, you have the ability to create sheets from unplaced views.

Three Steps

1. Select the view or views that you wish to create sheets from
   
   
   You can select multiple views from which to create sheets. 

2. Choose an existing sheet to act as a template for the newly created sheets. Click “Create” and let Ideate SheetManager do its magic!
   
   
   You can set the sheet number and naming from this dialog as well as specifying any additional views or annotations you want to add to the newly created sheets.

3. Rename and renumber the sheets from this dialog after they have been created 
   
   
   Use Find and Replace to speed the process

8 sheets have been created and all 8 views placed on those newly created sheets.

This video gives a more detailed step-by-step look at the process.

Using Ideate Ideate SheetManager you can create new sheets from existing views quickly and easily. Creating sets of drawings in Revit has never been so easy.

Refer to the How To Setup Projects help topic for additional information and a short video of the process. 

For additional training tips, check out our Training blog series.

Visit 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 Revit plugin solutions Ideate Explorer, Ideate BIMLink, 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.

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More about Tools in the IdeateApps Collection

Ideate SheetManager, featured in the blog post above, is just one of the tools in our IdeateApps collection of tools we developed to streamline the tasks performed by Revit users most often. You can get high-level descriptions of each tool on our website. Here are links to a few blog posts that provide details. Find more at the IdeateApps sections of our blog posts. Here are links to some of the many posts about IdeateApps tools:

• Renaming Sheets to ISO 19650 Using Ideate ReNumber – Did you know you can use Ideate ReNumber to sheets to the BS EN ISO 19650 standard? It’s easy with the rule created and saved in the bonus rules that ship with IdeateApps that targets the Sheet Number parameter that contains 5 of the 7 information container field descriptions described in the ISO: Functional Breakdown – ZZ, Spatial Breakdown – XX, Form – D, Discipline – A, and Number – 000000. The rule can be edited to suit any company standard or variation of the ISO 19650 standard. For more, check out the online Help topic.
   
• Duplicate Floor Plans to Ceiling Plans with Ideate ViewCreator – Included in the May 2021 release of the IdeateApps plug-in for Revit is the ability to use Ideate ViewCreator to duplicate floor plans to ceiling plans. This blog post lists the step-by-step instructions on how to use the “Duplicate” rule in Ideate ViewCreator to easily create new ceiling plans that will match the crop/scope box conditions and the 2D grid conditions in the floor plan, and that will be automatically given logical view names. Go to Ideate ViewCreator online Help for more on managing batch creation workflows.
   
• Why is a Revit Element Hidden in a View? Categories, phases, disciplines or worksets can impact a Revit element’s visibility within a selected view. So can scope boxes, crop regions, view filters, design options, level and grid extents, and view ranges. The list goes on and on … there are at least 50 different ways to hide an element in Revit, and they can be very difficult to diagnose. Ideate XRay is the answer! Ideate XRay allows you to use a powerful selection wizard to easily find the Revit element within the view. The blog post provides some high-level information and directs readers to a short how-to video, Help topic, FAQs, and a recording of a 30-minute webinar for more information.
   
• Duplicate a Revit Sheet with Ideate Clone – A search of the Autodesk Revit Ideas Forum will reveal a top, longstanding request for the ability to duplicate or copy a Revit sheet. As Ideate Software develops tools to fill gaps in Revit functionality, we launched Ideate Clone as part of the IdeateApps add-in for Revit collection in 2017, not long after the initial Revit ideas request. With Ideate Clone, you can copy a sheet with viewports, and the new sheet will match all title block properties and sheet properties. You’ll also be able to place unplaced views on the new sheet that align with the previous viewports. In addition to reading the blog post, you can review an overview video on Ideate Clone, check out the Help topic, read the FAQs, and watch a recording of a webinar. 

Ideate Software

Ideate Software is committed to helping customers get a strong return on their investment in our Revit plug-in tools. In addition to blog posts, we have short how-to videos, Help files, and more available 24/7 on our website. Our Support Team is also here to help. 

Stay connected through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

Recently I was approached by a couple of customers looking to solve similar challenges managing Room data:

• One customer’s goal was to copy Room data from hundreds of rooms in one phase to rooms in the same location in another phase. The customer was unable to copy and paste the rooms to the next phase because the rooms for the next phase already existed, and the primary concern with deleting the new rooms and replacing them with the copy/pasted rooms was orphaning hundreds of room tags in consultant models that already referenced the new rooms. 
   
• The other customer’s goal was to copy Room data from a linked architectural model into the rooms of an interiors model, since the Architectural model contained a lot of room data, and the Interiors consultant needed to match the architectural room data in their rooms so they could add additional room finish info to the rooms in their models. 

Managing these two similar situations requires some heavy lifting, and Ideate BIMLink was able to resolve these challenges easily. 

Copying Room Data to Other Places and Models with Ideate BIMLink – An Example

In the example shown below, we have Existing phase rooms (left image) that contain data that needs to be correlated with the New phase rooms (right image). Copying and pasting rooms between phases was no longer a viable option because of the situations mentioned earlier (click image to enlarge).

Rather than starting over and orphaning room tags, we can use Ideate BIMLink to list all the Existing and New phase room data, and then sort the room data by level, then by the rooms bounding box coordinates. This will help us identify rooms in the same location, even if they are in different phases. We can use the same process for linked models as well, so we can copy room data from a linked model into the active model. 

Since the room names, number, room centroid coordinates, and other (or linked models), we cannot rely on this data to match the information between the rooms, as shown here (click image to enlarge):

In Ideate BIMLink, we can create a link definition for rooms, and map parameters (1) such as the rooms level elevation, name, number, phase, coordinates, and any other data that we want to list, and copy over the relevant information to another phase or Revit model. We then sort the data (2) by the level elevation and then the X,Y coordinates for both the lower left and upper right corner of the rooms bounding box. Additionally, we can control which rooms phases we want to display (3) by selecting All phases – something that Revit cannot do through a schedule. Once we add the necessary room data, sort it, and filter it, we can see that the rooms listed are showing more than one phase (4) and are sorted by level elevation and X,Y bounding box coordinates (5) (click image to enlarge). 

 
Looking at the coordinate data, we can see matches, which tells us that the rooms are in the same location in the model, even though the rooms exist in different phases and have different centroid coordinates. If we were to apply this workflow to linked models to capture linked room data so that we could copy that data to rooms in the host model, we would need to select Include linked elements (6) so that we can list the room data from the linked elements.

Now that the data has been properly sorted out, we can export this data to Excel, then copy the necessary room data from the existing phase rooms to the new phase rooms, and then import the changes back into the Revit model using Ideate BIMLink. If we review the updated data in Ideate BIMLink, we can now see that the room data between the Existing and New phase rooms is in alignment (click image to enlarge):

Using Ideate BIMLink to copy room data from one phase to another, or from one model to another, has never been so easy and powerful. Having the ability to confirm rooms that are in the same relative location by using the level elevation and X,Y coordinates for the room bounding box is key, as relying on the room centroid coordinates is unreliable since most users manually place rooms. 

Quick Tip – When a Manual Review May Be Needed

One thing to keep in mind is that if you run into some rooms that do not have the same X,Y bounding box coordinates between different phases or models, or you find a difference in room counts between phases or models, it could be an indication that additional rooms were added or removed between phases, or room bounding elements, such as walls or room boundary lines, were added or removed between phases. In these situations, a manual review of these select room elements may be necessary.

More Training Tips

For additional training tips, check out our Training blog post series.

About the Author

Sash Kazeminejad - AIA, LEED AP - Customer Success Manager
Sash earned his Master of Architecture from Montana State University and is a California registered architect, LEED Accredited Professional. He has extensive experience in project management; BIM management; design for architectural firms in California, Montana, and Oregon; and leading classroom and online BIM training. He provides consulting, sales, support, and training solutions to AECO customers around the globe. Find Sash on LinkedIn.

In a previous Training series blog post, I showed you how easy it is to create new plan views using Ideate BIMLink. 
In this post, I will show you how to place viewports onto a sheet using Ideate BIMLink. 

Using one of the 300+ pre-loaded link definitions, select the 03 Viewports-Create_New. 

Ideate BIMLink ships with MANY pre-loaded link definitions that help you create new Revit elements easily.  

The link definition contains data such as the view name, sheet number, coordinate point and viewport title data.

The important information here is the coordinate and viewport title data, as this will allow you to place the viewports and view titles on the sheets accurately.

In Microsoft Excel, fill out the information of the viewports you wish to create (e.g., the view name and sheet number you wish the view to be placed on). You can use the coordinate data to place the viewport and the viewport title. If you are creating views similar to existing ones, you can copy the existing coordinate data.

Remember to add the ‘NEW’ in the element ID column.

When importing back into Revit, the viewports are created, and the views are placed onto the sheets.

 
Using Ideate BIMLink, you can quickly bulk create views, viewports and sheets and place the views onto the sheets. Creating sets of drawings in Revit has never been so easy. Refer to the Set Up Projects Help topic for additional information and a short video on this process. 

For additional training tips, check out our Training blog series.

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.