Content per Project?

[julia.201711]

Hello all! I've been given the task to slowly start transitioning our office to Revit from CAD by creating some project standards. I've been digging through blogs, tutorials... you name it, for the past few days gathering information to work off of. Among many questions that have come up, one major one is regarding something I heard at a Revit lecture a couple of weeks ago.
People were mentioning that their offices store content (families and such) separately per project. Then, afterward, any custom components created can be moved into a folder for review before joining the "office standards" folders. I'm fairly comfortable using Revit, but have very little knowledge on how the file paths actually work in Revit and how to set up office standards, etc (but I'm learning!), and no one else in the office has any knowledge on these topics either. I guess I'm wondering what you think of this idea, how it works, and how to set it up. It would probably help if I better understood where this things are typically "stored" and how you can source them per project (copy and paste the library every time and re path the file location? or...?)
Thanks for your help and any suggestions you might have!

[mtyp]

Good Luck with this, I've done the transition twice now and you never stop learning. (everyone wants something different or someone breaks something in a weird and wonderful way)

Both times around I chose to start out with a Network Library, I moved some of the better families (and cleaned up many others) into the Library from the standard install. Its a small start but a good one. I also created a Network Deployment that pointed every new install to that folder (Metric Library etc.)

Then users work on a project and create content as they go. This is stored in the Project Specific Families (PSF) folder next to the Revit File on the network.

The second transition I chose to do something a little different. Really helpful, commonly used or good families are saved from Revit or the PSF folder into a Suggestion Box stored next to the Network Library. These are quickly checked out to make sure they work and then added into the library.

I should point out that the Network Library is read only and only a few key personal (called Revit Admins) can edit files in the library. The Suggestion Box is open to everyone.

We also wrote a proceedure that everyone needs to follow to check their families before adding them to the suggestion box. The Revit Admins also uses this to quality check the families before adding them to the Library. Can be a little time consuming but it works well. Nice working families for everyone.

Revit is really good with its paths. And you don't really need to maintain them as the family can be stored only in the project (not on the network or PSF folder). This is a favourite editing method by one of the users (and really annoying). They edit the family, change it, load into project and there family no longer resembles the Library one and its not saved anywhere!! But of course if its a goody it gets saved into suggestion as an update to the library.

Hell thats a lot of typing, I really should be cleaning out the suggestion box instead of cruising the forums...

Good Luck. Email me if you have any more questions or would like to see extracts of the procedures.

Matt

[dhurtubise]

Definitely use a network library for the custom and OOTB content (dont mix them). Then add the project library. The process is right, someone needs to go over, clean them and maybe make them parametric then move them to the custom library.
The process is fairly straight forward and people get use to it very quickly.

[julia.201711]

Thanks for the feedback! One question I still have - how do I direct the projects to their own personal library/how are they created?

Thanks!

[patricks]

The thing I don't like about separate libraries for custom-created and OOTB content is that I don't like having to look more than one place for something I need. Say I want something like a refrigerator, or a piece of furniture. I wouldn't want to have to browse through separate libraries trying to find what I need.

Having said that, you could differentiate between stock and custom families by a certain naming convention, like a prefix on the filename, or better yet a suffix so that families of the same type (like refrigerators) will still be grouped together when sorted by file name, whether they are stock or custom.

Our office only has 3 Revit users, and we just kind of make content as we go, although I probably make and/or customize most of the content around here. I kinda like the suggestion box method. I would probably try to set up something like that, if I only had the time.

[dhurtubise]

You only look in one place the custom one. Theres a link to the OOTB one if you dont find waht your looking for :-)

[mtyp]

Thanks for the feedback! One question I still have - how do I direct the projects to their own personal library/how are they created?

Thanks!

You never refer to the whole library. You only pick up components as needed. This means you can have mixed content in your project. Revit manages the links between files for you.

Someone may correct me here, but i've never seen a family update from the network if the family changes. You need to reload the component to fix or change it. I have deleted families to still only find them in use months later because someone didn't read there email...

[dhurtubise]

Someone may correct me here, but i've never seen a family update from the network if the family changes. You need to reload the component to fix or change it. I have deleted families to still only find them in use months later because someone didn't read there email...

That's exact.

[julia.201711]

Great. It's all starting to come together more smoothly now. slowly...

Thanks for your help! New questions are coming up, but those will be posted in a new forum, soon....