Adding a new Parameter to Revisions/Sheets

[Hulston1982]

Morning all,

I would like to add a new parameter to the actual revisions tab under 'Sheet Collaboration' to allow an 'Approved By' column?

Is this possible, and how could i achieve it?

I thought it would be through the revision schedule in the Sheet Family, but the 'Add Parameter' button is greyed out.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Alex

[wmullett]

You can only use the parameters provided.... but, how about renaming and using one of those that you may not be using now.

[Hulston1982]

Thanks for the reply. I thought that may be the case.

Unfortunately the only parameter we are not using in our 'Revision Schedule' is the revision sequence.
One that cannot be substituted to another format.

I will just have to let the team know that none of our drawings can be approved after checking each revision.

Alex

[nancy.mcclure]

It sounds as if you want a sheet parameter, rather than a new parameter to the revision table. There already is an Approved By sheet parameter, which can be edited per revision issue (we make an archive copy of the model per submittal issuance, as well as archived PDFs).

If that's already being used, I would recommend creating a new Shared Parameter, applying it as a project parameter (to sheets, by instance). Then the team can initial the new parameter on a specific sheet, or manage it from a sheet schedule with that parameter field added.

[Hulston1982]

We are already using the Approved By parameter, for the Sheet, for the initial approval of the drawing. The contractor is requesting that every revision is subsequently checked and approved. Therefore i would have liked it to be in the Revision Schedule, to then show up in Revisions in the project. Image attached.

I did think about adding a shared parameter and making it an instance, but this would mean having to have numerous parameters to sit next to each revision. I would like them to go up the sheet with every revision. Until the revision text is added, you never know how many lines are required etc, meaning you could only place each approval after the revision is placed. Therefore i feel it may as well be done by text. Which it could be as it is never going to change on each sheet, after it's issued.

I just thought being able to add it into the revision shcedule would allow that bit more management and QA procedure?

[irneb]

I've got exactly the same issue! We need a Rev#, Date, Description, Issue by, Checked by & Responsible party. Now the Issue by is obvious. We use the Issue to as the responsible party. All other available columns are already used (i.e. Rev#, Date, Description, etc.) All except the sequence - which can't have a "text" format.

But the only way I can add a column for the actual revision table itself is to add a calculated field - which is next to useless in this case as it's simply blank. And there's no way to actually type in the value in the revision dialogue.

Even tried adding shared and/or project parameters - but then they only show up as per-sheet items. Even if I add a shared / project parameter to the Revision Cloud category - nothing happens. There are no other pertinent categories at all.

And placing individual texts on top of the revision table would just be silly in our case. After about 3 months there's already been so many revisions as to scroll the table to show only those newest which fits into the space provided. It would be very possible to forget to move and/or erase these text items to their new positions.

[Alfredo Medina]

Actually, it is possible. The calculated value in the Revision Schedule allows you to add other columns such as "Approved by", or "Responsible". You need to specify the value with a formula, using the value of Revision Sequence, which is an integer.

Suppose that you have 3 revisions, The first 2 were approved by "ABC", and the third one was approved by "XYZ", then the "Approved by" calculated value could be set up as "If "Revision Sequence" is less than 3, then "Approved by" is "ABC", otherwise, is "XYZ".

Or an embedded IF, such as: IF "Revision Sequence" is 1, then "Responsible" is "PQR", otherwise, if "Revision Sequence" is 2, then Responsible is "OPQ", otherwise, ... etc.

You can use operators such as AND, OR, Not, equal, less than, greater than, etc.

[irneb]

Thanks, I was thinking about such. Now what do you do to actually change the sequence number per revision - without affecting the order? I don't see any such thing in the Revision dialog.

And because I'm using all the fields already I can't see any such thing in another field.

Alternatively, is there a text function available inside the formula? Something like a substring or wildcard match? That way I could add the checked into the drawn by and use formulas to split the field into two.

[irneb]

OK, here's another workaround :roll:. Make one of the normal field's columns span 2 "columns" :shock:.

You'd need to place the column headings as text and turn off the revision schedule's headings. Then draw column separating lines as well. (All this in the title block family - see 1st screen cap)

Next you need to space the 2 column's values in the revision dialog so it places the relevant codes in the virtual column as needed. See 2nd cap.

Unfortunately you then also need to play around with the number of spaces before, after & in between to make it look aligned. :| See 3rd cap. Of course you could use some mono-spaced-font to make this a bit easier.

[Alfredo Medina]

Thanks, I was thinking about such. Now what do you do to actually change the sequence number per revision - without affecting the order?...

Sorry, I don't understand the question. What do you mean by that?

[irneb]

Sorry, I don't understand the question. What do you mean by that?Uhmm ... yes that's exactly what I mean by that :mrgreen:

Sorry! The point I'm trying to make here is that the checked field would vary randomly per revision. So you can't say that the 1st revision would be checked by A, the second by B, 3rd by C, etc. And even if you could that would mean the formula would be hundreds of nested if statements. At least as many ifs as there are revisions. And each time you add a revision, you need to edit the tb-family to add another if.

Now if there was a numeric field which you could enter a different value into per revision, then this could have worked by giving each check(er) a number (like an ID code).

Anyhow, for me the workaround in my previous post seems to do the trick. It's not as slick as I would have liked, but with some tweaking I can get reasonable results.

BTW, anyone have a clue if ADesk is even considering the age old wish of text functions in the formula?

[Alfredo Medina]

...
Sorry! The point I'm trying to make here is that the checked field would vary randomly per revision. So you can't say that the 1st revision would be checked by A, the second by B, 3rd by C, etc. And even if you could that would mean the formula would be hundreds of nested if statements....

How many revisions, "approvers" and "responsibles" can you have? hundreds, really?

[irneb]

How many revisions, "approvers" and "responsibles" can you have? hundreds, really?No I think you misunderstand. There's probably about 5 to 10 approvers in our company. But we may have hundreds of revisions. So to use the Sequence Number idea with a set of nested ifs it would be something like:
if(Revision Sequence = 1, "AP1",
if(Revision Sequence = 2, "AP4",
if(Revision Sequence = 3, "AP2",
....
if(Revision Sequence = 124, "AP2",
if(Revision Sequence = 125, "AP1"))))).....)))))So each time I add a revision, I need to edit the TB family and append another if statement to that formula. And then of course that TB family file is relevant ONLY to this one single project.

[irneb]

I'm just rereading your last post: Yes we tend to have quite a lot of revisions at this "pre" detail-design stage of the project. We have to add the revisions for records purposes, we've run into situations where the client(s) refused to accept that they've caused extra work - i.e. disputing the fee claims. Each time we do an issue (which tends to be on a weekly basis) there has to be a new revision describing what has changed, who requested the change, etc.

Now to only show such revisions on the sheets where the model indicates the area revised, you need to also split such revisions so you see a description like "Door #024 moved to south wall" only on the floor plan where this door is indicated, but a description like "Corbelling profile altered" shows only on the section(s) and elevations.

These revisions may all be included in one single re-issue. So even if there was only about 10 issues for this project thus far, each of those issues may have had 20+ revisions on 50 sheets. We're working on a hotel of 200+ rooms - 12 floors - so there are a few more sheets than you'd expect on something like a house plan. As an example I receive around 50 to 100 emails PER DAY! on this one single project (yes, I'm not kidding! :shock:), about 10 of them would each necessitate a change in our model somewhere.

[Alfredo Medina]

The way I have seen it is that several changes to the project are issued together, under one common revision number. But I see that your system is different, which explains why there might be hundreds of revisions in your projects. Well, unfortunately, I think the revision system of Revit was created thinking on the most common approach, and therefore we don't have any other features available in the Revision schedules, other than the Calculated values, to handle this special situation. Even the titleblocks are designed as default to allow a more typical list of revisions, not hundreds. That will require a different solution, maybe an Excel sheet, not a Revit schedule.

[irneb]

You're probably correct. The only way I can see our system working fully is using the Revit revisioning system as an index to an XLS detailed revision page. I.e. one Revit revision per issue pointing to a revision index number on the XLS which then splits it up into the various changes, their originators, who drew them &* who checked them.

Actually this brings up another point about the lack of customizability in Revit's revisions: We tend to have separate items in one revision. Something like this extract from an acad DWG:
Rev# | Date | Drw | Ckd | Descr | Resp
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A | 2011-10-27 | IB | RL | Moved column on grid X | SE
| | HJ | IMK | Added door to room 004 | Client
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
B | 2011-11-04 | EL | MH | Reduced curtain wall size | QS
| | ES | BK | Enlarged beam over kitchen | SENow that is totally impossible in Revit isn't it?

[Alfredo Medina]

...Now that is totally impossible in Revit isn't it?

Seems like a task for Excel, due to the format, and the number of revisions that you mentioned above.

[adrian524293]

Sorry to dig up an old thread. We are just starting with Revit & I have been reading threads for a few months as I encounter (frequent) problems.

All we need Autodesk to do is allow us to "Add Parameter" to the revision schedule like we can with most other schedules.

There seems to be quite a few of these ugly ducklings throughout the program like not allowing us to have shared parameters in symbols, or is that Generic Annotations?

Do we just send Autodesk an email asking them to do these things? How do they respond?

[irneb]

Actually an update on this: I've reverted to not using Revit's revisions at all. They are WAAAAAAYYYYYY too restrictive and cumbersome. Never mind that there's no way to add extra columns, the entire system is a joke.

Most of our revisions would start with something like "FOR INFORMATION ..." or "FOR TENDER ..." or "FOR CONSTRUCTION ..." followed by a description of what has changed.

Now if the project progresses linearly, it's "easy" to add a revision to a sheet by simply checking the last one in that list. But as per my current project, we have the same drawing being issued for construction, then again for tender, then again for coordination, etc. etc. etc. And due to the client's mandate, they don't want to see any of the other classes of revisions (i.e. when issued for tender only show the tender revisions, when for construction only show construction, etc.)

Now with that childish selection dialog, it becomes hours of counting and checking to remove previous revisions and adding "new" ones back. This makes for extremely error prone work. Nowhere in that dialog does it even show the Sequence number (this baffles the mind!), never mind anything else like the date - only the first few words of the description is shown.

Then I tried this by making 3 dependent views and 3 sheets (one for Constr, one for Tender, and the other for Info). At least now I don't need to constantly count those revisions (we're already running into sequence number 60) to remove and replace. The problem now, is that the A-Z revisions (Constr uses 0-9) would have clashes between Tender & info. No way around it at all.

So! Now I have 6 pieces of text on the title sheet. These I copy up for a new revision. I've added a Custom Current Revision property to the sheet so I can manually change the title block's revision indicator. I.e. I have it working exactly as I would have done in ACad - stupid isn't it!

There's 2 major benefits in using this:


It's 1,000,000's of times easier to actually see which revision is to be placed on which sheet (that selection dialog isn't even a joke - it's a tragedy). Duplicating revisions to other sheets is a simple Copy-n-Paste.
It's now possible to "skip" numbers per sheet - though you have to do it manually.

The cons are the usual as you would have in plain acad: Everything needs to be done manually - making the possibility of human error greater. Though for me it's a lot smaller than having to count through that torture implement adesk calls a revision selection dialog.

[deoliveirad679715]

IT IS UNBELIEVABLE THAT AUTODESK CAN'T SOLVE SIMPLY THINGS AS THIS ONE. THEY GOT US BY THE BALLS AND NOW WE CAN'T JUST DON'T USE IT. IT'S STUPID! HATE IT!