Owner imposes shared parameters for project

[pipapongo0909]

Hi Forum,

Quick question:

Is is common practice that an owner imposes his shared parameters (SP) for a project ( closed-Big-BIM).

Actually they even impose the category to which to attach the SP as project parameter and if it is  type or instance.

Personally i think this is a bit to restrictive since this way we are not able to maintain our office standard.

We do pretty much ever Information instance based so it would be easy to setup their SPs as well and copy ( Dynamo / API) the values to them from our default ones.

It takes quite some time to set things up and to train the team so i was not planning on changing this for every new project. Where would be the benefit of Revit / BIM.

What is your  experience?

thanks in advance,

Jeff

[GlynnisVP]

Hi Jeff,

Not sure how common this is, yet, but for owners who want to reap the benefits of BIM it's certainly smart to establish standards that are meaningful downstream to them. I'd require this, if I was an owner managing tons of building/assets, particularly if I expected to use the building model (Revit) itself, for future improvements. Even if I only wanted to the data, and not the Revit model, think about how valuable it would be to be able to query all the models and return the value for "MyCustomBarCode" from each project instead of asking for "serial number" or "serialNumber" or "SerialNumber", etc.

The customer is always right, right?  

It will be good to hear others chime in on this good topic.

Cheers,

Glynnis Patterson

www.ideatesoftware.com

[Anonymous]

Yes...this can be mandatory for many projects.  I worked for a company that did just that, and the reason is we had lots of schedules and view templates created in our template that would grab the information from our models as well as our consultant models during the design and CD process.  It was also used for our exports to Navisworks.

But we just had our parameters added to the project, we didn't require it to be just that file period...that would be insane as everyone has different ideas on how parameters should be named and families are dependent on those.

[ToanDN]

If you look at it from the owners' standpoint you will see that it makes sense.  They work with multiple consultants and they need to standardize the models from those sources for facility management.  I actually prefer they do it.

[pipapongo0909]

Hi @ToanDN, @Anonymous, @GlynnisVP,

thanks a lot for your answers.

I totally understand it from the Owners point of view and for them it totally makes sense.

The thing is that I am on the other side trying to establish a standard, teaching it and developing work-flows and tools to ensure the quality. This is a crucial thing to have on the radar while doing so.

My strategy so far was to encode pretty much everything* the properties instance based on the elements with Shared parameters loaded as project parameters. The SP have an "SP" suffix that shall tell the users this values can go everywhere.

I chose this way because i think the Type catalogs will explode if i setup too many properties in the type which makes it harder for new users and developing of all the content takes way longer. -  not to mention to check if the values of type properties fit the name of the type

e.g.

ConcrFloor_C2024_20cm_Ext_FireRating90_Uniclass_LoadBearing:True_ConstrurtionMethod:InSitu.......

Every parameter in include into the Type needs to be part of the name and acts as a multiplier for all the possible types. So this can easily go up to hundrets even thousands. This is impossible for new users to efficiently deal with.

My strategy to fit this demand:

• Keep the "I" on instance parameters as far as possible
• establish, document and teach the company standard
• create tools for automatically quality check
• Write a program that converts the project to the demanded one.
  I guess it is not so hard to create a tool that creates all the demanded family types and sets the correct one for each instance based on its instance properties.

This way we keep the users efficient and do not need to change the rules of the game on every project.

What do you think?

* except for material since this has an influence on the graphical display on the sheets, and late i guess for big LOD steps also

[RobDraw]

Would you deny the request because it's too difficult, if it meant not getting the project?

Is there a real demand for this type of request? Being able to be flexible can be a valuable asset.

Is there a premium on the project for implementing this request? If other companies are staying away from this type of thing, you could become the go to place for this.

[Alfredo_Medina]

@pipapongo0909

Your question was about incorporating some shared parameters from your client in this project that you are doing for them, and whether or not that was a common practice, etc. But then you switch to a different topic about long names of types and type catalogs. What is the relationship between the original question and this other topics?

[loboarch]

Just sounds like an owner having a view point on BIM/CAD/Drafting standards. I think this has been around since there were owners and Architects.

I used to do a bunch of work for McDonalds. They had all of their own set of standards we had to follow, naming conventions for blocks, dim styles, layer names, text styles etc.... All of that different from our typical "office standards" and different from the standards that we had for another client we did a lot of work for.  You just knew what project you were on and adapted. was there additional "training" involved, yes. did it cause duplication of content in libraries, yes. It was not that big of a deal really.

[RobDraw]

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@Alfredo_Medinawrote:

@pipapongo0909

Your question was about incorporating some shared parameters from your client in this project that you are doing for them, and whether or not that was a common practice, etc. But then you switch to a different topic about long names of types and type catalogs. What is the relationship between the original question and this other topics?

---

Actually, if I read the entire thread correctly (it is a bit hard to understand), it's about following owner's mandated SP standards which trickle down to family types, as opposed to adhering to internal standards.

[Corsten.Au]

Hi

Try this for few families..

1. First family, your own standards, instance or type.. Ex : Parameter Instance A

2. load this into another family ( with Shared parameter incorporated ) and map your

Parameter to those shared parameters..

cheers!

[pipapongo0909]

HI @Alfredo_Medina,

Thank you for your answer.

You are right, i switched from the original question to a related subject.

My original question :"if it could happen that the client imposes the Revit setup in detail for a given project" has been answered with a YES.

So my follow up question was "how to accomplish this without having to retrain our people". For this i presented my strategy, and i think this is only possible if either:

• you have a very hightly trained team that know Revit in detail
  or
• your create your own tools that can convert a project from your office standard to the standard the client is asking for.

To illustrate this i used the example of the Instance vs. Type Parameters

Am i wrong about this?

have a nice day,

Jeff

[pipapongo0909]

Hi, @RobDraw,

---

@RobDraw wrote:

Would you deny the request because it's too difficult, if it meant not getting the project?

---

Gladly i am not in that kind of position but if the Setup is too complicated for the current know how: definitely YES.

I do believe that quality always goes over quantity and that sometimes it is better do decline a job than to struggle with it and put your team in a lot of stress. Don't get mer wrong, I really appreciate a challenge but it needs to be reachable.

---

@RobDraw wrote:

Is there a real demand for this type of request? Being able to be flexible can be a valuable asset.

---

This was my actual question which has been replies with a YES. I totally agree that being flexible is a valuable asset.

thanks again,

have a nice day,

Jeff

---

[RobDraw]

---

@pipapongo0909wrote:

---

@RobDrawwrote:

Is there a real demand for this type of request? Being able to be flexible can be a valuable asset.

---

This was my actual question which has been replies with a YES. I totally agree that being flexible is a valuable asset.

thanks again,

have a nice day,

Jeff 

---

I was actually trying to ask if the market in your area has a demand for it. Yeah, sure, it happens all the time but around here, I have not seen this type of requirement.

[pipapongo0909]

Hi @RobDraw,

Sorry i did not get your question. Yes there is. We shortly had a demand for an As-Built Model where the owner imposes the SP, and if it is type or not.

That's why I asked in the first place.

Thanks to this thread i now know i need to adapt our long time planning.

have a nice day,

Jeff

[Alfredo_Medina · Accepted solution]

Yes, it is common that the client sets standards, usually when the client is an enterprise that commissions projects often. Sometimes they provide the Revit template as well. 

Usually their standards don't go as far as indicating names of properties as you say. Usually just naming conventions for views, sheets, worksets...

To implement the standards, you can request for a template from the owner. If they don't have it, then you create a template with those elements, and use it to start the models for the project of this client.