Schedule Erases Information when Copying or Duplicating Families

[rzimmerman85WE2]

My team creates schedules for Lighting Fixtures, Plumbing Fixtures, and Specialty Equipment families. We will generally go through once in the beginning to populate all the information (manufacturer, model, finish, etc.). Later in the design process, we will copy and paste families or duplicate families to create more types. When we do this, it will often delete an entire row of information (see attached snapshot). It's a pain for us to keep having to reenter the information and sometimes we don't catch that it's blanked out the row. Is there a way to avoid this constant re-inputting of text? Any help would be appreciated!

[barthbradley]

So, what you are saying, is that when you make a copy of an existing element in a View, the Identity Data values are removed from the copy?   

Post your file.  

[rzimmerman85WE2]

The existing family loses all of it's data. When duplicating, the two families share a Type Mark before changing the new family to something unique, so I'm wondering if that's part of the problem? 

[barthbradley]

Share the same TYPE MARK?  That'll throw a warning.  Go to Manage Tab=>Warnings. How many "Elements have Duplicate 'Type Mark' values" do you have?  

Anyways, Duplicating shouldn't affect the original Family Type you are duplicating.  But, the Duplicate's Identity Data will be empty of values for the most part.   If you want to carry over Identity Data automatically, then open the Family and enter the values for those Parameter Fields in the Formula Column.  For instance, enter "ABC" (with quotes) in the Formula field next to  "Manufacturer".  Now "ABC" (without the quotes) will be the value for all existing and new Family Types.  

[lucdoucet_msdl]

@rzimmerman85WE2 

The existing family loses all of it's data. When duplicating, the two families share a Type Mark before changing the new family to something unique, so I'm wondering if that's part of the problem? 

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If your schedule is ordered by Type Mark and the "detail each occurance" is unselected, I suspect Revit is filling blanks for parameters that have conflicting values in the two family types that share the same Type Mark.

If you select a single instance of one of the original family types, is the parameter data still there in the object properties window?

I also find it curious that you mention that the two types share a common Type Mark for a brief period. In my experience, Revit default behavior when duplicating a type is to reset the Type Mark to a null value to avoid the "share same Type Mark" alert and the problem described above. So it may be that your teams work flow may be interfering with the display of the schedule.

Could you describe the steps they take in detail when creating a new type from an existing type?

-luc

3 inital types + 3 duplicated types with non-conflicting Type Marks:

If I change TYPE L13 to the same Type Mark as L3, the information from the scedule is blanked out as well as the Type Name.

[rzimmerman85WE2]

Just did a test and if I copy the family (command "CO"), the information remains. If I do create similar "CS" of the family or pull it out from the Project Browser list, it blanks. When I duplicate the family, it does start with a blank Type Mark and does NOT blank out the old family's information. Simply copying doesn't work for most ceilings because they're at different heights so that's why I like to quickly do the "CS"

[syman2000]

I am curious to know if those parameters are type or instance parameter? Most often if you have the same family and you want to populate the same schedule, I would create schedule key. That way you can specify what those light and the information will be populated without disappearing. Right now you may encounter one object have filled in info and copied light without those info. When both of them are combined in the schedule, it will display as blank.