Add shared parameter to Material take-off schedule

[damon.sidel]

I looked for a post about this, but couldn't find the specific answer. I am creating a glazing area schedule. In each window family, I've applied a glazing material to just the outside face of glass. I am counting glazing from window families, curtain wall panels from a subdivided conceptual mass, and generic models.

I would like to add an instance parameter to each of the above-mentioned families for "Exposure" so that I can sort my schedule by north, south, east, and west exposures since the solar gain calculations will be done per each orientation.

Is there a way to add a shared parameter to each of these families from within the project? Or do I have to open each family and add it there?

UPDATE: I decided for the short-term to use the Comments parameter for this purpose. Works great for the windows and the curtain wall panels. However, the generic models have glazing on two sizes, so I'm stumped about scheduling those.

[LP Design]

To directly answer your question about shared parameters, I have never found a good way to "push" a shared parameter from a project to a series of families. If anyone else here has a method I would love to hear it.

I would suggest, however, that you don't need to use a shared parameter for this purpose. Since the end result you are looking for is total quantities, not individual values that tells me you won't be tagging each instance with this data. The actual area definitely needs to be shared so it can draw info from the family, but a project parameter should suffice to classify the windows by exposure. That might work a bit better than using the Comments parameter just in case you actually do need to make comments for a particular item.

I'm a bit confused about the rest of your post. Are you using generic models for windows? If so, why not make those a real window family with the same setup as your other windows? Can you describe that portion a little more?

-LP