December

29

2023

2023 was an exciting year for us! We 1) once again achieved our goal of quickly aligning our solutions with the latest and three previous versions of Revit, 2) met with thousands of BIM enthusiasts in person and virtually, and 3) introduced dozens of new features and updates that deliver even more value to subscribers. Be sure you are taking advantage of all the hard work we completed in 2023 by visiting this page for the latest Ideate Software solutions!

Ideate Automation Takes the Spotlight!

We highlight details of our 2023 activities below, but we just have to start with the super-star of the year, Ideate Automation

Ideate AutomationOur latest updates created quite a buzz within the Revit community, even with people who don’t already have Ideate Software products. The partial reason for all the new excitement is because in October, we announced that without consuming any Autodesk Cloud Credits, Ideate Automation can now be used to schedule the opening of large Revit files at a convenient time, like overnight! And if that wasn’t enough, we also announced that Ideate Automation can be used to:

  • Export data from Revit into PDF, DWG, NWC, and IFC formats
  • Publish files to Autodesk BIM 360 as often as daily
  • Run the Revit “audit and compact” process
  • Save Revit models to a specified location
  • Schedule these tasks off-hours
  • …….and so much more!

Ideate Automation Workflow Chart

Ideate Software What's New Playlist

Many More Enhancements

Like every year, we added many customer-requested updates to our products when we aligned them with Revit in May, and we added even more later in the year. To make it easy for customers to learn about the updates, build them into their workflows, and share them with colleagues, we created a “What’s New in Ideate Software” playlist on our You Tube channel and posted several short videos.

There is also a What’s New Help topic under EACH Ideate Software solution. Here is just the latest example from IdeateApps that includes both May and November 2023 updates.  Be sure to read all about the latest features and enhancements within each unique Ideate Software solution by reviewing our latest HELP files.

Online Training & Presentations

Our webinars continue to be a favorite learning method for customers. This year we hit an all-time high of 1,500 registrants! We posted links to recordings under the Events tab in our blog posts. 

We continued our Training blog post and Support blog post series in 2023 with dozens of tips on getting the most out of Ideate Software solutions.

Our support team fielded hundreds of questions regarding everything from installation to new feature requests, and almost everything in-between.

Globetrotting

Our team discussed BIM challenges and Ideate Software solutions at many in-person events:

England
Women in BIM
NXT BLD
Revit Data Management Insights Group
Digital Construction Week

France
BIM World Paris

Germany
BIM World Munich

Ireland
BIM Coordinators Summit
Singapore
Build Tech Asia

Switzerland
BIM Day GVA

United States
Autodesk University
Lunch and Learn in San Francisco
Digital Built Week - Americas
San Francisco City Tour
San Francisco AIA Conference
2023 AIA San Francisco Design Awards     
NYC City Tour

 In Good Company 

We were honored that the following customers took time out of their busy schedules to share how our products help them achieve their goals. 

  1. Corstorphine & Wright
  2. Environmental Systems Design
  3. Evolve Consultancy – 1
  4. Evolve Consultancy - 2
  5. EwingCole
  6. Goettsch Partners
  7. HPP Architects
  8. Modmation
  9. Parkin Architects
  10. Stantec

Stronger Social Media Presence

We upped our social media game to get the attention of more customers and potential customers.

New videos on YouTube
Now on Instagram 
Fun and valuable prizes!  
Spotify Wrapped campaign

Thank you!

As we close out the year, we thank Ideate Software employees, customers, consultants, partners, and others who helped us achieve our 2023 goals. We look forward to 2024 being another year of collaboration, innovation, and success.

Stay current on all our activities in 2024 by following us on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

 

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December

19

2023

Our latest enhancements to Ideate Automation are creating quite a buzz throughout the AECO community! During this 30-minute webinar, we demonstrate how to use this desktop solution to create PDF, DWG, and NWC* exports from Revit files using Sheet list definitions from Ideate BIMLink by:

  1. Creating a custom sheet list with Ideate BIMLink
  2. Saving an Ideate BIMLink link definition outside of the Revit file for use by Ideate Automation
  3. Dynamically controlling sheet export lists for DWG, PDF, and NWC via Ideate Automation + Ideate BIMLink
  4. Scheduling the batch export of these file types with Ideate Automation to run off-hours to maximize computer efficiency

We also provide some highlights on how to further transform your Revit workflows by using Ideate Automation with other Ideate Software solutions.

*Ideate Automation can also export data from Revit to IFC files, but because the process doesn’t use Sheets, we don’t cover it in this webinar. To learn more about exporting data to IFC files, read this Help file.


 

Browse our website to learn more about our productivity-enhancing tools. 

 

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December

14

2023

For the last couple of years, Ideate Software has increased its efforts to serve and connect with the BIM community in Germany. The number of existing customers and interested parties at our booth and presentation at BIM World Munich showed that our efforts are paying off! We sincerely thank Markus Hiermer from Maxcad for his instrumental help throughout the process, including being at the booth to communicate the Ideate Software proposition clearly and effectively to the German-speaking audience.

Also representing Ideate Software at the event were our UK/EMEA Customer Success Manager Steve Deadman, and our UK/EMEA Territory Lead Nick Johns. They commented on the large number of people asking for more information on our products, the excitement surrounding Ideate Automation, and the numerous demonstrations delivered on how to use our products to address Revit and BIM challenges.

The team was also pleased with the turnout at Steve’s presentation called “Quality Control and Best Practices for Success Project Delivery,” with approximately 60 people in the audience and several booth visits to continue the discussion.

While BIM World Munich attendees were impressed with all our products, the one they asked about most often was Ideate Automation, which got a major overhaul earlier this year. Steve, Nick, and Marcus showed many people how to schedule Ideate Automation to run time-intensive BIM tasks, including:

  • Opening large Revit files
  • Running Revit “audit and compact” process to maintain file size
  • Exporting data from Revit into PDF, DWG, NCW, and IFC files
  • Publish files to Autodesk BIM 360 as often as daily

Browse our website for more information on our Revit addins and check out our Events page for more opportunities to connect with our team in person and virtually.

A Few Photos from the Event
 

 

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December

6

2023

“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. 

Ideate Software at AU 2023
 
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

    Ideate Software at Autodesk University 2023 - Swag
  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      

Ideate Software Booth at AU 2023
Ideate Software Booth at AU 2023 AU 2023 - Ideate Software
Ideate Software at AU 2023 - Photo Booth AU 2023 - Ideate Software

 

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December

4

2023

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: 

    Ideate Software - Revit Version 2024.2

 
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!

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