MEP Electrical Usability Improvements Suggestions: Panel & Panel Schedules

[glenbob305]

I've got a couple of years of Revit MEP electrical under my belt and I wanted to share a couple of suggestions to make Revit MEP Electrical more usable.  I know some of these may be down to my project or company or personal workflow, but I would argue that Revit needs to improve it's Out-of-the-box electrical workflow so fewer people have to hack it to make it work.

Here's my suggestions:

Put the panels listed in the "select panel" pull-down menu in order! Any order! Alphabetical would be fine, "Most recently used" would be good, "As connected" would be fine.  All of those options with configurability would be even better!  But come on! Working on a huge project with lots of panels is so annoying.  Clicking to select which panel isn't that useful on larger projects.

Add an item to the right click menu on the panel schedules in the Project Browser to "show" where that panel is.  Also allow ability to select the panel (so you can edit panel parameters) from here.

Same thing as above for inside a panel schedule editor! You should be able to edit all panel instance parameters (including ones that aren't shown on the panel schedule) without having to go hunt for it. Also add "show panel" here to locate the panel in floorplan.

Make Spares and spaces movable.

Right now you can group breakers and move them around.  Why can't you just select multiple and move them without grouping, that's a bit of a hassle.

You should be able to apply load types to spares.  Now you can take a spare, apply a load and revit will count it.  But revit doesn't let you apply a type to that load, so it's not a "receptacle, or lighting, etc.".  This limitation will mean a lot of projects will have to drop back into autocad panel schedules or use drafting view manual panel schedules.

Spaces and spares should both be able to have frame size in distribution panel schedules. Currently it always shows "--", which is wrong.  Usually you tell the contractor to buy a certain size frame.

The parameter names available inside the panel schedules are ambiguous.  There's one called "Mains type" and one called "Mains", "MCB Rating"... these are not clear.  Better names would be "Main Type (MCB/MLO)" and then "Main Frame" and "Main Trip" .  If a panel is MLO it should show "--" or NA or something like that for the non-existent trip unit... But as it stands now a parameter that must be a number is there so you have to have two panel schedule templates for MLO/MCB.  All parameters should be instance and schedule-able even outside of panel schedules.  Lots of duplicate parameters need to be removed.  (thanks to @MuirEng for logging a related separate idea - @Martin__Schmid).

Panel Schedule templates should be saveable and loadable outside of revit.  You should allow people to do this without having to deal with "Transfer Project Standards"

[scott_dakin2]

I agree with pretty much all of that.

having to Group circuits to move them a few at a time and not being able to move them with Spaces and Spare in the group would be nice if it was improved (or just move them without making a group).

Revit Electrical is a kind of horrible experience.

[adam.bullock]

Agreed all around! Panel schedules in Revit are just awful when you're trying to do remodel work, unless you have the time and budget to go back in and model every existing load so you can get your loads and  load classifications correct in your load analysis.

[majorminotaur]

autodesk PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take this complaint seriously! I'M HAVING SO MUCH TROUBLE CONVINCING PEOPLE REVIT IS THE WAY TO GO WHEN THEY RUN INTO THIS TYPE OF THING.

[Martin__Schmid]

Thanks for the suggestions... Closing this as ''Impelemented''... we made some improvements to the panel selection list a few releases ago, including a 'most recently used' and the ability to search (instead of having to scroll through a long list of panels).  

Spares and spaces are movable.. you just need to unlock them first (they are locked by default).  

Re: "Panel Schedule templates should be saveable and loadable outside of revit.  You should allow people to do this without having to deal with "Transfer Project Standards""

... what would this help you do that you can't do now?  Transfer project standards is the common mechanism for re-using such style based content.  Why would panel schedules need a special way of dealing with this independent of all other such settings/content?  Help us understand by logging a separate issue.

In order to gather better metrics of which of these items are most important, we recommend items are logged as individual improvements, so the community can help rank the order of importance based on their votes.  E.g., adam.bullock's comment implies that he'd like Revit to "make it easy for me to account for existing load in remodel projects". and it may have better visibility if it was stated as such as a stand alone idea....  and it would be helpful as it would help us understand if that is more (or less) important than some of the other improvements listed here.

Thanks again for the suggestions... there are some valuable ideas here, but with fewer than 20 votes after 18 months, lets see if more interest is there if they are more focused.

[scott_dakin2]

Considering the amount of electrical people on this forum 20 votes for an electrical item is about the same as 400 votes on an Architectural item.

If that is your only metric for gauging user interest in an electrical item perhaps you need a rethink.

[Martin__Schmid]

Scott-- thanks for the comment..  as stated, there are other criteria in closing this as accepted...  a number of the items in this are already possible and/or have been improved, and that by being more specific about the need, and problem to be solved, may make the items more appealing to more electrical users. Additionally, the other goal is identifying what truly resonates w/ electrical folks that are on here... is a change related to saving/loading panel schedule templates outside of transfer project standards really as important to you as an electrical user looking for electrical workflow improvements as "accounting for existing loads"?  

[scott_dakin2]

Transfer Project Standards works just fine for me. I agree with your post. You may get better mileage from a Vote Up/Vote down poll, that would at least give a percentage for users who like the idea versus users who don't, regardless of the actual number of votes involved. I'm sure this has all been discussed to death within Autodesk.

I would completely overhaul the electrical portion of Revit if it was up to me, accounting for existing loads would definitely come behind 'making everything that already exists work properly' and various quality of life improvements.

There is so much in the electrical package that could be done differently or better that electrical users are a bit jaded and tend not to contribute.

For example - every single British user that uses a three phase system wonders why the Way and Phase are the wrong way round in tag and panel schedules. There are also issues with single phase panels putting circuits on A then B phases, the UK doesn't have two phases at single phase panels.

When things so basic are so obviously wrong electrical users just don't understand why these things have not been 'fixed' and this leads to intense frustration.

It is also hard to convince people in positions of power within our companies to buy into using Revit for projects as it has so many obvious 'mistakes' in it.

The USA doesn't have this issue but it is prevalent elsewhere as the electrical systems characteristics are fundamentally different.

All of this leads to a lack of user participation on the forum, hence the low participation in Votes; much to the annoyance of us that do vote and create Ideas.

[MuirEng]

Has anyone has taken the time to go through the original post and compared to Revit 2019 capability in order to verify what is implemented vs outstanding? Glenbob, are you still following the converstation you started? Interested in your opinion after two years. 

About the general issue of interacting with Autodesk about electrical features/improvements. I suggested to Martin today that if he could help us form a specific forum/community of users interested in actively participating in improving Revit MEP Electrical then I am willing to assist that community by first making sure all ideas are captured properly in the IDEAS system and then providing a vehicle by which the users can review these ideas and make a ranked list which Martin can then use to steer the development effort. If you want to back up this idea then say so. Maybe on a new thread in the MEP forum? 

[MuirEng]

I just went through the original post and find that many of the ideas contained therein are not actually implemented in Revit 2023, or to my knowledge Revit 2024. How exactly does this work then? We post some ideas, you at AutoDesk pick one or two and then call the entire set "implemented", and forget about the rest? 

[Martin__Schmid]

@MuirEng Ideally, each independent capability would be logged as a separate idea so we have more granular quantifiable feedback from which to gauge relative importance.  

Regarding observations of the original post... 

This idea was accepted, because, the first idea has largely been addressed.

Put the panels listed in the "select panel" pull-down menu in order! Any order! Alphabetical would be fine, "Most recently used" would be good, "As connected" would be fine.  All of those options with configurability would be even better!  But come on! Working on a huge project with lots of panels is so annoying.  Clicking to select which panel isn't that useful on larger projects.

Implemented.. Not necessarily exactly as asked for (as the request to be in alphabetical order has undesirable side effects).. but the core need.  The original design was that they were sorted based on relative distance to the elements you are connecting when selecting the panel.  Though, I seem to recall noticing that it can be ambiguous what the coordinates are that this is based on.  The original designer for that logic is no longer around, I assume the logic was, 'chances are, the panel you need to connect to is 'close', and thus, should be at the top of the list, to avoid constantly scrolling a long list of panels.  This was intentionally not in alphabetical order, which would lead to scenarios where what you connect to may frequently be at the bottom of the list (e.g., if your naming convention was based on level, where a panel on level 27 was named 27xyz, when working on such upper floors, you'd have a lot of scrolling.
Through discovery, when updating this a number of years ago, we determined the need was more about 'make it easier to select the panel I need to connect to'... thus, the panel list was made searchable, and also added was a 'most recently used' list as requested here.. providing two capabilities... avoiding the need to scroll potentially long lists, and also, making it quick to circuit devices on various panels (e.g., power, lighting, and equipment) without constantly having to search.
Other than the somewhat odd sequence, the problem of easily selecting the required panel from a large list provides what we found through usability testing to be an acceptable mechanism.

Add an item to the right click menu on the panel schedules in the Project Browser to "show" where that panel is.

Not addressed. 

Also allow ability to select the panel (so you can edit panel parameters) from here.

Not addressed.

Same thing as above for inside a panel schedule editor! You should be able to edit all panel instance parameters (including ones that aren't shown on the panel schedule) without having to go hunt for it.

This was added a while ago.  In a panel schedule view, when a cell in the top section is selected, the Properties Palette updates to show the properties of the associated Equipment Family instance, letting you edit all instance (and type) parameters w/o having to go hunt for it.

Also add "show panel" here to locate the panel in floorplan.

Not addressed.

Make Spares and spaces movable.

They are.. aren't they.  Other than when they're Locked, they're movable.  Am I missing something?

Right now you can group breakers and move them around.  Why can't you just select multiple and move them without grouping, that's a bit of a hassle.

Not addressed.  

You should be able to apply load types to spares.  Now you can take a spare, apply a load and revit will count it.  But revit doesn't let you apply a type to that load, so it's not a "receptacle, or lighting, etc.".  This limitation will mean a lot of projects will have to drop back into autocad panel schedules or use drafting view manual panel schedules.

Generally, we hear this isn't just about applying loads to Spares..  but more generally, accounting for loads that one doesn't want to model... or that you can't model (e.g., loads that need to be accounted for based on area).  In such cases, they're no longer Spares.. so if you're shooting for a certain % of Spare breakers in the project, this would ambiguate that.  There is progress in this direction w/ the analytical workflow (which both capabilities now exist).  We envision connecting these concepts between the 'analytical' world and the 'physical' world over time.

Spaces and spares should both be able to have frame size in distribution panel schedules. Currently it always shows "--", which is wrong.  Usually you tell the contractor to buy a certain size frame.
Frame size was added for Spares.  Feedback when this was done was that users had concern that in most cases, the Frame Size for a Space would not be specified, or known, and since it is a numeric field, would have an ambiguous value of 0 A, so that's why it wasn't added at the same time. 

The parameter names available inside the panel schedules are ambiguous.  There's one called "Mains type" and one called "Mains", "MCB Rating"... these are not clear.  

Better names would be "Main Type (MCB/MLO)" and then "Main Frame" and "Main Trip" .  

Not addressed.

If a panel is MLO it should show "--" or NA or something like that for the non-existent trip unit... But as it stands now a parameter that must be a number is there so you have to have two panel schedule templates for MLO/MCB.  

Similar problem to Frame Size being a number.. the more general (and more challenging) need is related to wanting to have numeric properties that have the option of having an 'unspecified' value/option.

All parameters should be instance and schedule-able even outside of panel schedules.  Lots of duplicate parameters need to be removed.  

Not addressed.  It's difficult at best to remove data/parameters.. there are challenges w/ upgrade, data loss considerations, etc.   this is perhaps a bigger need related to giving the user control of what should be instance vs. type.. and perhaps some control of what they want as part of their Schema, which the framework doesn't presently provide mechanisms for, for built-in parameters.  

Panel Schedule templates should be saveable and loadable outside of revit.  You should allow people to do this without having to deal with "Transfer Project Standards"

Not addressed.. probably a general need across all 'types'.