clouding schedules

[cliff collins]

When issuing revisions which include changes to schedules,
we currently cloud them on the sheet--but this is like putting annotations in "paper space"--
and if the schedule view gets moved for some reason on the sheet, the clouds/triangles
don't move with the schedule--anyone have a better way?

cheers.....

[dbaldacchino]

That's THE only way.

[twiceroadsfool]

What David said.

And thats true for all views, isnt it? All of our clouds are on the sheet, so the Revision scheduler can do its thing. We dont put any clouds in the views themselves...

[dbaldacchino]

You can put clouds in other views and especially with dependent views, this would be my preference. The revision schedule will still pick up the info., so the oddball would be schedule views. I also prefer to place all clouds in one sketch. EDIT: I no longer like to place all clouds in one sketch! And it's mainly because of dependent views, as this can cause visibility issues since clouds won't display unless they're all present within the crop boundary.

[chodosh]

Wouldn't it be great if you could associate clouds with text objects in the schedules on the sheet? Powerful 2D intelligent objects on Sheets would be cool (including text...). Here's a better question that makes this even sillier: when you issue before you final CD set and you don't need a cloud, nor a Rev Symbol, but need something in the Revision Schedule you have to draw a little cloud somewhere so that the "Revision" (that isn't a revision) can exist to be scheduled on the Sheet in the Titleblock and then hide it in the view or control all clouds in VG... This seriously needs improvement, but I usually hear the speech in response to these kinds of questions to "remember, Revit is not a drafting tool..." Um, okay, that's fine, just don't tie my hands based on that principal alone, please, titleblocks could be more parametric.

While I'm on (or, rather off) the subject does anyone know how to make a schedule go in reverse so that revisions can read from the bottom of the schedule first?
Something like this:

3 50% Design Submission
2 25% Review
1 Schematic Design

(Edit) I should add that my goal is to make this build from the bottom. Ideally the first line on the bottom should not move. Reversing the order of the schedule is only half the battle. I've tried contraining it, but not my ideal solution. Any ideas?

Best,
LC

[twiceroadsfool]

I used to like placing them all in one sketch too, but tagging them is annoying that way. For some odd reason, if theyre in one sketch i have to keep going bck to the side bar to click Tag > By catagory... If theyre in different sketches i dont have to. Its minor, but its irritating.

I really didnt know you could cloud in the view and have it work... Clouds are still considered annotation though, yes? So theyre view specific, except for parent views?

[twiceroadsfool]

Ugh, and on that note i still want some sort of "track changes" tool.....

[cliff collins]

Well, then it sounds like a Wishlist item--

-be able to place revision clouds/triangles
directly on schedules--

-or -

-be able to place schedules into their own "view", add clouds/triangles
then place on sheet.......

This is a very important issue--it is very common to have clouds all over schedules--
since schedules are one of the most typical items to get revised throughout a project,
and it's challenging to make sure they stay in the correct position.

And if for some reason the schedules are edited and change size--they "move"
on the sheet--and then you must go back and move the clouds/triangles--very
anti-Revit/BIM! There should be a "smart" way to do this in Revit.

cheers........

[Calvn_Swing]

How about while we're at it, associative clouds. For instance, I change a wall in response to some RFI, and now that wall changes in multiple views (the beauty of a model database). I don't want to have to find each view and cloud the bloody wall, I want Revit to cloud the wall for me in every view where it changed. Don't say it can't be done. Revit knows what views need to be refreshed when the change is made. This is kind of like a track changes tool, but with clouds. Anyway, I always thought it was dumb that we try and redline and revise a Revit model the same way we would CAD drawings...

[chodosh]

How about while we're at it, associative clouds.
Nice idea. Someday, maybe?

...I always thought it was dumb that we try and redline and revise a Revit model the same way we would CAD drawings...
Agreed. And some of the more sophisticated things we're used to doing in 2D CAD are removed in Revit, making all of these basic drafting techniques even sillier by contrast.

Best,
LC

[twiceroadsfool]

Yup... That was the basis of my wanting some sort of a trach changes dialogue. Revit needs a way of letting us know whever everything has changed, otherwise using a 3D database of intelligent model to produce a set of 2D documents is still somewhere in the middle of driving a hovercraft and riding a horse...

[dbaldacchino]

Echo you can change the sort order of your schedule by going to the revision schedule in the titleblock family and make the desired changes in the Sorting/Grouping tab.

Aaron, I agree about the tag issue and it irritates me too :) Yep, the clouds are view specific. If you duplicate a view with detailing and the revisions were checked as "Issued", you'd have to uncheck and delete the clouds if you don't want them (or adjust the visibility). I wish you could manipulate the visibility of a particular revision per view rather than the whole project.

I truly believe that the way Revit handles Revisions does not reflect what the industry needs. I just went through a ton of revisions due to cost reductions, but in order to issue 8 1/2" x 11" or 11" x 17" sheets, we butchered the original set. If we used RAC2008, by using Dependent views, we could have made the process better. But now, if we want to re-plot an updated set to show all changes clouded and tagged....well....that's not possible unless we spend weeks trying to incorporate those changes back to the original sheets. Revisions need to work differently; we literally need to set up a special sheet within a sheet. Basically, we need dependent views of sheets. That would solve the problem, because you still work on the sheet views, cloud in either the view or the sheet, then you create a "dependent sheet view", crop it and place it on any titleblock you need.

I like the idea of tracking changes. On the topic of schedules, you can actually copy & paste a schedule without duplicating (didn't know that). But if you break it up to fit on a smaller sheet, the original schedule on the main document sheet will also break up. They seem to behave like dependent views.

[cliff collins]

The thread has gotten a bit off track.... (although the other points brought to light are very
relevant as well..)

So--back to the initial issue--we need the ability to cloud schedules--not
"in paper space" on the sheet!!!

Revit needs a better way to handle this, at a minimum. Then also the other
items which have been brought up.

Cheers........

[david.metcalf]

And to get back off track. : )

We need to be able to rotate the revision schedule to be along the vertical edge of teh sheet when rolled up. To verify the version of the print by the Revision date.
Good day all!

[dbaldacchino]

Please post a SR about the schedule rotation issue....I just did myself two weeks ago. If you rotate a titleblock, the rev. sched. jumps out of it's location and doesn't rotate. EDIT: This has been fixed as of Revit 2010.

[ijnicholas]

Clouding in the sheets is scary and next to impossible...did anyone find a proper workaround?
We are trying to add a text parameter and track the revisions in that column. (1.1 = Revision 1 in column 1 of the sched; 1.3 = revision 1 in column 3; 1.5,6,7 = revision 1 in columns 5,6,7; 2.4 = revision 2 in column 4; etc.)
Any thoughts?

[cliff collins]

One way to keep clouds and rev. triangles from "moving" on the sheets/over views
is to pin the view and the clouds/triangles--this way you at least get a warning
that you "cannot move pinned objects", etc........

This is what I've been doing for now.

But we still need the basic ability to cloud schedules.


Cheers......

[justin.black]

I really like the idea of having a sheet dependant view as David mentioned!! Has this been added to wishlist? Would this solve the issue of not being able to scale a "viewport" on a 8X11 or 11X17 sketch titleblock?

This does need some work!
JB

[DaveP]

Pretty sure there's nothing new on this topic, but I thought I'd bump it just in case.

We just had a building official complain to us about this exact issue. We changed several (actually a lot of) items in our Opening Schedule and the official is complaining that they can't tell what changed. We added a (AD#3) in the comment field (manually, of course) so they could at least see which lines have changed, but they want us to tell them exactly which field changed. Specifically, he wants to know it the Fire Rating is different.
As several people mentioned above, we could put a Revision Cloud on the sheet but that's not only labor-intensive and prone to error, but will actually be wrong if the number of lines change.
As of the Subscription Advantage Pack, we can color-code the field in the Schedule View, but that's not going to help when we print it for the Code official.

I doubt that there's a fix yet, but it the Factory is listening, this is still an issue. And, now that I'm having a problem with it, it should be a top priority! ;)

[cliff collins]

Yes. Glad this has been bumped back to the surface.
This thread was started in 2007----here we are 3 years later, with RAC 2011 right around the corner.

Placing Revision Clouds directly on a Schedule is a must-have, because of the LIABILITY
that can be caused when the clouds are placed on the Sheet and then the View gets moved
by mistake. A typical human error--which is exactly what Revit is supposed to help us avoid!
Maybe we'll see this as a new feature in RAC 2011?

I'm not holding my breath..........

I wish there was a better way to get critical issues like this one heard and solved by the Factory. Very frustrating, indeed.

cheers................

[DaveP]

.... the View gets moved
by mistake. A typical human error--.....

It's not always by mistake. It's usually not even a human moving things!
If you have clouded the 30th line in your schedule, and new object gets added to the model, the new object may be on the 5th line.
now your original object is on line 31, but your cloud is still on line 30.

And don't even get me started on clouding the line when an object gets deleted :shock:

[cliff collins]

Dave,

Agreed.

The "human" then has to manually chase the "movement" of Revit's scheduling
and adjust all the clouds on the Sheets............. very anti-BIM indeed.

cheers....

[dbaldacchino]

Nothing new here. And I concur! I had a very similar issue in my current project. A couple of doors weren't scheduled (mark was incorrect so they were excluded) but when corrected and more rows were added to the schedule, the clouds were now incorrectly pointing to the wrong rows.

[rudolfesterhuyse]

Pretty sure there's nothing new on this topic, but I thought I'd bump it just in case.

We just had a building official complain to us about this exact issue. We changed several (actually a lot of) items in our Opening Schedule and the official is complaining that they can't tell what changed. We added a (AD#3) in the comment field (manually, of course) so they could at least see which lines have changed, but they want us to tell them exactly which field changed. Specifically, he wants to know it the Fire Rating is different.
As several people mentioned above, we could put a Revision Cloud on the sheet but that's not only labor-intensive and prone to error, but will actually be wrong if the number of lines change.
As of the Subscription Advantage Pack, we can color-code the field in the Schedule View, but that's not going to help when we print it for the Code official.

I doubt that there's a fix yet, but it the Factory is listening, this is still an issue. And, now that I'm having a problem with it, it should be a top priority! ;)


Used the same system but it is not ideal. Rather than clouds I prefer using a different colour or BOLD text in schedule items revised which is what we used to do, different colour reads clearly and easily, bold maintains this when reproduced in black and white. If the schedule format changes, the "highlight" remains relevant. Disadvantage is that there is no "live" record of old revisions (excuse the contradiction in terms) Eitherway this is not possible with Revit schedules but may be worth considdering as opposed to clouds. My problem with clouds on schedules are that they obscure to much other important information.

[rudolfesterhuyse]

Yup... That was the basis of my wanting some sort of a trach changes dialogue. Revit needs a way of letting us know whever everything has changed, otherwise using a 3D database of intelligent model to produce a set of 2D documents is still somewhere in the middle of driving a hovercraft and riding a horse...

I fully aggree but how do you see this this work? I can only see it as a placemark of sorts which tracks al changes subsequent to each revision but we are issuing sheets not the whole model.

Revit will therefor need to know which sheets are issued and combine "incidental" changes to other drawings to subsequent revisions for those sheets that weren't issued while not doing so for sheets that were issued.

I think it will be rather complex but I also think the whole issue needs some serious considderation in order to make this an intellegent process and that it must be possible to improve this and that it something which should be prioritized. That said 2010 already showed some significant improvement to the way revision schedules work.

[cliff collins]

The Model Compare feature may help in tracking changes from a previous to current model. If this could somehow tie into the Revisions function, then we may have a very powerful and useful tool.

Perhaps in RAC 2012?

But first, just give us the ability to cloud Schedules!!!!!!!!!!!

cheers........

[chrisstaker]

Bump... It's 2023 and this still seems to be a pretty painful process of tracking changes in Revit schedules. How's everybody doing this now?