ADD DATE AS PARAMETER

[A TAWFIK]

I am looking for report for example concrete qty based on actual date & planned date , so to do that I created tow parameters actual date & planned date and the type of the parameter type is text and the format of the date is MM/DD/YYYY and I assigned date for elements casted to date (actual date) and I assigned planned date for all the model elements ( planned date) .
from the above I succeed to get the actual qty for concrete by the schedule and the criteria of the filter for actual date contain 20 as part of the year and also I succeed to get as graphical wise the progress in site by add filter under visibility / graphic and the criteria of the filter the same as in the schedule.
The problem I cannot apply the filter up to certain date for example I want to get the planned qty up to date .. Can I get advice

[Dimitri Harvalias]

I've been looking for this functionality to be native for some time now.
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=79363&highlight=date+parameter

The only viable workaround I've found is to create a text field and to be sure you enter your dates as numbers in the format YYYY-MM-DD. If you do this you should be able to sort and filter based on 'date'.
Your filter would be Planned Date is Greater than or equal to YYYY-MM-DD.
If you create both planned date and installed date as parameters you should be able to see how the plan compares to the actual.

[Alfredo Medina]

Having a date as text has too many limitations. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to apply filters in schedules if the date was broken up into 3 project parameters (instance / integer) that apply to structural elements, (foundations, framing, and columns)? These parameters might be named such as: date_year, date_month, and date_day.

Then select your structural elements and fill in the date information in the properties window for these 3 parameters. Then, the structural elements' schedules can be filtered, first by date_year, then by date_month, and finally by date_day, and even by a fourth filter which could be date_day again, to specify a range. Since the parameters are integers, now you have a lot more filtering criteria available for you, such as "greater than", "is greater than and equal to", etc. which are not available at all when you have the date as a text parameter.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Actually Alfredo, all those options are available when you enter the values as text. The only caveat is that the dates need to be entered as numbers in the YYYY-MM-DD format. e.g. 2011-08-25.
Using this approach you only need to manage and fill in one parameter. You can even filter to see which elements have the date parameter filled in by looking for values that is greater than 0.
The best and easiest solution would be if Autodesk would provide us with number formatting for dates. Soooooo many uses for this from a project management standpoint and as we move models from design to construction to FM.

[A TAWFIK]

Dear Dimitri / Alferdo
Thank you for your reply, I had problem to access to the forum but solved now …
I made small exercise to understand how Revit read the parameters with their different type and the conclusion in the attached table

From the attached table I think the best way is no 4 (integer) but we have to fill the parameter for all elements even it is not happened, for example we want to filter in visibility the elements casted to date, to get this on proper way we have to fill others elements not casted to date by any amount zero for example because we have to use two kind of filter in visibility to hide / appear.
So now the question is How can filter in the visibility the dates without fill parameter for all elements.