Can Sheet Set Manager be used without creating multiple DWG files?

[Retirement_Bound]

I am a very small Electrical Engineering firm and basically every drawing set up is the same.  We have a working drawing that has 2 XREF files: 1) is the Architects background drawing and 2) the Titleblock drawing.  Then we create a paper space tab for each sheet and each sheet is where the titleblock is referenced so we can update the sheet number and stuff. 

I finally watched several videos of using the Sheet Set Manager and it seems like it would be real nice to update my title block info and sort the sheets using the SS Manager.  However, it looks like it creates separate drawings for each sheet and then XREF in the background?  WE just are not set up to create and manage multiple drawings and too stuck in the old way of doing things.  So my question is before I keep trying to find a way.  Can I use Sheet Manager just to organize my layouts and title block info using just my one file and not creating additional dwg files?

[Retirement_Bound]

In order to create a block attribute with the default to a custom sheet property as you are showing I have to first go into the sheets manager and create a custom sheet field, right?

[john.vellek · Accepted solution]

Hi @Retirement_Bound,

Yes, that would be the easiest way to do it. You can create the attributes first as placeholders and then change them after the custom properties are created but that is more work in my opinion.

[Retirement_Bound]

I am now ready to update my standard template files. I always XREF my title block sheet into each sheet. I don’t have any problem updating each sheet with the correct info. But when I imported my title block sheet and then tried to update info with custom data or project number nothing is updated. There aren’t any custom data fields available. It is like note of the sheetset info can be used.  Can you help me figure out why? Also is there any way to edit custom data fields in the sheet set? I have a zip file attached

[Retirement_Bound]

I am now ready to update my standard template files. I always XREF my title block sheet into each sheet. I don’t have any problem updating each sheet with the correct info. But when I imported my title block sheet and then tried to update info with custom data or project number nothing is updated. There aren’t any custom data fields available. It is like note of the sheetset info can be used.  Can you help me figure out why? Also is there any way to edit custom data fields in the sheet set? I have a zip file attached

[john.vellek]

Hi @Retirement_Bound,

It looks like you have some of your fields in your titleblock rather than in the Sheet_Info Block. If all your fields are in that block and inserted into each sheet then they should work fine.

If you look at your Sheetset and rt-click on the Title (Top level) you can select Properties. This is where you can edit all your custom properties.

Does this help?

[Retirement_Bound]

So because the block is in the XREF model space the data doesn't come in
even though it is actually sheetset data and not a sheets data? I took that
block in the model space and pasted in the same files layout tab and all the
data showed correctly.