The 12 Golden Rules of Being a Revit Project Team Member

The maintenance and care of the project is about using best practices and ensuring all processes are followed as team members work.  The best practices for the end users are important to be in place and enforced by management because they often have the greatest impact in the day to day operation of the project. 

There are a number of best practices (rules) that end users should follow in their day to day work to when working as a team on a Revit project.

Here are my 12 Golden Rules of Being a Revit Project Team Member. 

     1:  Linking V’s Importing Files

Do not Import files into Revit, link them instead so they can easily be managed and removed when necessary. Only the BIM Captains have permission to import files into the project.

2: Families

Do not load your own families. If you feel you need a family that is not already loaded into the project or the family is not in the CEI Standard Component Library please ask your BIM Captain who will either source out a family or build what you need to suit.

3: Assemblies

If you require a new assembly in the project please inform your BIM Captain who will build what you need to suit. This includes Wall, Floor, Ceiling and Roof types. Any new assemblies can then be added to the overall assemblies sheet.

4: New Local file Daily

Creating a new local file every day, this practice ensures that the user is starting with a clean and most up to date version of the project and that they will not lose work due to an outdated dataset.  This practice also builds in automatic backups in case of failures and creates redundancy.  This practice also helps to “clear out” errors that could have possibly occurred and resets in affect the communication between the local file and the central file.

5: View Templates

Every view should have a view template associated with it.  If one doesn’t exist for what you need please contact your BIM Captain. Please don’t change view templates.  If changes are required please contact your BIM Captain.

6: Communicating Coordinated Syncs to Central with Peers

Coordinated syncs with others on the project and inform your team members when you are syncing.  On large projects coordination of sync’s ensure that not everyone is trying to save at once and that the projects files are being accessed all at once. Keeping to a “sync schedule” is a great way to foster communication across the team.

7: Workset Creation and Usage    

Please make sure you are working on the appropriate Workset at all times.

Worksets can become unwieldy if left along and unmanaged (like AutoCAD Layers can without monitoring) so its’ important to make sure the Workset guidelines are clear and being followed.  Without doing so, the project can quickly become a mess to understand, navigate, and troubleshoot in the case of problems. 

8: Using Working views

Views unlike model geometry do not have a noticeable impact on project and system performance (as long as too many are not open at the same time).  Creating working views for working on the model that allow documentation views to remain in place keeps things organized and allows others to know what is being worked on better by others. However please limit the use of 3D views as these are computer resource intense and inflate the file size.  

9: Close Hidden Windows

as mentioned above, closing hidden windows regularly to ensure that only the views needed are opened will save memory and improve working performance as a user works on the project.  Views themselves in the project do not impact performance, but having many views open at the same time in a session can cause some performance delays. 

10: Memory Management

Closing other applications - Users should take care to free up available memory before performing a memory intensive task on a project.  Things like printing, exporting, and rendering should be planned and considered before they are started.

11: Restarting Revit

Restarting allows the system to free additional memory and start from a fresh state. Close your computer down at the end of the day and restart when you come in in the morning, of the time this resolves 90% of the issues you may experience on a project.

12: Ask!

When in doubt…. Ask! Communication will solve and resolve any issues, when in doubt ask your BIM Captain or a colleague. Do not assume anything.

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