Procedure to Review Warnings?

[renogreen]

I am writing lots of Revit documents for my company. One of the things I am having a difficult time explaining on paper, is the proper procedure to review warnings and clean them up. The 2010 and 2011 Users Guides do not really describe a procedure. This is one of those things I want to get right because done incorrectly, deleting review warnings can cause disasters in the model. Any suggestions?

[Steve_Stafford]

Procedure Item: Review Warnings
Steps: Review and FIX them!!
Thank you, the mgmt!

Focus on warnings that:


Affect calculations, rooms/areas & wall/boundary errors
Duplication (multiple elements in the same place)
Affect documentation - Type Marks/Marks/tagging accuracy

A team needs to know they exist and why they are there. The quantity of them varies wildly as a design evolves. If the team is aware and tracking them then they don't turn into thousands of errors that negatively affect the project.

This was a quick off the cuff response, have to head to my kids soccer match!

[Jason Shirriff]

How does one resolve warnings?
we have a couple hundread in the project right now.
How do I get rid of them?
They arent causing and trouble but what I see from the forums posts they could slow down performance.

I also have a project in construction that has alot of warnings but there is no budget to work on the project to resolve them, which by the looks of it could take days?

[patricks]

Depends on the type of warning. Our projects always have a certain amount of warnings because of the way we do door types. We assign the same type mark to all flush doors, all half-glass doors, all full glass doors, etc. So we end up with multiple sizes of the same door with the same type mark. That's just the way it is.

[nancy.mcclure]

Hi Jason, hope all's well with you guys!

Steve's quick summary is really the heart of the matter - some warnings bear more consequence on the model (processing or quantity accuracy) than others (slight overlaps, linework slightly off axis, join relationships that no longer physically can be connected, etc).

Here's some prioritizing guidelines, and some tips for finding and resolving issues:
a) I quickly review the warnings list to see if there's a ton of the same type of warning (overlaps, off axis) or a lot of different warnings. The latter causes me more concern than the former. I then export the list out to html, so I can keep an eye on the total list when I'm hunting for answers. I also prioritize the list items, and divide them up among the team, so people are checking/resolving the stuff they likely built themselves, and are knowledgeable about the whys of how they built it.

b) I highlight on the exported list the spatial impact issues (rooms/areas overlap), and task the team member responsible for Room Schedules to track them down and review if they are like that for some strategic reason (yes, there often are reasons). Because Revit is constantly recrunching area/volumes in the model, I usually make this the highest priority to attack.

c) Stairs/Ramps are also key - because they are drawn in sketch, they don't auto-redraw when conditions around them (like Level adjustments) happen, so they can then become inaccurate in length/layout and riser count. And that's a code issue (as well as expensive handrail re-pricing), so get in there and check those out. It's my 2nd priority.

d) Components (doors, windows, fixtures) listing as duplicates are worth reviewing, even if it is still the contractor's responsibility for construction quantity, because they'll show up on your schedules, and that gets really embarassing during the bidding stage.

Now, HOW do you track them down? The warnings list will expand out to show you individual ID numbers for (nearly) every object it reports. That exported list makes it easy to keep the list open, while doing a search for element by ID in a wireframe 3D view and/or plan views. Sometimes, you can't just resolve things on the fly, so I ask the team to put in a comment on the elements that still need resolution, and I have management views set up for those key categories that filter down to elements with comments, so it's easy to track that they eventually get resolved. As they are resolved, they automatically drop off the next generated warnings list. Some of those lesser level warnings may stay on the list indefinitely, but as they have less repercussion, it's essentially a non-issue.

Drop me an email if you want to go into these management views and other PM tricks more in depth - http://www.apertedesign.com/?page_id=2
Cheers!