For a primer, watch this YouTube video where a guy shows off the ability of Revit 2017 to have calculated values in family tags and calculated values in the project speak to each other:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH5Q9Bv6DAE
The idea here is grand and folks that have had to use work-arounds (like a dumby shared param manually filled out to reflect a calc value sitting next to it in a schedule #ghettoBIM) for things like occupancy tags probably immediately get perky upon discovery. My issue is in the practical usage and implementation of such feature. In the YouTube video linked above, listen to the dude from 35 seconds to 42 seconds. This is where what I am perceiving as a 'bust' occurs. I'll explain.
The "Occupancy_Factor" shared parameter he mentions should be coming from a key schedule, not a shared parameter. Let's live in his universe where the Occupancy_Factor was a shared parameter for a second, though. So say it's an appropriately named shared parameter applied to rooms in the project. Now what? Because Rooms don't have Type parameters, are you supposed to lookup and retype an occupancy factor for every room at the Instance level? All the while rooms are being created, copied, moved, renamed, etc? One could see how this would easily stack up to more work than the workaround people are used to.
Here's another dude giving a spill on it. Zoom to 5:48 - 6:02. Again, the assumption here is that a Shared Parameter is going to be the solution. What about key schedules containing tons of data waiting and wanting to be used? :
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88hJCwYaxkA
So what then? Has anyone out there implemented this new feature into their templates? If you have, are you like me sitting here with the sexiest key schedules in the world, crying from the face because they'd be useless in relation to this "upgrade"?
I may be missing a step here but I've been a Revit user for few moons. Am I smoking something? Things I should try? Do differently?
All the best
- Ace