Top Automation Workflows

Ideate BIMLink workflows can be scripted and scheduled via the use of Ideate Automation. See below for the most common workflows.

  1. Dynamic PDF Exports
  2. Project Health Check Data Export
  3. Automatically Create Your Document Issue Record (DIR)
  4. Export Link (QTO Example)
  5. COBie Data Drops

NOTE: This solution is designed to support files that are stored on a network or on a BIM 360/ACC hub.

Example #1 — Dynamic PDF Exports

Revit sheet sets can be difficult to manage because they are not rule based. It’s easy to identify which sheets should be included in a PDF file when there are only 10 sheets to pick from, but in the real world this is hard to manage. With Ideate Automation + BIMLink you can create a dynamic list of sheets based on built-in or custom Revit and Ideate BIMLink properties, and then use that list to automatically generate combined or individual PDF files.

You can learn more here: Export to PDF

Example #2 — Project Health Check Data Export

In this example we use a built-in script called “ISW-Health_Check” to automatically create an Excel file with multiple tabs per each link definition that exists in the Health Check folder within Ideate BIMLink.

You can learn more here: Create a Model Health Check

Example #3 — Automatically Create Your Document Issue Record (DIR) 

We recommend that you begin your testing with this simple example. In this example we use a built-in script called “IBL-DIR” to automatically create a document issue record to show all the sheets and the related revisions across a project. Ideate BIMLink customers can request the macro-enabled version of this file by contacting [email protected].

Automatically update your Revit document issuance and sheet index revision lists

To automatically generate a matrix like the one shown above, review our short video.

You can learn more here: How To: Automate DIR

Example #4 — Export Link (QTO Example) — Video

In this example we will use a built-in script called “IBL-QTO” to automatically load then export data from a specified BIMLink definition. This sample references the QTO Link but can be changed. This workflow is designed to work well when a workbook with an existing Excel pivot table is already setup. You can use the sample Excel file provided as part of your Ideate Automation Sample content. By default this Excel file is located within the “C:\Program Files\Ideate\Ideate Automation\en-US\Samples\Ideate Software Scripts\04 Quantity Takeoff” folder.

Automatically create a quantity takeoff with Ideate Automation and BIMLink

Example #5 — COBie Data Drops — Video

The IBL-COBie script can be used to automatically export all of the specified COBie links to one Excel file. This Ideate BIMLink content is designed to work with the latest version of the BIM Interoperability Toolkit offered by Autodesk, meaning it references that version of the shared parameters.  Ideate BIMLink customers can request a sample RVT file to use with this script by contacting [email protected].

Automatically update your COBie data drops with Ideate Automation and BIMLink

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