R2025 sheet collections - what are your creative ideas to use that feature?

[HVAC-Novice]

I recently started to use R2025 and like it. I like to take advantage of the sheet-collection feature and wonder what you use  "collections" for and what new implementations you came up with? I read the help

I believe the intent by A-desk is to use different sheetsets (i.e. one for code review, one for zoning and so on). 

One initial idea is to replace my sheet discipline parameter that I used to sort sheets in non-alphabetical form (for project browser and export to PDF). I think the same can be done with collections? Below the image shows how it looks BEFORE using collections. 

I also use that parameter to create discipline-specific sheet schedules (i.e. have one schedule that shows only all Mechanical sheets and I place that on the Mechanical sheet). I think collections could replace that as well. 

Does anyone have more ideas to use this? Did you run into some limitations or pitfalls? 

[jfhalaby]

I too am curious if anyone has a good use case for this Sheet Collections "feature". We can already sort and group sheets using custom project parameters, as shown in your screenshot. So I don't really see a need for it.

The part of this "feature" that has me worried is that we can now have the same sheet number used on multiple sheets in a project. And worse - we can make view references (callouts, etc.) to sheets in different Collections. This smells like a disaster waiting to happen, so I am likely going to ban this feature on all my organization's projects.

[CADiva]

I don't know about "creative", but what I plan to use it for is having separate ConDoc & Permit drawing sets that reference dependent views that we can cloud & track separately for construction directive changes versus permit changes. The sets are effectively the same except one is part of the General Contractor's contract while the other is for the AHJ so there's slight word differences on the two sets ("Construction Documents" vs "Permit Set").

[HVAC-Novice]

Yes, having multiple sheets of the same number can be a problem. I think they copied how ACC works where you can have multiple of the same sheets (likely for different design stages). 

I have to see how the callouts work in practice. 

I think having the same sheet (not just the same sheet number, the literal same sheet) in multiple collections may have been better. so you can use the same sheet for construction vs. AHJ (or some not).

For my projects I usually had the JHA and bid set exactly the same. Only for Zoning/Urban Design Commission i had different sheets (and mostly different views). it was a hassle to have sheets for such different needs. I hope the collections can help me with that. 

I created my collections and sheet schedules. It is straight forward. 

For me the advantage (and motivation) is that in my starter project I had to have one sheet for each discipline to populate the  "SHEET DISCIPLINE " parameter for all disciplines. If I didn't' have those sheets, I would have to manually enter that for each trade. and in project where I only need one or a few disciplines, I ended up deleting the other sheet and/or had to change the titleblock size (if I needed Arch E instead of Arch D). 

It also is easy to drag and drop sheets instead of manually selecting the parameter. 

I will see how helpful this is in practice. 

[ToanDN]

I am doing similar to @HVAC-Novice .  I have a text parameter for sheets category to designate sheets for CD, Permit, CD + Permit.  For sheet index simply create a filter based on this parameter to have sheets in sets that required them. 

[vitale2]

My company is looking for ways to leverage the sheet collection feature to allow configuration management for our facilities which we operate and perform construction changes on.  We are like an embedded in-house design firm for an operating company which desires to maintain a record BIM model for each of our buildings that evolves as we perform various projects over the years.

Having the sheet collection feature would allow us to use a master model for each building and then use the sheet collections to document design changes on a project-by-project basis. 

We haven't yet solved how we want to perform revision control on a project-by-project basis.  Still playing around with it to see if it is feasible to have separate revision numbers/sequencing for each sheet collection.

[justin]

I saw somewhere else - so not my idea - this could be useful for multiple tenant improvement projects in a single building. That is how I plan to try it out.

[blank...]

Being able to have sheets with the same number was a long time ask by many. Only to now have people "banning" it.

And having it built in and sorting sheets right there in the project browser, even with simple drag and drop, is a hell of a lot better and user friendly than messing about with custom project parameters and project browser sorting. For once I'm taking Autodesks side.

[mhiserZFHXS]

I think the way @vitale2 and @justin are using it is probably the more intended use, i.e. multiple projects in the same structure rather than multiple phases of a single project. That's how I've used it so far at least. 

We had a school gym renovation where the roof replacement got pulled out of the main project, but the main project still had a roof plan and some roof details. Rather than duplicating the model, or messing around with sheet numbers to avoid having duplicates, I added a new sheet collection for the roofing project, and then changed our title block to read the sheet collection for the project name rather than the "Project Name" parameter. Worked perfectly. 

Do some of your keep your separate design phase drawings all preserved in your active Revit model? We keep PDFs of each phase, and for big projects, we'll save backup models at the end of each phase. But keeping every design phase in a single model seems like a lot. 

[TripleM-Dev.net]

But with identical sheetnrs?

Do you have additional values to make the sheet unique (some parameter on the titleblock) and of course the exports.

Only reason would be if we need identical sheet nrs but with additional fields to id's them (Some ISO naming where the sheet nr only part of the unique document code)

But until now it has never happend, and don't think it will any time soon (as we internally still see the SheetNr as a unique document id so no need for these collection)

- Michel

[TripleM-Dev.net]

"Do some of your keep your separate design phase drawings all preserved in your active Revit model?"

Depends on a number of factors, but mostly the permit sheets are retained if they need to be re-submitted for a permit due to changes (only then they woul be updated if needed)

And in the contruction phase the sheets will have different layout/scale etc. and have a different prefix in the sheetnr so no issue having them in the same document.

Only details get upgraded to the current phase, somethimes we mark the original details if they are needed for a permit so the new ones not needed can be filtered out.

We have several large projects with various internal renovations (different leases etc) so maybe in those identical nrs could occur, but the old ones get re-used as they are no longer needed. Those old ones actually become the existing documents etc.

- Michel

[HVAC-Novice]

I still use the collections as described in my OP and use collections to separate trades. One convenient thing I found out is, if you create a sheet by right-clicking on that collection, it creates the new sheet and that specific collection is assigned by default.

I don't have multiple sheet set needs in a project, so that boring use of "collections" is all I need. I used to have architectural projects that required literally completely different (from construction set) sheets for Urban Design Commission etc. inc. the requirement to use smaller sheets (11x17 vs. Arch D/E). If I come across that need again, I'm sure collections will help. but these days, I mostly just need an elevation for zoning or some other approval and use a regular construction sheet.