Scheduling Apartment Units

[johncubed209967]

Does anyone have a technique to schedule apartment units? I'm looking for a way to count unit types and sort them according to number of bedrooms. Thanks.

[jsteinhauer]

You can use an area plan to accomplish this. Or use a parameter for all rooms of an apartment (#ofBedrooms), and place the number of bedrooms there. Sort your schedule by that parameter, and don't itemize every instance. Make sure you have the Count parameter in the schedule as well. Doing this will give you the total count of each unit type & area if you so chose. You can also use a color scheme to visually show the different units as well.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

[damon.sidel]

The area plan is probably the easiest way, but then you have a bunch of area plans that you have to manage. Here's two different ideas that may or may not work, just thinking out loud:

1. Create a unique unit entry door type and schedule that. Add whatever parameters to the door to describe your units. You could create a special door tag that would act as a unit tag. Seems simple, but I can imagine it may cause trouble for your door schedule down the road.

2. Create a family with only plan symbolic lines that is a "Unit" family and place one in each unit. With some shared parameters you could create a tag and schedule it. I've done this when we've had each unit type as a group that is copied over and over. Since you can't schedule groups, this was my solution. It works pretty well.

3. Create a mass for each unit (yikes!) that will make a Jell-O mold representation of your project. Then schedule mass floors. This could be a particularly good method at the beginning of a project if done correctly. We tried this on a concept design and it was working pretty well, but then the team overreached with this technique and tried to make the masses do too much work (GFA, leasable area, 2d and 3d diagrams, etc) and it got overly messy and complicated.

Those are my ideas!

[johncubed209967]

Not too keen on managing a bunch of area plans. But your No. 2 option seems like the one most free of problems as the project progresses. But could you be more specific in the steps to achieve this? I'm a bit new at scheduling I'm afraid.

[damon.sidel]

your No. 2 option

By "your" I'll assume you mean me, not Jeff since I numbered my options. :) But if you meant Jeff's idea of adding a parameter to all the rooms of an apartment, I'll let him explain.

1. Create a new Generic Model.
2. In the Ref Plane view, draw some invisible lines, like a circle with an X inside. This will allow you to select the object, but won't show up in your plan.
3. Create some shared parameters, each one for a column of your schedule. Maybe something like the following: "Unit Number", "No. of Beds", "No. of Baths", "No. of Rooms" or whatever else you want. (I would recommend against a field for area. If you are going to that, I'd go with a solution that involves area plans or rooms like Jeff suggests, so that you don't have a manually input number that becomes incorrect as you change things.)
4. Load into the project and place one of these in each unit.
5. Create a Multi-Category Schedule using the shared parameters that you created for the fields of the schedule. Viola!

Hope that is clear enough.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Although Damon's option 2 is something I have also used and suggested, if it's me doing the project I'll always default to area plans just because they will ultimately give you the most control and flexibility. You may only want a unit count now but somewhere along the line someone is going to want areas, and then they'll want color coded plans, and then they'll want a net to gross calculation and.....

the bottom line is, areas will do that and the other options will generally result in double entry of data at some point or another.
My general rules of thumb;
Net areas and finish schedule related stuff - room objects
Gross areas, code and by-law compliance and 'unit' or groups of repeated rooms related info - area plans

[johncubed209967]

It's clear enough for the sophisticated I'm sure but for a country bumpkin like me I'm getting stuck at No.3 shared parameters. When I go to 'Family Types' and then 'Parameter Types', click on Shared parameter/Select/Instance it turns into a twisted trail in a dark forest. Could you expand on this area?

[Steve_Stafford]

Shared Parameters are defined in a separate file that I think of like a dictionary. I store common parameters there for reuse in projects (elements and schedules) and families (tags and model elements). Revit needs a shared parameter when you intend to schedule AND tag an element to display information in a project. Tags are created with the family editor. Many families are created there as well. Since they are separate how does Revit know that these "words" we are using are really the same thing, same meaning? Shared Parameters...

If you don't have a shared parameter file the shared parameter dialog will let you make one. Then you can create a group to organize shared parameters in, then you can create individual parameters. Once they exist you can select and apply them to your families whether they are tags do model elements.

I've written about this subject a lot over the years on my blog, Parameter Post Summar (http://revitoped.blogspot.com/2012/09/parameter-related-post-summary.html)y, if you'd like more background.

[johncubed209967]

Thanks Steve. The thought is amazing that when all I want to do is be able to keep track of the quantity of each unit type (studio, 1BR, 2BR and 3BR) while designing, that I would have to read such an enormous amount of material before I could do it.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

N = number of times you need to count or re-count units
T = time it takes every time you modify or re-count your unit summary
W = Total wasted time counting and re-counting

N x T = W
How much can you read in W hours?
How many jobs will you need to do this for in the future?

Initial set up is a bit more work but once you've got it done you can use it over and over. Conclusion... it's worth the effort.
Now go out and golf this weekend 'cuz you don't have to waster your time counting units ;)

[johncubed209967]

Thanks Dimitri. I ended up counting units. It took 15 minutes and was a relaxing task. I have developed a manual way of updating the totals as well so I'll be able to cut the time. This will be the most time efficient overall. I'll be doing some cycling this weekend and perhaps some weight training but if the weather stays nice some more cycling.

[Steve_Stafford]

You asked for more information, I answered.

I didn't go down the road of rethinking the other answers. If I was after a quick count I probably would have looked at the room summary, each unit probably has a least one room that isn't repeated in the same unit, but present in every unit, like a kitchen maybe? A quick filter for this singularity and I'd have a quick count of units based on this one thing present in every unit.

That said, with shared parameter knowledge in hand I could have added all the shared parameters I needed and had it finished in less time than it took to write my previous post. It isn't that hard really. You'll also use shared parameters eventually for many things so it isn't a waste of time to learn about them and you only need to read enough till you feel confident enough to know what to do.

When I learned it there wasn't anything written to learn from (other than help files, and forum discussions like these). The fact there are many places to read about them know is a win for you and others.

[johncubed209967]

You gave me an inspiration Steve. What I did was use televisions. I duplicated and renamed a 36" TV as a 3BR, a 32" as a 2 BR, a 27" as a 1 BR and a 19 " as a Studio. I then inserted the appropriate television into the corresponding group (aka apartment). It works like a charm. I now have a schedule showing unit count broken down by number of bedrooms.

[Steve_Stafford]

Each room could have a prefix that identifies Unit number and each bedroom could carry a Comment to indicate 1 of 2. Then a room schedule would be easier to sort and count. Each room could just have a comment that is unit number + #bedroom. Same result but based on rooms and built in parameters.

The other solutions described earlier using a shared parameter are just broader ones (but not really much different than what you did) that lets you tag a room with the info too and use your own custom parameter name. It's taking the immediate problem and planning for more than you think you need now, for when someone later says I'd like to mark these units with the bedroom designation.

[MikeJarosz]

Initial set up is a bit more work but once you've got it done you can use it over and over. Conclusion... it's worth the effort.
Now go out and golf this weekend 'cuz you don't have to waster your time counting units ;)

Whenever I start a new Revit project, I remind everyone that Revit frontloads the job. You will do extra work in the beginning, but the payoff comes in the end.

Once you have learned this lesson, do not accept a Revit project that extends only through DD, then hands off the job to the joint venture partner. You will do all the work in the beginning, and the partner gets all the payback!