Every day, our Ideate Software Support team fields all types of questions from AECO professionals all around the world. You can review some of these recent question and answers via our Ideate Software support series blog category.

It seems like we’ve received a fair number of support cases recently around this strange warning message concerning Ideate Sticky. So, I wanted to explain it in detail and offer a quick fix.

Unexpected future version?  What’s going on here?

Ideate Sticky customers might see this message when someone on the project team has upgraded to the latest version of Ideate Sticky and the rest of the team has not. When that specific person updated the stickies in the project with their latest Ideate Sticky version, this upgraded the settings format, causing the warning to show up for everyone on an older release. When the person with the latest release of Ideate Sticky opens another project and updates the stickies, the warning will start to show up there as well.

The solution is to update everyone to the latest release.

The reason this change was made in the latest release is the display scaling calculation. You can read more about that specific setting in this blog article.

The EASIEST and fastest way to update the whole office to the latest release of Ideate Sticky or the entire software bundle is to use our Ideate Software Installer. I mentioned it recently within this blog post ensuring you have the latest release of IdeateApps.

 
 
The Ideate Software Installer is the best way to update all your Ideate Software tools in a snap!

Now that you know about the Ideate Software installer, I hope the road ahead is smooth sailing! Wait, “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

Keep those amazing questions coming to [email protected]. We are always happy to assist our customers with their Ideate Software solutions.

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About the Author

Richard W. Taylor, Associate AIA – Technical Evangelist 

Richard has more than 30 years of experience working for companies that develop architectural and engineering software solutions, such as Intergraph, Bentley, and Autodesk. He has over 20 years of Revit experience, and he was part of the original development of Revit while at Revit Technology Corporation. He worked for 12 years at Autodesk, where he presented, taught, and worked to improve features in Revit. Richard holds both a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies and Master of Architecture from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. As Technical Evangelist, Richard works with AECO clients worldwide, developing and consulting on BIM solutions. Find Richard on Twitter and LinkedIn.

In 2022, we once again achieved our goal of quickly aligning our Ideate Software solutions with the latest version of Revit (and 3 previous releases) while introducing new products and features that respond to requests from Revit users:

• Perform time-intensive tasks in the background with Ideate Automation 2.0
• Review 2D annotations and clashes with Ideate Annotate, a new tool within IdeateApps
• Find Revit elements by their respective tag values with Ideate Explorer
• Maintain model health more easily with Ideate BIMLink, Ideate Explorer, Ideate Annotate, and Ideate Automation using our Revit Model Health Check
• Review Revit Parameter information with Ideate StyleManager and Ideate BIMLink
• Publish PDF information with ease using Ideate Automation

In-Person Gatherings Back in the Mix!

For much of our team, the most memorable thing about 2022 was the return of in-person gatherings. After two long years of online-only appointments, meetings, conferences, etc., restrictions lifted and we went to town, literally! 

• England - December Revit Data Management Insights Group – London
• Australia - BILT Australia – Gold Coast
• Germany - BIM World - Munich
• England - London Build Expo
• United States - Autodesk University
• Scotland - Women in BIM 
• Ireland - BIM Coordinators Summit – Dublin
• United States - BILT North America
• England - May Revit Data Management Insights Group - London
• France - BIM World – Paris
• England – Ideate Software Beta Group Lunch & Learn
• Canada – Toronto City Tour Seminar

Customers Remain Our Priority 

Ideate Software invests heavily in ensuring our customers are aware of all the ways our Revit add-ins simplify data management. Here are just a few examples:

Online Training & Presentations

Virtual trainings continue to be a favorite learning method for customers; they appreciate the live meetings to ask questions and the easy access to recordings, which they can refer to often and recommend to colleagues:

• 3 Key Ingredients of a Productive BIM Strategy
• Productivity Enhancing Updates to IdeateApps
• Getting Started with Ideate Automation
• Advanced Revit Model Health
• Wishlist Granted – Top User Requests and Implemented Features
• Online User Group Meeting on Parameters
• Q&A Session with Ideate Software
• Automate Sheet and View Management

Online Events

Online events such as seminars, podcasts, and webinars continued to be popular and a great way for Ideate Software to engage with the greater AECO industry.

• BIMxt November Meeting
• The Architect’s Newspaper webinar for July featuring Managing Revit Sheets and Views 
• The Architect’s Newspaper for March featuring Revit Data Management
• BIMThoughts Podcast featuring our ViewCreator Room View Method
• BIMThoughts Podcast on BIM in the UK

Ideate Software in the Press

•    Ideate Annotate and Other IdeateApps Updates for Revit 2023 by AECBytes

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

Based on positive comments received in 2021, we continued our Training and Support blog post series, which provide detailed answers to frequent customer questions. 

Here are just a few from 2022. Visit Training Series and Support Series for more. 

Training Series	Support Series
Create Sheets from Views	Find Revit Elements Assigned to Design Options
Place Viewports on Sheets	Sort Revit Warnings by Level
Move Elements to Another Level	Find Overridden Dimensions

Online Demos of Top 10 Ways to Use Ideate Explorer to Audit Revit Models

To make it easier for customers to get right to the model auditing content they want, we split up the information from our popular webinar, Top 10 Auditing Tips, into 10 very short video demonstrations and posted them on our YouTube channel. Now customers can bookmark the page with all 10 videos and quickly view the ones they need when they need them.  

An Outstanding Customer Experience Delivered by an Oustanding Team

The leadership at Ideate Software knows that our success is based on our tremendous employees who take great pride in delivering value to customers, coworkers, the company, and the AECO industry overall.

To thank our employees for their hard work and commitment, the leadership team was pleased to host an employee retreat in Hawaii this year. Team members and family members reconnected after long absences or met in person for the first time and spent some quality time getting to know each other. This team-building event recognized the contributions of the team and energized everyone for continued opportunities to develop and support innovative software for Revit users around the world.

Thank you!

As we close out the year, we send sincere thanks to Ideate Software employees, customers, consultants, partners, and others who helped us achieve our 2022 goals. We look forward to 2023 being another year of collaboration, innovation, and success.

Stay current on all our activities in 2023 by following us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.
 

  

 

Our end-of-the-year Revit Data Management Insights Group meeting brought Ideate Software staff and users together in a festive atmosphere. A “thank you” event for clients, this meeting was held at the prestigious Chelsea Football Club in London, UK, where we were joined by architects, BIM directors, and technical leads from in and around the city. The Ideate Software team was overwhelmed by the positive feedback received after the event. 

Highlights include:

• Presentations about Revit data management challenges and solutions involving Ideate Software tools by two customers:
   
  • Neil Carter, Head of Digital Technology at Corstorphine & Wright
     
  • Nigel Davies, BIM Expert and Director at Evolve Consultancy
     
• Steve Deadman, our Customer Success Manager for the UK/EMEA, presented Ideate Automation, a solution that received a considerable amount of effort from the Ideate Software Development team this year and will continue to do so. His talk included examples of tasks that can be automated by this scripting solution and the tremendous time savings that come as a result. He also explained how you can visualize the exported Excel data from Revit, using Power BI. 
   
• A tour of the Chelsea Football Club stadium (Enjoy a few pictures from the stadium below.)

It was a delight to connect with our customers in London face-to-face once again. This opportunity allowed us to gather some more valuable insights about our tools that we will use to further develop them next year. We left feeling inspired by our users and the energy and ideas they bring to the table.

 
 
 

  

 

Revit users and BIM managers need to understand Revit project health. Often the project data metrics (warnings, in-place families, annotation, model groups, and views not on a sheet) are time consuming to collect and quantify. Unaddressed issues pile up over time and can take a long time to track and correct.

Ideate Software, with the use of Ideate Automation and Microsoft Power BI, created an automation script and Power BI template to address Revit model health issues.

For BIM managers looking to visualize curated details of their Revit model health, such as the project data metrics, and wanting to visualize these metrics in Microsoft Power BI, Ideate Software developed a Power BI template.

 
With this Power BI template, BIM users can understand the following Revit model issues:

• Project Information including total Revit warnings and warnings per file size
• Revit Warnings over Time
• Top 5 Warnings as defined and managed by Ideate Explorer
• Model Groups
• Views Not on Sheet
• Average Annotation Issues per Sheet as defined and managed by IdeateApps>Annotate
• CAD Imports (with Details)
• In-Place Families (with Details)

For more details, and step-by-step instructions visit the Help file.

Current Ideate Automation subscribers can request the Power BI template files by contacting [email protected].

Browse our website for more information on our Revit productivity tools. Give them a try with a free trial version or subscribe today. 
 

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About the Author

David Haynes, Director, Ideate Software
David is a project management certified professional. Before joining Ideate, David had his own architectural practice and was president of a commercial design-build construction company for 15 years. A graduate of the University of Arizona, he has worked as an architect, contractor, and developer, and he was a national construction manager for a national retailer. David's current passion at Ideate Software revolves around how data influences AECO business decisions. 

People from Ideate Software are once again packing suitcases, visiting customers, attending conferences, and enjoying discussions focusing on the value of our Revit add-in solutions!

Craig Dodge and Richard Taylor recently had the opportunity to travel all the way to Australia to attend the BILT ANZ conference located on the beautiful Australian Gold Coast.

Richard Taylor and Craig Dodge at the BILT ANZ Conference on the Australian Gold Coast in November, 2022

Craig and Richard attended many excellent presentations and spoke with so many people from AECO firms about the value of implementing Ideate Software solutions for Revit. In addition, Richard conducted a lab session called Demystifying Datums and Scope Boxes within Revit on the Saturday of the conference.

The keynote speaker, Jeff Schwisow, focused on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the workplace, and it was the perfect tone to kick off the conference. His discussion aligns with an important core value of Ideate Software, and it was very much appreciated as a keynote conference topic.

Ideate Explorer Included in Customer’s Presentation on Critical Revit Add-ins 

Monica Greco of Jazmax in New Zealand gave a presentation on the most critical Revit add-ins they use on a daily basis.

Ideate Explorer was prominently featured on several slides as a “must have” application for Jasmax.

Reconnecting In Person

This trip provided a great opportunity to visit some excellent Ideate Software customers in Brisbane, Australia. 

This is a picture of Richard Taylor from Ideate Software and Holger de Groot of Modmation. Modmation is a consultant within the Australian and New Zealand geography that has collaborated with Ideate Software many times, including:

• Presentation at BIM Coordinators Summit in Dublin
• What’s the Current State of BIM?
• Ideate Software User Group

It was a LONG way to travel from both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the USA, but it was certainly worth it to engage with our amazing and innovative customers within the Australian and New Zealand regions. The trip occurred during the US Thanksgiving Holiday, and we are certainly thankful for excellent customers and powerful software that can impact design, documentation, and construction all around the world.  

Stay tuned for more events around the world in 2023!