NBS Create Revit Plugin UK - experience using it?

[-luisa-]

Hello,
I'm hoping that those of you already using NBS Create think it's worth the effort. Mainly worried about 2 things:
1 - why oh why, does it rely on multi-category tags and not keynoting?
2 - are we really expected to build 2 walls for the external envelope, so they can be specified as 2 different systems (internal and external?)

Whilst I can just about live with the first one, I'm getting mild panic attacks just thinking about the second one.

[-luisa-]

...but also
3 - how can we assign a NBS clause to a material within a wall build up?

[andrewharle]

...but also
3 - how can we assign a NBS clause to a material within a wall build up?

We are using the NBS Create Revit plug-in, and generally it works OK.

If you have a multi-layer wall you can assign spec reference clauses to material and use the NBS material tag to cross reference. This does mean that you have to duplicate materials a fair bit (blockwork inner leaf, blockwork internal partition etc.).

Also you will find if you want to link some components to spec clauses using the materials, the easiest way is to have a temporary wall, and to assign the material you want to link to the wall. Then you can use the Associate Object with Clause tool to link the material to the NBS spec. This is useful for curtain panels etc. that can't be associated by other means.

You can edit the NBS default tags to change to text size etc. and they generally work well.

I do have a lot of gripes about the NBS Create software itself though. It is still rather half-baked. It has no proper search functions for the live spec content (whereas the Revit Plug-in does at least for clause titles), no undo button, no ability to copy systems between jobs apart from office masters, and poor revision tracking and comparisons between milestones, to name but a few.

Watch out too for the Performance and Full buttons, switching between them can cause the revision history of most of you spec clauses to be refreshed to the current date and time.

I am hoping that it improves over time.