Managing Revit Model Standards with Worksets & Usernames

Back in the AutoCAD days typically a CAD Manager would manage all the AutoCAD templates & blocks. Everything was available to all the design staff to use but they were not freely allowed to edit templates or blocks. This became a "check & balance" that made sense because it's much easier to manage a standard if there is not a "free for all" on it. If there was a "free for all" then drawing sets would not be consistent and things would run less efficient. This is why a CAD Manager typically has had things like templates and blocks locked down thus the term "CAD Nazi" became widely known.

With the switch from AutoCAD to Revit I have noticed that standards can get very messy very quick in Revit. There are several ways this happens. A few ways I have seen this happen is copying from other projects, transferring project standards or the model was never setup properly to begin with so designers just made things up on their own. For example often times a designer doesn't even know that they copied in several viewport types, text types and line types from a few different projects when they copied a few details.

Let's take a step back and make sure we are clear on the different types of standard items in a Revit model that can impact consistency between several disciplines:

System Families - Callout Types, Dimension Styles, Text Styles, Elevation Types, Grid Types, Level Types, Section Types, Viewport Types (View Titles)

Component Families (Symbol & Tag) - Title Block, Callout Head, Section Head, Section Tail, Level Heads, Grid Heads, North Arrow, Graphic Scale, View Title, Revision Tag, View Reference, Room Tag, Space Tag, Keynote Tag

*Discipline Specific Tags (Door, Window, Duct, Beam, Panel, etc.)

Project Settings - Line Weights, Object Styles, Project Units, Phase Settings

Most people might not know that most of these items can be made editable in the Worksets Manager. For example if the Callout Types were made editable by someone with the username "BIM Manager" when a designer goes to try to edit a callout type it will give a permissions message saying "You do not have permissions to edit this element BIM Manager has ownership of the Callout Types and will need to relinquish". Below I will go through how I have been using the Username and Worksets so users cannot edit these standard elements. This forces them to ask the BIM Manager to update a title block, symbol or project setting rather than working in a silo or going their own way.

Step One:

Change your username. Go to the Big R and Options. Change your username. I have been using something obvious so they know they need to contact me before editing the item. BIM Manager, BIM Coordinator,….BIM Nazi if you like to live dangerously. DO NOT FORGET TO CHANGE YOUR USERNAME BACK AFTER SYNCING AND CLOSING THE MODEL!

Step Two:

Open up each model and go to worksets. I select the following and make these editable:

Project Standards:

Families:

Callout Heads

Elevation Marks

Generic Annotation (Graphic Scales, North Arrows, etc.)

Grid Heads

Level Heads

Revision Cloud Tags

Section Marks

Title Blocks

View Titles

Views:

Any views used to coordinate the model that you do not want designers to edit

Step Three:

After I make the worksets above editable I also go into the model and "borrow" the levels and project basepoint. If a level gets moved or deleted it can cause major problems. Same with the base point.

Syncing and Closing Model:

When you sync the model uncheck all the boxes circled in the image below. This will sync but it will not relinquish all these elements you took ownership. When you close the model be sure to "Keep Ownership of Elements".  If you relinquish you will have to open the model and check everything out again. After repeating this 10-20 times you will get these memorized and it will only take about 2-3 minutes to go through this process in each model. This could save valuable time fixing problems after they happen.

DO NOT FORGET TO CHANGE YOUR USERNAME BACK AFTER SYNCING AND CLOSING THE LAST MODEL ON THE PROEJCT!