How are companies using the Sheet Set Manager ?

[yangarcht]

I believe SSM is just one of those tool like "paper space" when it just came out in the older version of ACAD where every one refuse to use. Now every one is using it.

Yet, I see many improvement require to make this tool more user friendly in Autodesk part...

Link detail view port name to sheet automation like Revit



I wish Revit and ADT will eventually merge into one as more advance program. This will just save many learning curve for many company.

[StaceyG]

We've told our people to ignore the View List tab altogether. Partly because we need to teach things in incremental steps. Partly because we have a rule about not having anything in paper space.


I have found that SSM is just a glorified version of PUBLISH unless you are using the View List Tab.
If you already have your Titleblock on Paperspace, I dont realy see the benifit of using the SSM at all.

[Opie]

We've told our people to ignore the View List tab altogether. Partly because we need to teach things in incremental steps. Partly because we have a rule about not having anything in paper space.


I have found that SSM is just a glorified version of PUBLISH unless you are using the View List Tab.
If you already have your Titleblock on Paperspace, I dont realy see the benifit of using the SSM at all.

To me, SSM is faster than Publish, as I do not have to open the Publish dialog. I can send one drawing in the set, many drawings in the set, or even the whole set to Publish. I can do this with the defined page setup in the drawings or can override the page setup. All of this with a few clicks.

I can also link text in one drawing to a sheet name and number of another drawing in the set. If the name or number is changed, I don't have to go open the drawings to find the text to update.

I don't use the View List tab either. We don't use views. We setup our sheets, which most of the sheets have the same view but with differing layer states. We then import those layouts into the sheet set. Our fields are already setup for the title blocks.

It is also a quick link to the drawings for the set.

There are probably additional benefits, but I can't remember them at this time.

[Chris.N]

We've told our people to ignore the View List tab altogether. Partly because we need to teach things in incremental steps. Partly because we have a rule about not having anything in paper space.


I have found that SSM is just a glorified version of PUBLISH unless you are using the View List Tab.
If you already have your Titleblock on Paperspace, I dont realy see the benifit of using the SSM at all.

who's rule? up till 3 years ago my department was all in Model space, then embraced SSM (in its entirety) along w/ DB's & tool Palettes.

last spring i was able to bring up the other 80% of the company out of the ModelSpace abyss and into paperspace w/ the SSM. what helped the most was documentation on how to set up & use the features according to discipline (department).

[pmedina]

I have used it to do the automatic sheet numbering and detail callouts, sheet index.

Some just use it to organize drawings. Most, i guess have not used it alot. We might have about 275 users.

[binary.youth]

I work in an architectural office - I am the as a young intern (I try and embrace it)

SSM is somewhat useless without the objects to support it.

Trying to update my office is much like herding cats. Much of our office says things like: well I mastered autocad in version 12/14 in 19XX when I took a class - "this is how its done". I have been slowly transitioning our office standards to SSM and other Database related functions (annotative feature, table linking - we get a lot of excel files from consultants, basic display settings/wall&window types etc., and a script to transitions our old files from the office CTB to AIA compliant CTB) .

Most of the drawings from other Architects are line Based (I can no longer relate to this, except for casework). At least enforce the use of basic blocks - this way the blocks or their attributes can be updated/replaced with intelligent objects in a single script (there is free third party software available) - its a huge time saver.

In addition placing several common wall types and other elements, page layouts w/ viewports set to the correct display settings into the office standard template made a huge difference in office compliance. I distribute/over-write the office standard files (dimstyles, sheets templates, drawing templates, PC3's) on user machines with the server login script which is run at every login. These had an interesting tendency of reverting to old/ancient/odd files.

I do not believe the rest of the staff will be using views anytime soon.

[guitarchitect7]

hmmmm, before i switched our dept. to SSM, we still did all plotting from modelspace and xref'd a lot. of the things i've noticed and observed, the biggest thing some have a problem with is that SSM only recognizes one layout per file for a sheet in the set. since we had no previous biases, it wasn't a problem for us.

for printing, i have all page setups saved in the sheet template. i can batch plot to plotter, DWF, or any printer i have a setup for, and any quantity i need. unless i update or add them in the middle of the project, the large (full size) format is always default in my setup. it's also great being able to r-click and spit out a reference set on 11X17 by selecting an override plotter and not opening up anything. this info is linked from the sheet creation template also, so it's always the latest and greatest.

as for re-naming files, i've had no problems there either, as long as you are not in the file you are trying to rename. i just wish it would also rename the layout tab...

the SSM has been awesome with the ability to add your own SSM properties. i've even added fields in the SSM propertiesfor where certain types of drawings can be found (schedules, etc.) to update our standard front-end stuff at the 'callout' legend index.

with new stuff available, new thinking is required. for us, it has worked wonderfull! btw, i'm still in v2006.

Okay, how did you do that. It seems that when I try to reduce down my Arch C & D sheets to 11x17 I'm unable to do so. When I set my plot are to layout as needed for SSM, "fit to page" is grayed out and not valid. I've been just importing the page setup every time within the publish dialog box.

[Chris.N]

Okay, how did you do that. It seems that when I try to reduce down my Arch C & D sheets to 11x17 I'm unable to do so. When I set my plot are to layout as needed for SSM, "fit to page" is grayed out and not valid. I've been just importing the page setup every time within the publish dialog box.

in my template, (and default override file, if separate) i create the required page setup, but so i don't have to create size specific reduction setups for all my sheet sizes, i have to use the "EXTENTS" Option for printing area. this also means that in your sheets, you can't have any objects outside of the layout area.

[sinc]

Okay, how did you do that. It seems that when I try to reduce down my Arch C & D sheets to 11x17 I'm unable to do so. When I set my plot are to layout as needed for SSM, "fit to page" is grayed out and not valid. I've been just importing the page setup every time within the publish dialog box.

Create your reduced layouts so that they use "Extents" instead of "Layout". Then you can select "Fit to page".

This means you can't leave clutter lying around the outside of the layout, the way some people like to do. Instead of that, try to get used to using things like Tool Palettes or the Dashboard, instead of leaving your commonly-used items lying around in the DWG layout. Also, make sure you don't do something like leave something on a non-plotting layer (such as a viewport boundary) hanging outside your title block - that can mess up the zoom extents, and cause your plot to come out reduced and off-center.

[guitarchitect7]

Normally I do extents, but I thought for the SSM overrides you had to use layout. I will have to double check that and see if extents will suffic. Thanks.