Historic Revision Schedule

[Anonymous]

Recently while working on a project with various consultants in Revit I came up with what I thought was a pretty intuitive method for creating/managing a sheet index that "automatically" (with minimal input) upodated over the course of a project.  It worked really well, but as I sit back and watch the project shift from CD release to Addendum to Bulletin I find myself wondering why the underlying systems I used to drive this method weren't already interrelated within Revit to begin with.  After all, when does an architecture firm formally release full drawings without a sheet index or without an associated revision?

Now that I’ve established the premise I’ll describe the process I created.  It’s going to sound convoluted and complicated but that’s only because it’s not built in to the software to begin with.  It functions very efficiently after its setup.  The end result is a sheet index that includes sheets from linked sheets from every discipline’s model that populate the index automatically and correctly display the drawing release (the revision) each sheet is associated with by displaying a bullet in a particular revisions column.  Some sheets were there from the very beginning, some sheets came in later in the production process.  Image 1 below shows a clip of the end result of this system; a highly commonarrangement of the index of drawings that Revit is incapable of creating without the setup described below.

• Each bullet is essentially driven by two parameters; a YES/NO project parameter named for a revision and associated with “SHEETS” and a formulated parameter that actually creates the bullet.  For example, for a revision called “BID/PERMIT” I’ve got a YES/NO parameter called “Submittal – Permit” and a formulated parameter called “Permit Set Date” named to be generic and to provide a prompt to the user to rename it with the actual release date.  In this case “Permit Set Date” gets renamed to “08/24/2014 - BID/PERMIT” to show correctly on the cover sheet. 

• When a sheet is deemed to be in a “revision” (in the Revit sense) release the checkbox is checked in that sheet’s properties.  Each sheet to be shown on the index is also told to “Appear in sheet list” which is also a Y/N built in to each sheet in Revit, although I actually created an additional Y/N parameter to drive this called, “Appears in Schedule”.  The sheet index is then filtered by “Appears in Schedule” equals “Yes.”

• Now, of course each release also has to appear on the titleblock of each sheet.  This is where the actual revisions come in to play.  Each release gets a formal Revit revision that is then added to the sheet either via the “Revisions on Sheet” edit window (or in this case via a great Xrev Freebies product Xrev UpRev) if the release happens before revision clouds are necessary, or directly driven by revision clouds if they exist.

Do you see my issue here?  These two things, the Revisions and the sheet index/the parameters that drive it are all separate even though they are inherently interrelated.  To do one release that automatically schedules in this common form of sheet index I have to create 2 parameters and a revision and then I have to go to a sheet and add the revision to it and check the box to include it in that revision.

I’m suggesting that these two systems be inherently linked inside Revit.  When I create a revision in Revit the program should automatically create: a Yes/No parameter as a sheet instance property and a formulated schedule parameter driven by that Y/N that shows up as an addable field in any “Sheet List” schedule.  Everything should be driven by the revisions window (Image 2 below).

In writing this I found an even easier software tweak that would allow this to happen. The previously mentioned “Revisions on Sheet” button that each sheet has (under Identity Data on the properties pallet) is a way to add revisions to a sheet without having a revisions cloud on that sheet. These for some reason cannot be accessed as fields in the Sheet Index.  Simply allowing these to be scheduled would be half of the change I’m suggesting.  Image 3 below shows the “Revisions on Sheet” window next to the custom Y/N parameters I created for this project.  After that the formulated parameter would still need to be created.

If the Sheet Issues/Revisions system currently in Revit could drive all of this (Image 2 below) it would also solve the issue I had of moving these custom parameters between files (I had to use an empty project with only these parameters in them to transfer project parameters to my consultant/engineers files).  All you’d have to do is link a consultant’s file, or conversely all a consultant would have to do is link your file into theirs, and go to manage, transfer project standards, and select “Revision Settings” since you can transfer project standards of linked files without actually opening said linked files.

This feels very straight forward to me, but I’ve been dealing with it for a while.   I’d love to see Sheet Issues/Revisions and Sheet Lists synchronized in Revit. Thoughts?

Image 1: 

Image 2:

Image 3:

Footnote:

I posted this under the title, "Sheet Indexes and Revision Schedules - Why are they disconnected?," a few years here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture/sheet-indexes-and-revision-schedules-why-are-they-d...

[Anonymous]

Now that I’ve established the premise I’ll describe the process I created.  It’s going to sound convoluted and complicated but that’s only because it’s not built in to the software to begin with.  It functions very efficiently after its setup.  The end result is a sheet index that includes sheets from linked sheets from every discipline’s model that populate the index automatically and correctly display the drawing release (the revision) each sheet is associated with by displaying a bullet in a particular revisions column.  Some sheets were there from the very beginning, some sheets came in later in the production process.  Image 1 below shows a clip of the end result of this system; a highly commonarrangement of the index of drawings that Revit is incapable of creating without the setup described below.

• Each bullet is essentially driven by two parameters; a YES/NO project parameter named for a revision and associated with “SHEETS” and a formulated parameter that actually creates the bullet.  For example, for a revision called “BID/PERMIT” I’ve got a YES/NO parameter called “Submittal – Permit” and a formulated parameter called “Permit Set Date” named to be generic and to provide a prompt to the user to rename it with the actual release date.  In this case “Permit Set Date” gets renamed to “08/24/2014 - BID/PERMIT” to show correctly on the cover sheet. 

• When a sheet is deemed to be in a “revision” (in the Revit sense) release the checkbox is checked in that sheet’s properties.  Each sheet to be shown on the index is also told to “Appear in sheet list” which is also a Y/N built in to each sheet in Revit, although I actually created an additional Y/N parameter to drive this called, “Appears in Schedule”.  The sheet index is then filtered by “Appears in Schedule” equals “Yes.”

• Now, of course each release also has to appear on the titleblock of each sheet.  This is where the actual revisions come in to play.  Each release gets a formal Revit revision that is then added to the sheet either via the “Revisions on Sheet” edit window (or in this case via a great Xrev Freebies product Xrev UpRev) if the release happens before revision clouds are necessary, or directly driven by revision clouds if they exist.

Do you see my issue here?  These two things, the Revisions and the sheet index/the parameters that drive it are all separate even though they are inherently interrelated.  To do one release that automatically schedules in this common form of sheet index I have to create 2 parameters and a revision and then I have to go to a sheet and add the revision to it and check the box to include it in that revision.

I’m suggesting that these two systems be inherently linked inside Revit.  When I create a revision in Revit the program should automatically create: a Yes/No parameter as a sheet instance property and a formulated schedule parameter driven by that Y/N that shows up as an addable field in any “Sheet List” schedule.  Everything should be driven by the revisions window (Image 2 below).

In writing this I found an even easier software tweak that would allow this to happen. The previously mentioned “Revisions on Sheet” button that each sheet has (under Identity Data on the properties pallet) is a way to add revisions to a sheet without having a revisions cloud on that sheet. These for some reason cannot be accessed as fields in the Sheet Index.  Simply allowing these to be scheduled would be half of the change I’m suggesting.  Image 3 below shows the “Revisions on Sheet” window next to the custom Y/N parameters I created for this project.  After that the formulated parameter would still need to be created.

If the Sheet Issues/Revisions system currently in Revit could drive all of this (Image 2 below) it would also solve the issue I had of moving these custom parameters between files (I had to use an empty project with only these parameters in them to transfer project parameters to my consultant/engineers files).  All you’d have to do is link a consultant’s file, or conversely all a consultant would have to do is link your file into theirs, and go to manage, transfer project standards, and select “Revision Settings” since you can transfer project standards of linked files without actually opening said linked files.

This feels very straight forward to me, but I’ve been dealing with it for a while.   I’d love to see Sheet Issues/Revisions and Sheet Lists synchronized in Revit. Thoughts?

Image 1: 

Image 2:

Image 3:

Footnote:

I posted this under the title, "Sheet Indexes and Revision Schedules - Why are they disconnected?," a few years here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture/sheet-indexes-and-revision-schedules-why-are-they-d...

[Anonymous]

For Sheet Lists, have a way to automatically populate revision lists with an identifier that tells if the sheet has been revised at all.

For example, we typically include a sheet list and a column for construction release date, with an "x" for all sheets included in that set.  For any revisions, we add another column and include an "x" for all revised sheets.  It would be great if Revit could tell which sheets have a revision cloud on them and automatically include that in the sheet list as an "x".

See screenshot if that sounds confusing for an example sheet list from one of our projects.

[Anonymous]

This idea has been discussed quite a bit:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/historic-revision-schedule/idi-p/6326483

[casquatch]

@Anonymous how about how we give them free ideas to improve their products....for us 😉

But adding to this post / Idea. We too use this system, we have a crappy way of handling it and it isn't automated either.

Our thought was to just make the Revision cloud an element just like anything else. Where you can schedule it, add parameters to it, etc. Give them the ability to see what view/sheet they are on and allow that to be pulled into a schedule. Since other elements are also scheduled from links, this too would be included as well as the linked sheet information.

This basically opens up the currently crappy revision system within Revit, allowing it to work as anyone would like it to based on their needs.

[Anonymous]

Amen.  This needs to be built in and done in some Revit blessed way.  I've been through 4 or 5 projects where some advanced revit users at the architecture firm has set up a system like this based one Shared Parameters and we as MEPs have to follow suit.  It's pretty painful and it's different every time. 

I've also been through countless projects where we just send excel sheet schedules and the architect manually manages the sheet lists per revision.  That's pretty much the Norm....because Revit doesn't do it well, we have to drop out and essentially do it "on paper" (completely manually).

Revit is supposed to be a panacea of interconnected data.  Instead an item like this is a perfect example of it being harder than doing it on paper or CAD....in other words a hassle.  

If you want Revit users to evangelize for the platform you need to stop punishing us with horrible user experience.

[WM_Ron_Allen]

Revit has the revision tracking functionality-

Are you asking for is a way to show the revision in a matrix next to a "sheet index"?

Then format those revision boxes (Extended version above) so show issues sheets as a dot, un-issued but revised sheet as a black square with a white dot.

Any sheet not currently under revision or not issued with a revision would be a clear white box.

I think what we need is a way to create a "revision schedule" (different from a sheet schedule or as a subset of the sheet schedule) in the project (not the sheets) that would have the sheets down the left and the revisions across the top with formatting options for "Issued" with multiple format options for color/fill/character(s) using some logic

• Revision count (for Column's count of revisions /on/ that sheet) 0=no revisions (including whole sheet issued)
• Revision Issued?

• Then some preformatting conditions for how to show the revisions:
• if(RevisionCurrent column.countOnSheet > 0, then return "®", else return " ")
                                                                (Show a symbol or character else leave blank)
• if(RevisionCurrent column.countOnSheet > 0, then return column.countOnSheet, else return " ")
                                                                (Show # revs on that sheet for that revision, else blank))
• Conditional formatting for revision issued:
• if (REVISION.ISSUED=true, then (Format=white cell with black text), else (format = black cell with white text)

[WM_Ron_Allen]

It should be possible to use Dynamo to build this graphic schedule with a generic-annotation family (noteblock text) :

• Noteblock called "Generic.revisions.Family"
• Dynamo scans sheets for revisions in the model
• modify the "Revisions" family to include a new entry for the 2018-03-21 'parameter' in the 'grids' in the family
• Scan the sheets in the model- for each sheet
• create or modify the "Generic.revisions.Family.[type]" which corresponds to the sheet name
• Set the 2018-03--21 parameter accordingly (Splat, formatting, whatever)
• repeat for other sheets
• Place all these representative "Generic.revisions.Family.[types]" in a drafting view neatly spaced
• Generate a schedule to show the revisions

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone I was just looking through the Revit app store and found this one here (link below) After testing quickly, looks to be a possible solution for producing a transmittal or 'Historic Revision Schedule'. This is all I need anyway.

https://apps.autodesk.com/RVT/en/Detail/Index?id=1910460747123701851&appLang=en&os=Win64

[WM_Ron_Allen]

This can be done using Dynamo to generate note blocks that have fields in them to match the revisions, then the sheets to schedule. I cannot share the DYN : (- but I can tell you it is possible : )

[SeanSpence]

Work arounds are a pain. Would be nice if Revit just did it.

[Anonymous]

Ron, you’re right you can do it a lot of slick ways. 

But it the problem is that you have multiple ways to do something fundamental. So every group of users from different companies end up doing it differently. 

Revit it constantly falls down on things that should be simple.  It’s great to be flexible and expandable for advanced features.  But having to build your own simple features is wrong. 

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

Some times basic thinks sucks a lot of precious time out us.

Make life easier, Use excel (traditional way) for tracking your revisions. The time wasted trying to find an automatic way is not worth it.

Not only that but you have to do it all the time for new projects and its completely a waste.

Sometimes its better to stay away from automation. Use you basic tools and keep life simple. 🙂 Especially when you just need to deliver on time. 🙂

[WM_Ron_Allen]

I think there may be ways of managing in the app store now. 

Please, take this grain of salt from my own personal experience; every 'shortcut' of 'fallback' outside of the Revit platform costs dearly in time, integration and education. It will negatively effect something else and hamper others down the line.

Those who persist in excel never learn what the current version of Revit is capable of - and every new version usually brings super useful enhancements for at least one or two if not all disciplines.

Hyperbolecally: If you resort to workarounds outside Revit- you might as well go back to the drafting table. 

Revit is a TEAM sport : )

[robinSSMEP]

Hi

I'm new to this, but would something like the below be suitable? It doesnt solve the problem of being able to have P1, T1, & C1, on the same sheet though.

[Anonymous]

I agree completely.

This seems like it would be a simple fix.  Why aren't parameters from the “Sheet List Schedule” and “Revision Schedule”.. (in the Sheet Template) shared between both types of schedules. In particular I would love to see "Revision Sequence" as part of the “Sheet List Schedule”.

The sheet index is the most complicated and critical piece of information an architect manages. Managing the various sets that have been issued and changed over the history of the project is tantamount to managing the flow of information. Accuracy and legibility are important because it keeps every person that touches the project on the same page and assures the team is working with the right information. It’s the most time consuming endeavor and yet one of the weakest components of Revit.

Revisions are not as linear as Revit assumes. At various stages different sets of sheets are issued, sometimes omitting information to keep the review process focused. It is critical to know what information was issued and when. Revit allows you to manage the most current revision through the “sheet list schedule” but it is more critical to manage the history of sheets issued.

Also the term “revision” is limited. Some agencies consider changes prior to the permit being issued an addendum and changes after the permit is issued a revision. Why not allow the term revision to be more malleable?

One simple parameter could unleash the power of Revit’s “Sheet List Schedule”.. Making the “Revision Sequence” parameter available within the sheet index schedule would allow for a host of formulas that could help manage the history of revisions.

Currently we manage all of this information manually because there is no way to automate it without manually inputting the information that is already there, just not accessible. Make one little parameter "Revision Sequence" available within “Sheet List Schedule”... and most of my issues would go away.  Not perfect but acceptable.

[Anonymous]

This seems like it would be a simple fix.  Why aren't parameters from the “Sheet List Schedule” and “Revision Schedule”.. (in the Sheet Template) shared between both types of schedules. In particular I would love to see "Revision Sequence" as part of the “Sheet List Schedule”.

The sheet index is the most complicated and critical piece of information an architect manages. Managing the various sets that have been issued and changed over the history of the project is tantamount to managing the flow of information. Accuracy and legibility are important because it keeps every person that touches the project on the same page and assures the team is working with the right information. It’s the most time consuming endeavor and yet one of the weakest components of Revit.

Revisions are not as linear as Revit assumes. At various stages different sets of sheets are issued, sometimes omitting information to keep the review process focused. It is critical to know what information was issued and when. Revit allows you to manage the most current revision through the “sheet list schedule” but it is more critical to manage the history of sheets issued.

Also the term “revision” is limited. Some agencies consider changes prior to the permit being issued an addendum and changes after the permit is issued a revision. Why not allow the term revision to be more malleable?

One simple parameter could unleash the power of Revit’s “Sheet List Schedule”.. Making the “Revision Sequence” parameter available within the sheet index schedule would allow for a host of formulas that could help manage the history of revisions... for example (Revision Sequence = 1, "●", "").

Currently we manage all of this information manually because there is no way to automate it without manually inputting the information that is already there, just not accessible. Make one little parameter "Revision Sequence" available within “Sheet List Schedule”... and most of my issues would go away.  Not perfect but acceptable.

[pieterdewaal]

It is extremely tedious to manually update an excel sheet when all the information already exists in Revit. We already have a "revision schedule" family inside sheet families. All we need is to allow multiple sheets to read from the same schedule and place it on a sheet, or to have schedule read it etc.

[WM_Ron_Allen]

Hopefully in the works from Revit VIA Schedules automatically- will have to wait and see what AutoDESK comes up with.

Dynamo will do it: e.g. https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/revision-tracking-for-revit-sheets/32290/12

Or if you want a really helpful set of tools- https://ideatesoftware.com/

Which has this built in as a template.

As reluctant as I am to add 3rd party addons- Ideate is a great suite of tools- especially the style manager. I was able to remap entire pen sets form object styles and template content in less than 45 minutes using BIM link and templates.

[nelsonbRGDYE]

It is common for architectural services to have Document Release Matrix in addition to the sheet list to control all released revisions. Currently, we have that Matrix manually populated since Revit has no way (that we know of) to have a schedule showing all revisions submitted for all sheets; we can only show the current revision in the sheet list.

I have attached an example image.

Please, add that capability so we can include all issued revisions in any sheet related schedule.

Thank you

[curtisridenour]

The information is there. I just want to display it in a table. Please add this very important tool to R2025.