Project Parameter vs. Shared Parameter

[kmarquis]

Can someone please explain the difference between using a Project Parameter vs. a Shared Parameter?

The option for Project Parameter just says "Can appear in schedules but not tags" Straight forward enough.

The option for Shared Parameters says, "Can be shared by multiple projects and families, exported to ODBC, and appear in schedules and tags"

I don't completely understand what they mean by across multiple projects. I'm building these particular parameters into the template. I'm working on adding some instance parameters to the door families such as Hardware sets and Fire rating. Is it good enough to just make these Project Parameters?

[Alfredo Medina]

A project parameters is a custom property that you add to elements of categories in your project. For example, you want your rooms to have another property named such as "Building #". Then you create a new project parameter for that, either from the Manage > Project parameters window, or from a Schedule of rooms. Then, you will be able to enter this value, the building number, to the rooms of the current project, and it will be visible in your schedule of rooms.

But, if the need to add a building number to rooms happens often in your office, then you may want to add a new Shared parameter in the office's Shared parameters file, named such as "Building #", that you and your coworkers can apply to multiple projects, or include in the office's template, as a custom property that applies to rooms, for example. That gives you the benefit of having that property be named in the same way in all the projects of the office, not named in a different way, by different users, in different projects.

Using a shared parameter for "Building #", instead of project parameter, gives you the additional benefit that you can edit the room tag, and add the shared parameter to the tag. In this case, the shared parameter definition works as a bridge between the family and the project.

[pfaudler]

Agree with Alfredo.

Shared Parameters can:

- appear in shcedule
- be used in tags
- be used in multiple projects + families
- NOT be used in Key schedule

Project parameters can:

- appear in schedule
- NOT be used in tags
- NOT be used in multiple projects + families
- be used in Key schedule to drive main schedule

In your case, if you want to drive main door hardware schedule using hardware key schedule then you may want to add them as project parameters and not shared parameters. As a rule of thumb, added parameters become SHARED if you don't want to use them in key schedule.