MEP Family Storage

[stearnskl]

I'm failry new to Revit and I'm looking for some ideas on where to store our companys families. I don't know if I should combine all of our custom families with the out of the box content or create a new folder and duplicate the folder structure. I thinking that I should at least split it up by release since we are working with different firms that are using different releases.

Thank you

[mwiggins]

We keep out of the box seperate. Also we split by releases.

[christo4robin]

You are on the right track - keep it separate from OOTB, and duplicate the folder structure.

[RevitNinja]

I'll share my method for organizing families. I started working with Revit just months before 2009 hit the market and was in the middle of a project when my company upgraded.

Excluding the content released by manufacturers, I work with three types of families:

1. OOTB
2. OOTB that has been edited for company use
3. Company-created

The file names of family types 2 and 3 are suffixed with (TOLK), which is the name of my company. Any family that has been edited or created by us gets the (TOLK) added to its file name.

My reasoning? When you are ready to upgrade to a new release, you can simply run a search for all families containing your company suffix. You can then choose which families you want to bring with you when you migrate.

[Misteracad]

I'll share my method for organizing families. I started working with Revit just months before 2009 hit the market and was in the middle of a project when my company upgraded.

Excluding the content released by manufacturers, I work with three types of families:

1. OOTB
2. OOTB that has been edited for company use
3. Company-created

The file names of family types 2 and 3 are suffixed with (TOLK), which is the name of my company. Any family that has been edited or created by us gets the (TOLK) added to its file name.

My reasoning? When you are ready to upgrade to a new release, you can simply run a search for all families containing your company suffix. You can then choose which families you want to bring with you when you migrate.

This is what we do as well, and the method I think is most common from what I've seen and heard.

[stearnskl]

All - Thanks for the responses

[sven.129574]

What we do is very similar to what Seth and Timothy do. That way, you don't have to look in the company directory, see that "Nope, we don't have our own version," change to the OotB directory, and use one from there. You only have to look in one directory for any particular type of thing.

Just make sure that that EVERY custom family filename has the exact same sequence of characters in it, and no OotB family will never have that string.

[mjdanowski]

We have maaany many shared parameters with our families, so we have an extensive process in family creation. Therefore, we generally keep our OOTB families in a completely different place, and only move them to our "standard" folder after we do an overhaul.

Most of our families are complete customs though.