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Thread: Upgrade and Deployment Strategies

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    Default Upgrade and Deployment Strategies

    This is probably better in the CAD Management section but I see very little posted in this area for Revit Design Applications/IT/IS/Digital Design Managers. I am particularly interested in hearing from those managing software for firms of 100+ employees.

    We made it through the 8.0 to 8.1 upgrade, 8.1 to 9.0 and 9.0 to 9.1. Each upgrade became increasingly difficult to manage as the number of staff using Revit has grown exponentially. Since we made the decision to migrate a year and a half ago, all new projects are Revit and most new TI and renovation projects are also Revit. We just completed the Revit Architecture 2008 / AutoCAD 2008 deployment and upgrade and all things considered, it was not too awful.

    But there must be a better way. Here is what we did followed by a few specific questions.

    • We used New Forma to identify all the .rvt files in the network and contacted the Project Managers when we found odd stuff - all was organized in advance with a list of about 100 projects to upgrade (we did not upgrade projects with drafting views exclusively).
    • We used New Forma for a side-by-side comparison of new OOTB content and content we made or modified so we could upgrade families what we needed to bring forward.
    • Our DA staff upgraded all the projects over a weekend allowing us to find any other problems we may miss during day-to-day support (with plenty of notice - no one was allowed to work on projects between specified hours).
    • We notified all consultants in advance to try and avoid problems sharing files.
    • We created a login script that installed AutoCAD 2008, deleted Revit 9.1 and installed Revit 2008.
    • At Monday morning login, the whole DA staff was available for questions and trouble-shooting.


    Biggest problems were coordinating consultants - issues are complex enough with structural consultants who share Revit models mostly with us. What happens when MEP is added to the mix and area consultants work for multiple firms? Who drives the train? Are we forced to coordinate upgrade schedules with our competition in the area? How are you all handling this issue?

    Next big problem was managing the content. New Forma helped but it's pretty tedious. It is silly to maintain two separate network content libraries for OOTB stuff and our stuff - too many picks and clicks for the staff and too difficult to keep track of the stuff we delete that just does not work correctly. Is it that tough for Autodesk to provide a "what we changed" content list?

    Tutorials are an issue. We do not want to write more in-house manuals for each upgrade but the OOTB tutorials do not have good demonstrations for new features. Are you all just relying on your staff to figure it out?

    Would be really nice to have a batch upgrade for .rvt and .rte files similar to .rfa files. Anyone know if this is on the development horizon?

    Let me know if any of you have better/faster/smoother methods.

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    Default Re: Upgrade and Deployment Strategies

    Hey Phyllis, great thread

    As for installation, we're not doing auto-installs anymore. If a new PC is imaged, then it probably gets the latest versions. We're upgrading on a user by user basis. We don't have nearly the volume of Revit projects you guys have, so that factors into our decision. Too many times upgrades are ready when projects are about finished, which is a very bad time to upgrade anyway. So depending on the project, we would either wait for a phase to end before upgrading, or if the phase is in the middle and is long, then we upgrade in the midst.

    We keep the OOTB content completely separate from our customized stuff. Our IT has recently set up a special drive (I believe it's called DFS) which is automatically synch'd with all office locations when a change is done. Also, when you log in, the content is copied to a special location on your C drive. If it exists already, it's just checked and only changes/additions are copied.

    We have not done any custom tutorials yet. Its very hard to keep up especially with software upgrades every 6 months (still, it's a good thing!). But somehow we need to get that knowledge passed on to the teams fairly quick so they can take advantage of the productivity benefits in the new releases. It's not an easy task and I think the most efficient method would be some lab-style sessions where teams go through a short class highlighting the syllabus and then work through a tutorial of sorts, with an instructor offering support as they go along. Hopefully we can get there someday

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    Default Re: Upgrade and Deployment Strategies

    A few quick comments:

    We keep OOTB content seperate from custom. Consider putting in place one of the new external tools such as 'BIM Library Manager' (name from memory?) to look after content. This would mean content could all be kept in seperate locations, but the user would still have just a single interface point.

    It is possible to modify the batch file for rfa's to handle rvt or rte files instead. Pop it open with Wordpad or the like and simply change the designator it is looking for.

    We do run, as David is suggesting, a one day lab to review updated and added tools and methodologies in new versions.

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    Default Re: Upgrade and Deployment Strategies

    We modify the Revit.ini file to have custom shortcuts listed in the Open dialog box - this allows users quick access to the OOTB and Firm content. The INI file is copied via the deployment.

    We have consolidated much of the OOTB content for the three Revit platforms as there is much overlap (we use Arch, MEP & Struct). Any comments on this?

    We provide bi-weekly training to most Revit users. The training is broken up by office and then by specialty/project (multi-family housing vs. commercial). This hour is very productive as it is the platform for staff dialog on various tasks and procedures within the Revit environment. We have created a few "cheat sheet" pages but no tutorials per se.

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    Default Re: Upgrade and Deployment Strategies

    Doing some research on deployment and came across this thread. We're not in Phyllis' category of 100+ users, but some of the questions/comments are applicable for 2 - 99 users.

    See below for my summary of 'where to put OOTB content' versus 'customized content'. All three responses noted they separated OOTB content from customized content.

    QUESTION: OK... How do you store 'customized content', 'downloaded content', etc. We're switching to Revit and trying to figure out folder structure on the servier. Do you create on Library folder and under that locate the OOTB content and a gazillion other downloaded libraries separated into folders by where they came from? Or, separate customized content from OOTB and just mix the downloaded content into one jumbo/mumbo folder of 'who knows where it came from'? PS, we probably couldn't afford Newforma (cost?) to compare content, so for us, it's probably important to strategize a rollout that doesn't create a mess 6-12 months down the road.

    Summary of responses:
    ==========================
    Phyllis :
    We used New Forma for a side-by-side comparison of new OOTB content and content we made or modified so we could upgrade families what we needed to bring forward.

    Phyllis:
    Next big problem was managing the content. New Forma helped but it's pretty tedious. It is silly to maintain two separate network content libraries for OOTB stuff and our stuff - too many picks and clicks for the staff and too difficult to keep track of the stuff we delete that just does not work correctly. Is it that tough for Autodesk to provide a "what we changed" content list?

    David:
    We keep the OOTB content completely separate from our customized stuff. Our IT has recently set up a special drive (I believe it's called DFS) which is automatically synch'd with all office locations when a change is done. Also, when you log in, the content is copied to a special location on your C drive. If it exists already, it's just checked and only changes/additions are copied.

    Wesley:
    We keep OOTB content seperate from custom. Consider putting in place one of the new external tools such as 'BIM Library Manager' (name from memory?) to look after content. This would mean content could all be kept in seperate locations, but the user would still have just a single interface point.

    UpNorth:
    We modify the Revit.ini file to have custom shortcuts listed in the Open dialog box - this allows users quick access to the OOTB and Firm content. The INI file is copied via the deployment.

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    Default Re: Upgrade and Deployment Strategies

    We created two folders on the server: Revit Content and Firm Content (replace Firm with your firm name). The folder structure is identical for the two - we opted to add "(empty)" to folder names that have no Firm content in them yet.

    We limit file creation rights to these folders to "content experts" so the content is cleaned up a bit before others have access to it. Other users will email families to the content experts for inclusion in the firm library. Everyone has the ability to copy/download this content to their project.

    The Revit Content folder also has the version number in it; for example - "Revit Content 2008". This allows us to create a new folder for each release which allows transition time for various project teams to move from on release to another. In some cases the project is so close to completion we do not want to upgrade it before it goes out the door. Revit files and content are not backwards compatible.

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    Default Re: Upgrade and Deployment Strategies

    Quote Originally Posted by UpNorth View Post
    The Revit Content folder also has the version number in it; for example - "Revit Content 2008".
    Thanks for such a clear explanation! We're new to Revit and I'm trying to get the content on the server organized. When new 'builds' are released such as SP2_RAC2008.exe that just came out, to you have a content folder below the Revit 2008 folder for each 'build' with it's respective content? Other messages I saw said that content is rarely changed in 'build' releases, but there seemed to be reservations on the part of some that we don't really know, which is why some said they create a folder of content for each 'build'.

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