How do you rollout updated software?

[caddman13]

I have heard many things from consultants but I just had one say that upgrading a Revit project from 2012 to 2013 will not take full advantage of the new updates in 2013. How can that be? I have seen Revit change some tag names in the past with (upgrade) on the end of the tag name. Other than that I have been able to use all the new features the new software had. Not 100% on the Structural and MEP side though.

Also does everyone build from scratch their Revit templates at each release? I did this once and what a nightmare to get everything ready for production use. The upgrades I have done for other updates worked just great.

Just wondering if I am missing something in the upgrade new release world we live in.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[david_peterson]

My only word of caution would be to wait for the first service pack before upgrading a project. Personally I'd wait for the first service pack before I'd even consider installing it. I'm not sure what your consultant was talking about. They've added a lot of function to the MEP side, I don't think they've really changed a ton of stuff in the RA/RS world. You would need/want to swap out any stairs you had (unless they are already complete) to take advantage of the new stair features. So some things may not right away, but if you swap out the family for a new one that contains the new parameters for you to fill out. Tags may also be on that list.
As for templates, we start with the last version and update it to include any new or updated families. Adesk usually puts out a list that tells you what families have changed, and I think what they changed. I haven't seen that list for 2013 yet, but I haven't looked really hard yet either.
Hope this helps.

[patricks]

I usually scratch-build a template based on how much new/different the release is. 2010 was a huge change from 2009, so I scratch-built a leaner, meaner template there. But since then I've just upgrade the previous version.

I haven't decided yet if I'll do a new one for 2013. Last I checked I opened 2013 and loaded the template that was upgraded from 2012, and it still had the new stair options available in it.

[david_peterson]

Well I'm sure the options would be there, but I'm not sure what happens to your existing stair families. I'm wondering if this is the same kind of thing that we ended up with after Adesk "Fixed" the structural material issue that wasn't an issue before, but now it is. I wish that it didn't affect my families and I'd still be able to set material by family instead of by instance. Not sure which one of the "smart guys" decided this over at the factory, but man, I really can't think of any real reason as to why you would want to do that, but they did because someone had a "smart" idea.

[patricks]

From what I recall when starting a new stair component, the Type Selector showed both our old stair types and the new component-based stair types. I will probably look at consolidating and/or replacing our old stuff with the new.

[jcoe]

I just recently built my 2013 template file and it wasn't that bad. I have a checklist I go through to make sure I cover everything our office needs to start a project. I think it was worth the day I spent building a new template file for 2013 because of the new features of View Types and improved View Templates. I also pre-loaded some stringer profiles for the component. This also gave me a chance to do some template housekeeping that I didn't have time for in 2011 and 2012. Like everyone else though, I typically just upgrade my template, but I thought there were enough changes to warrant a rebuild.

[rosskirby]

We just upgrade our template with each release, instead of rebuilding from scratch. Just note that when going from 2012 to 2013, you'll have to duplicate your railing styles in order to have all the new "features" available for those specific styles. Any new styles will automatically have all the new features.

If the template starts getting bloated, though, it may be time for a rebuild. I'm considering rebuilding the template whenever CAD comes out with a new file format release, so every 3 years (2010, 2013, 2016, etc.).