Associative Details Across Linked Files?

[cek]

Sorry if this has been discussed before but my forum search turned up no info.

We are setting up a campus type project and I was wondering if common details, which would reside in the main campus file can be associated with the linked file.

For example a roof flashing detail which would be common to all of the roof plans would reside in a common detail sheet in the main campus file but I would want to call the detail in the roof plan for the specific bldg that is linked into the main campus file. Is this possible?

Thanks for any input.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

You currently can't do a callout that will reference across projects. If you have the roof plan of the linked file in the host file then you can use the 'reference other view' option to get the ref to the standard detail.

In general each of the projects would probably be broken into a separate contract/bid package so you would need to save the detail out of one project and load them into the other. The one drawback, at this stage, is only 'detail' items will be saved out, no model geometry.

[Steve_Stafford]

How many buildings and how many details?

The File menu > Insert from File was intended to allow you to place existing details in more than one project. This means you'd have to do this for each building from the building that has the standard details.

You change the parent and then update the children when changes occur but only if the detail moves to another sheet or gets a new detail number. Otherwise "nothing" changed. All details would be plotted from the parent project file. The children projects are just "dummy" views and sheets so annotation is coordinated. Fwiw, the dummy views don't technically have to have anything other than a line or text element in order to place them on a sheet. The Insert from File tool will bring along all the 2D info which makes it a bit quicker to do. Plus if they are already on a sheet you can just load the sheet which brings the detail views along and puts them on the sheet for you.

[chodosh]

Okay Steve, having done this and hated every minute of managing the dummies (and I don't mean the engineers), what is the possibility of views between links becomming a reality for details? We can schedule across the links, but we really need a collaborative link relationship on some larger projects (like ours). The duplication required is a nightmare sometimes.

It would be ideal if we could manage all of the Views from a file linked from inside our own. We currently employ Linked Views for annotations that are not system annotations, but we are faking the sections and elevations in some cases and using dummy sheets in others. Seems ridiculous at best.

What we did do for details is set up a Standards file and used Transfer Project Standards and exactly what you suggested with importing views from that file. It works, but it takes a certain amount of babysitting that makes it almost a full time job and then you have to ask who has access to this file, etc.

I guess the question is, how do you organize your project teams so that schenanigans are not necessary? Do you do all your detailing in one file only and let that be a shared file that you set sheets up from that everyone has acces to (possibly not even worksharing enabled)?

Does anyone else think that this could be improved? Could associative Views between linked files become a reality? Can we create system annotation families that are intelligent across the link?

Best,
LC