So you’re an electrical contractor that has made the switch
to Revit. You’re excited about the simplified one-model approach, you’re
looking forward to utilizing the schedules for material takeoffs and
forecasting, and you’re looking forward to seeing how this new tool will
improve your workflows. Revit is a more robust platform with greater
capabilities that those offered by AutoCAD, but as an electrical contractor, it
won’t take long to realize that there are some holes in the software that can
make getting useful information from the model difficult.
One of the biggest holes in the application is the way that
conduits handle data. Because they are a system family (one that can’t be
directly edited by the user in a family editor), it becomes necessary to tie
project parameters to them if you want to attach more information than the out
of the box parameters. Common parameters would be wire information, from-to,
voltage, or design status. Because each user populates their own parameters, it
becomes difficult to provide an out of the box solution because each project
has different parameters loaded into it.
Once you have your parameters set up in your conduits and
fittings, you populate the information you’d like to see, and then go check
your Conduit Run Schedule… and it is blank. Not completely blank, there are
length values that prove it is getting some information, but all of your custom
parameters are not populating. The most import part about material forecasting
and prefabrication with conduits is the length parameter, and the schedule that
can provide that information is not populating. This is a known issue and has a
number of work around that will be explained in later posts. One common
workflow is using the “Comments” parameter, which when populated across all the
parts and pieces of a conduit run will report back on the conduit run schedule.
Which leads us to the next issue.
As soon as you adjust a conduit fitting, or add content to
the conduit run, you’re going to lose the information from your comments
parameter, and you’ll no longer see it on the conduit run schedule. Revit
assumes that updated content will need new instance parameters and wipes out
old data which will occur consistently during the coordination process. So this
means with every adjustment and addition you make, you’ll need to re-type the
parameter information you’re hoping to see or risk gaps in your material
reporting.
The GTP Electrical Add-in solves the problem of data loss
during coordination and improves project workflows. With a continuously growing
list of features, we are seeking to solve the problems our clients face in a
simple and flexible manner that still leaves room to innovate.
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