Template files

[MikeJarosz]

I am working on a tough task: starting a firm wide Revit template from scratch. Because the effort isn't moving as fast as some would like, I was offered help from the staff. At first I didn't think that would work, as two people cannot be in the template file at the same time. Then I remembered that a project file can be saved as a template. AHA!!! I thought. I'll work-share a clean, new project and two of us can work on the settings. So I did a test.

I made a clean, new project and work-shared it, then saved it. I reloaded as a local and I went to save as/template. It was greyed out. It appears that approach won't work.

Is this really going to be a long drawn out process as I fear, or is there a way to spread out the work? In my mind I have this organized as settings and families. The families can be done outside the template and farmed out to staff. But the settings are the nut to crack. It seems that only one person can work on them.

What has everybody else done?

[MikeJarosz]

I took the workshared file and detached it from central. Save as/template was greyed out there too. Guess that route won't work either.

[irneb]

After you've detached and saved as, what happens after you close and re-open the non-workshared RVT file, or even close & re-open Revit?

Can you bind the workshared file into a blank template and import views/sheets/schedules/etc? Also what about Transfer Project Standards?

Sorry, we do it a bit differently: The working set of RVT files to make the template is worked on by 2 to 4 people, then those things are copied into the template. Not that we ran into the shared file problem before, never tried it that way.

[Craig_L]

Mine is broken up into 2 (actually 3) I have the template which controls 90% of the content, and then I have the template for view templates and view filters. The third is "standard details" which are standard legacy autocad details that have been redrawn and re-noted using revit, this isnt generally loaded into the standard project file but selected details are imported from it as required as views.

You could have your assistant set up the secondary template while you focus on the majority. Often this view template/filters is created from projects you've already done by exporting the view templates into this file, so you could have them stuff about with the simpler things while you modify the families, and set line styles and control the more important stuff. Or you could have them redrawing your standard CAD 2D details that still get used (ie non modelled components) in a seperate file - although this one needs some basics in it like line styles and units set up.

[davidcobi]

When you open the workshared file detached do not preserve worksets. You should now be able to save it as a template. I did this to preserve an unchecked "include" option for worksets in the view template settings, an option that isn't available until a project is workshared.