Design Options, Phases and Workset Strategy

[phyllisr]

This might perhaps be better posted in a CAD Management discussion group but it is so strongly a Revit question, I will start here. If the moderators think another venue is better, please feel free to move.
When you establish both design options and worksets (so 2 designers can share the model and avoid duplicating effort) what strategy do you typically use for worksets? In the early design phase, it seems non-productive for worksets to be organized by building shell or floor or whatever seems logical for CDs. Do you allow each designer to create a "personal" workset?
When you have phasing (assuming a production person accurately creates the existing building correctly) and then designers working with the model create options, how do you manage worksets?
If your project is not a central file in the early stages and you allow different designers to work independently, how do you create "rules" for options that would allow simple copy-paste from one RVT file to another should that be important? For example, a large building with a core element and two wings might have several different core concepts and several wing concepts including various numbers of floors. Assume again that Designer A creates the image the client likes but Designer B has a site concept that is most economical with a smaller footprint and more floors? How do you put them all together before moving to the DD phase? Keep in mind this is only an example. It could be anything and any combination.
I started an "organizational chart" in Visio to map how we would manage the options, the phasing, the links, the multiple designers (perhaps) and assigning worksets. My chart of possibilities looks like a bowl of spaghetti. I am preparing to support four projects and I would like to avoid a heart attack.

Thanks to all with good advice.
PBR

[hand471037]

When you establish both design options and worksets (so 2 designers can share the model and avoid duplicating effort) what strategy do you typically use for worksets? In the early design phase, it seems non-productive for worksets to be organized by building shell or floor or whatever seems logical for CDs. Do you allow each designer to create a "personal" workset?

Don't have time to get into the other items, but with the new 'borrow as you go' Worksets in 8.1, you don't even need to create worksets for two people to work together, for Revit will auto-borrow any element edited to the person that made the edit, and then check it back in when the next save-to-central happens. You only need worksets now to divide up the project for management (turning parts off to speed things up), visibility, or control (where some part of the project does need to be totally controlled by someone or 'locked'). This leads to a lot less worksets needed, and a lot less management overhead. I'd highly recommend that you stop using person-specific or task-specific worksets, and instead borrow-as-you-go...

So what we're doing at a place I'm helping out is (in SD or before, mind you, later it gets more complex) just having very basic Worksets to devide up the project in a logical fasion and for visability, i.e. Site, Building, Unit Interiors (it's an apartment building), Entourage. That's more to match the desired ability to turn off the unit interiors & entourage specifically within certain views than anything else. On a simular project done at another office prior to 8.1 we would have had 20 worksets by now instead of these four. Another thing to consiter however is on this project the overall surrounding site is a linked in RVT master site file, so if that wasn't the case then we'd probably have two worksets, one for the site, one for the surrounding site...

[aaronrumple]

At the design stage, focus more on visibility related worksets for presentation.

[phyllisr]

...Unit Interiors (it's an apartment building), Entourage. That's more to match the desired ability to turn off the unit interiors & entourage specifically within certain views than anything else. On a simular project done at another office prior to 8.1 we would have had 20 worksets by now instead of these four. Another thing to consiter however is on this project the overall surrounding site is a linked in RVT master site file, so if that wasn't the case then we'd probably have two worksets, one for the site, one for the surrounding site...

In your referenced example, might you be also sharing a linked structural file? Should we proceed with one of these projects, that will be a concern. I understand your statement about SD and complexity further into the project - are you reasonably confident your method will allow a seamless transition from one phase to another? We have a relationship with the contractor who will likely build the project. This contractor is on board with us philosophically and aggressively pursuing BIM for broader budgeting and take-off purposes. How much information is being used in your project outside the internal design and document production?

I am attending a session at AU (from my Must Attend list) on units and apartment buildings so your advice is directly pertinent. One project is a campus and I am planning to use a master RVT file for the site so I suspect your original scenario is what I will encounter. This is further complicated by the number of buildings on the site and the number of teams (I am using links but am struggling with how to handle the several "mirrored" buildings and two that are identical except one is 7-story and one is 4-story). Another challenge is managing unit plans that will likely be duplicated in all 8 buildings. I have some time to plan so thanks for answering quickly but do not feel the need to respond immediately or solve all my issues. Your few tips are already useful.

Thanks,
PBR

[hand471037]

In your referenced example, might you be also sharing a linked structural file?

In this case, no, for the structure is being done in plain ol' AutoCAD by a structural engineer, and it's a wood frame above concrete podium, and they don't show framing under those conditions.

The only time I personally would link in the structural model is if it's being done with Revit Structure by an engineer. If it's being draw as reference by the Architects based upon the Engineer's work, I'd put it in the main model, maybe in a workset if I wanted visibility control over it. That way it's easy to edit by the team members, and obvious as to where the information came from (i.e. it's reference drawn by the Architect, not actual drawn by an engineer).


I understand your statement about SD and complexity further into the project - are you reasonably confident your method will allow a seamless transition from one phase to another?

I am 100% confident that it will work. What we'll do is at the end of SD, we'll do a save-as, rename the project, change the SD sheets into DD sheets (and throw away the ones we don't need anymore), transfer in the DD standards from the DD template (that I'm helping them generate while SD is happening, it's a just-in-time implementation), cut-and-paste in standard schedules from same, and then finally make some more worksets to break the project up a little more for DD while merging/deleting others that aren't needed anymore. It's very organic, you don't need to perfectly plan right from the beginning too much. I know that's a habit left over from AutoCAD, where you'll have TONS of pain down the road from bad planning at the start, but with Revit things are more fluid, and can be changed so much faster, than it's largely moot. Just keep things clear enough so that people coming into the project understand what worksets are for what and you'll be fine. A very simple naming structure can go a long ways here.


We have a relationship with the contractor who will likely build the project. This contractor is on board with us philosophically and aggressively pursuing BIM for broader budgeting and take-off purposes. How much information is being used in your project outside the internal design and document production?

For this client (keep in mind I'm helping them out with Revit stuff, including production work on the project to get them up to speed/make deadlines, I'm not a staff Architect here) they are planning on just exporting schedules to Excel in the future to give to the builder. They would like to share the model as well, and are currently thinking about how to do that in a way that's meaningful (and doesn't get them sued) but haven't reached a set answer. A former place I worked that did a lot of similar housing projects, but where they were working for the developer directly (much closer to design-build) would share the model no problem via exported schedules, 2D & 3D DWF's, and the like.


I am attending a session at AU (from my Must Attend list) on units and apartment buildings so your advice is directly pertinent. One project is a campus and I am planning to use a master RVT file for the site so I suspect your original scenario is what I will encounter.

Hey cool! I'm teaching two different classes at AU, and will be in that multi-unit class as well. If you want to meet up and talk more, see some examples, just message/e-mail me. That goes for anyone who wants to talk at AU, for my wife's not coming with me and I'm not going to Disney World so I'll be pretty bored and looking to gab... :D


This is further complicated by the number of buildings on the site and the number of teams (I am using links but am struggling with how to handle the several "mirrored" buildings and two that are identical except one is 7-story and one is 4-story).

Wooo. Mirrored links. Big problem there. They don't work. Won't look right in section. You have to have two versions of each building, one for each hand. What we're doing on this project is simply having a master unit that once edited gets save-as'ed and then mirrored into 'Blah_Townhouse_Mirrored', and then that and the 'master' are linked in. Not so nice. See if you can just put on your plans something about the mirroring, and not show the mirrored sections at all, or do what we're doing (as well as pray that this gets fixed in 9...)


Another challenge is managing unit plans that will likely be duplicated in all 8 buildings. I have some time to plan so thanks for answering quickly but do not feel the need to respond immediately or solve all my issues. Your few tips are already useful.

Wooo. That's another hard one. What I would do there is make the unit plans into Groups that are then saved out into a sub-folder on the project, and then loaded into the 8 buildings. When you change one, you re-save it out, and re-load it into the 8 buildings overwriting the old one. You could use links instead, but then you can't tag anything, nor can you nest linked RVT's (as in, the units won't show on the overall site plan that links all 8 buildings together into one model...

See you at AU!