Having Revit projects with families per room to pick them from seems much less efficient to me. Just have the stuff you need for each project in your template together with some you might not need for each project, most of the time having a few extra families in your project does not hurt at all.

This way people don't need to go to the server, look for the library project file they need, open it, oops wrong revit version, looks for the right one, open that, copy the family, close the library project, paste to project (oops does not work when you closed the project it was in) open library project again, copy family, go to your project, paste family, go back to library project, close that.

That said, having a library folder on your server that has other families people can use is useful for sure. In Holland we have a code for each type of building material and I have my library setup to that code. (21 - internal walls, 22 - external walls, 28 - structural walls, 89 - furniture etc.)

Better way to increase efficiency is looking at your template and optimize that. I do some small MEP projects and have setup my template so I can just drop in the model from the contractor and all the views and sheets are already done, view templates in place, views placed on the sheets etc.

I dont have different templates for different project mainly because what you mentioned. I don't want to update each template every time I want to adjust something to it, so I rather have some stuff in the template I don't use for some projects then needing to update each of them all the time.

Robin - I certainly hear what you're saying about the potential downfalls of using a tool like that. Currently we have our content libraries set up in a similar way as you have described above, by a specified code. I do agree optimizing the template is certainly seems to be one of the best approaches, and should be addressed first.

For me optimizing the template is an ongoing process (why I don't like having multiple temples for different projects) and adding and removing stuff is something I do all the time. I have the benefit of working by myself, so every time I think of something smart to put into the template I can and use it with a new project straight away. With multiple people in a company you need to take into account other stuff of course.

I am also trying out new stuff all the time, some end up in my template other do not. A few of the thing I'm working on right now

Project info, gathered with a Dynamo script and added to a Generic Annotation on my start sheet:


Annotation where I can keep track of a few things I need to do:


Way to place issue markers and set them to Resolved when done (they are in a schedule too):


Various schedules where I check all sorts of things:


But I would also like to hear what other people have done (or are doing) to better optimize their projects.

This is important to note, as it has implications to how much time and effort you will have to spend maintaining your library(s). For example, if you have "library files", do you also have the family content duplicated in another directory? And in the template? Oh, you have multiple templates? In multiple versions? As far as Revit is concerned, those are all independent family definitions and the burden is on you to make sure they are all "the same". I tend to keep things in 2 places (per version) at most - their "home" in the main library, and pre-loaded into EITHER the template or a System Family library file (curtain wall, stairs, etc).

I do have multiple templates, one for each version of Revit, but I only update the one for the last version (2018 in this case) unless it is something I really want in another version but since I start new projects in 2018 there hardly is any need for that.

Most families I use are in my template only and I have a few outside the template in the folders I described above, but those are there because I do not use them much.

I had a fair bit of furniture in my template (which I started to create for and during my second to last job) because we did interior projects as well. Since I'm not doing those now, I removed those from my template and moved them to the library folders.

I have started to do some MEP projects and that means MEP stuff gets put into the template and views and sheets are setup for that purpose.

So, depending on the type of work I do in the future, the template evolves.

Rochester, huh? Im from Syracuse, originally. And my folks are in Rochester now. Small world.

Im a bit snotty with my opinions, obviously... But here goes:

1. I believe if a firm has files people need to open to "hunt around" for things, the firms content management system sucks. Thats a crazy slow way to work. And people end up just saving stuff to their desktops, to work around it. its terrible. Plus, it also REINFORCES the idea that copying and apsting from one file to another is *okay* and that creates problems when people get lazy later, and start copying and pasting trash from one project to another.

2. Please note that i didnt say not to LOAD stuff from other projects, just not by hunt around then copy and then paste. I keep assemblies of items pre-built, as individual RVT's that can then get loaded as model groups. Bathrooms? I have about ten different prebuilt restrooms, that come in fully dimensioned and tagged. Then you just edit them to suit. Who wants to constantly rebuild bathrooms?

3. I ONLY load things in the Template if they are needed IN the template. I do NOT load all of the content i think people will use, in to my template. Things that have to go in System Families (profiles, for mullions, generic annotations for viewport titles, and any content i have placed in "legends" (which are live views for me) are in the template. My Door library is loaded in the template, but only because thats old history, and you used to have to preload things so the shared nested families would alphabetize. Now that it is no longer the case, the doors are only still loaded because i havent bothered to unload them. And yes, im planning on unloaded them. It will also cut my template size in half (but i honestly dont care about that one bit).

Having stuff loaded in the template sort of sucks. Then when the content gets upgraded, you have to go reload it (and all shared nested families) back in to the template. Then you need to check which family is the default for that category. Which is annoying.

4. Having a good Content Management Solution, is key. There are a bunch of them out there, at this point. KiwiCodes Family Browser, AVAIL, UNIFI, CTC BIM List Browser (and BIM List Server), Kinship, etc. They all have some benefits and some compromises. You have to pick the compromises you are happy with. Ive (historically) always used the KC Family Browser. It has an older version (r1) and a newer version (r2). The newer version is much prettier, but its also a giant pain in the ass to set up (my opinion), and doesnt handle my *custom* set up for travelling, all that gracefully. BUT, it has the smallest UI (which i care about), doesnt make me store my content on someone elses cloud (which im adamant about), is cost effective (which is nice), and allows me to set up TABS for content classifications that are MY CHOOSING, something a LOT of the content navigation companies resist doing alltogether. (Note: Opinions vary, on this subject. But in my subtle and humble opinion, if your content navigator MAKES me use SEARCH to find something... Its ****.) r1 and r2 both pictured. They are old pictures, since R2 isnt playing nice with me while im travelling.... Sigh.

5. Forgot my favorite one: Unless my firm was multidisciplinary, there is NO way i would manage more than one Template. ive managed (and am managing) a NUMBER of offices templates. And a lot of them work in many many market sectors and building typologies. Every time a firm tells me "we need more than one template," what they are actually saying is "we arent able to corral our staff to working with a common office standard." And yes, it really is that simple. The simplest standard that will work on your firms most complex market sector, will also work on your simplest market sector. Ive got ONE architectural template. Ive done Residential Houses, Hospitals, Office Buildings with Tenant Work, Warehouses, Restaurants, Churches, Movie Theaters, Shopping Malls, Apartment Buildings, Mixed use facilities, and several sports facilities, all in the same template, and with the same sets of standards. Sure, some buildings load in different standard details. And use different content. ZERO need for different templates.

Having that exact conversation now (multiple templates). I’m losing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So let them have them. And let them maintain them for a year. LOL

Sent from my Phablet. Please excuse typos... and bad ideas.

Aaron Maller
Director
Parallax Team, Inc.

We have 2 Arch templates. One for feasibility studies and one for everything else, ie. SD onwards.

The feasibility template exists purely because some architects or designers just want to get in there and go crazy with lines & filled regions (maybe walls/doors) and cartoon a few plans. They get a single view type for each type of view - 1 plan, 1 section etc. - & limited family types as most things can just simply be massaged from the example stuff already populated in views and on sheets. I can live with that because these drawings are simply for dealing with ensuring a project will meet stakeholder's needs and 90% of our jobs are the same typology anyway.

If this ever turns into a real job then that gets restarted in our 'real' template which will take us through to CD. It does have pretty much all the standard stuff we use on every project but nowhere near everything we could jam in there just to try and 'cover all bases'. BTW, the template that was in place when I started with my current employer had over 200 filled region types. Needless to say it does not now.

Today I spoke with a grad who has taken a feasibility forward and had an ID team drawing apartment types in there for a week. Walls, doors, furniture, finish floors...all copied & loaded from the parts files. Guess who has to explain to the ID team (who should have known better) that they now need to reproduce a week's work in the new file? (Hint, it's not me).

We have a few older versions -which are terrible- of kitchen/bathroom type RVT's which I'm still looking forward to making work as they should.