Using Revit Schedules to Streamline Your Project Development Workflow

In the previous video, we went ahead and got our 2D details in here. And I just kind of want to touch on this for a minute.

The real reason why we went ahead and put all that together and put this information in here was to just show you, you know, these details are kind of just generic details, but what you could use this for is that you can pull any non-model view from any other model or any other project that you have and pull it into your current one. So one of the tasks that I've done in the past at offices I've worked at is I've created a container file of those non-model views, whether they be details or schedules, and I have that container so that people can use that as a reference. When you have your typical details—whether that be trap primers, typical wall details, fixture support details, or plumbing pipe support details—those kinds of things are really kind of the same on every single job. There's always tweaks.

You always need to evaluate your details. I hate calling details a standard detail because every project has its nuance—maybe a code nuance, maybe a requirement of the design, those kinds of things. You still need to evaluate all your details, but at least those baseline details—typically what I call them—will get you, you know, 60,70,80,90% of the way there.

You might have to change some notes. You might have to draw things a little differently, but you have most of the drafting already done. And it really does speed up the overall process of putting together a project.

So using that insert and then insert from file, insert views from file, we're able to bring non-model views. Again, this says copy specified views, sheets, schedules, or drafting views, which are non-model views, from a project file into the current project. It's a really handy tool.

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I use it quite often. I use it for drafting views. I use it for schedules. I use it for sheets—baseline sheets that I've set up, maybe with some notes and everything.

You can do all of that in there and then it speeds everything up really quickly. And it's a little bit nicer than loading your template full of everything with all those items because not every project is the same. Many offices have different types of jobs.

So having container files that have those sheets separately from the template allows the template to nicely stay lean and clean. Then you have those container files where you clean everything up. So on that subject, let's go ahead and get started on our schedules.

We're going to create just a couple of schedules, and I feel that schedules are a very, very important part of Revit. A lot of people, I feel, sometimes don't necessarily use the schedules to their full advantage. So I'd really stress the importance—as a user of Revit—take some time to understand the schedules, understand what's happening.

Again, a schedule is just a table view of our model. If I were to go look at my Plumbing One sheet view, we know that this is just a view of our model, right? We're seeing the elements that are in the model. Well, our schedule is nothing more than a filtered table view of that.

In this view, we are seeing the walls, the plumbing fixtures, the piping, the pipe fittings, pipe insulation, all that kind of stuff, and all the different callouts. Well, in a schedule, we're seeing a very specific item. So in our schedule, the first schedule we're going to create is for plumbing fixtures.

So what I want to go ahead and do is go up to my View tab. I want to go over here to Schedules > Schedules and Quantities. We're going to scroll down and please find Plumbing Fixtures.

You can do it with the Multi-Category option, but I wouldn't. If you're trying to schedule something specific in a specific category, definitely go down to the specific category. You don't want to try to filter it.

I'm going to go ahead and hit OK. Now we need to pick the fields. So imagine this is our view—we're choosing what we want to see in our table view fields.

So here you are seeing many. We have many different fields. We want to see walls, floors, doors, plumbing fixtures, pipes. Well, we've already filtered this down to plumbing fixtures.

Now we want to choose the data from the plumbing fixtures that we want to go ahead and put in here. So what I'm going to do is grab Type Mark because we are going to be using the Type Marks. There is also a Mark parameter.

This Mark parameter is instance-based. If I had named each—let’s say from a plumbing perspective—I had Pump 1,2, 3, and 4. Those may be the same exact model of pump, but they're servicing different systems.

I may want to have those separated out by Mark as compared to Type Mark. So I have Type Mark. I'm going to go ahead and give Family.

I'm going to scroll down and choose Type. Now this chooses the actual Family Name and the Type Name. Again, your Family Name or your Type Name might not be what you want to use in this instance.

We have data there, so we're going to go ahead and use that. But we can also bring in the Manufacturer. I'm going to bring in Model.

I can go ahead and bring in Type Comments if I wanted to. Take a look down this list and just kind of see what else you could go ahead and bring in here. All this data really can be filled out by the end user.

But I think this is a pretty good schedule for what we need it for. So: Type Mark, Family, Type, Manufacturer, Model, and Type Comments. I will also say that this is the order in which these will appear.

Obviously here, as an order, down here at the bottom you can change this order as you see fit—but this is a pretty decent way here. You also have some other options up here. I tend not to use these when I'm creating schedules.

I like to just get my schedule populated, get it done, and then I'll go back and refine it—very similar to how I draw pipe or how I put other items in. I want to get it in the model and then refine it later. So I can go to Filter, but we'll take a look at this.

We want to filter. We don't have any filter. We're doing all the plumbing fixtures, so no filters are applied.

I'm going to go to my Sorting and Grouping, and I want to sort by Type Mark. I just want these to be alphabetically listed. Under Formatting, everything here is pretty good.

A lot of times, I like to actually make all of these—except for Type Comments—centered. So what you can do is click on the top one, hold Shift, click on Model, and change the alignment to center just so it centers the text.

It makes it a little bit nicer. Under Appearance, this is what the schedule is going to look like when it's on a sheet. I typically like to have an outline.

I usually like to have it a little bit bolder, so we'll make it a Detail Line Weight of 3. Down here at the text, you can assign a template for this. I don't necessarily have one set up right now, but we can always look at that. I'm really not a fan of the Schedule Default Text.

This Schedule Default Text doesn't tell me what the font is. It doesn't tell me what the size of the font is or anything like that. So I typically like to assign it to something very specific.

So I'm going to assign this: my Title Text to ¼" Arial, my Header Text to 3/32", and my Body Text to 3/32". There we go. Everything else here is good.

I'm going to go ahead and hit OK. And there we are. As you can see, it's currently listing every single one that's in the model.

So I can get a count off of this. I can get a lot of information. What I can go ahead and do though—

I don't want to see every single one. I just want to see one instance of each listed. So I'm going to go over to my—let’s go click into Fields.

It's not here. It's under my Sorting and Grouping. Go ahead and uncheck "Itemize Every Instance."

Hit OK. And it makes our schedule a little bit nicer. You can go ahead and grab these and slide them out.

One of the nice things too is that you can zoom in and out of the schedules now. If you wanted to zoom into the schedule, you can do that by holding Control and then using your scroll wheel on your mouse. It makes it a little bit nicer just when you're working on it to make it larger.

If it's very zoomed out like this, it's really hard to work on it. Now again, this is a view of the model, so I can populate data here. So let's say that I wanted these fixtures to just all be Kohler.

That's what the client wanted. Maybe we'll make the urinals and the water closets Toto, but let's go—all the sinks—we're going to go Kohler.

So I can just click on the Manufacturer field and type in Kohler. OK. So that is the sink in the classrooms.

If I go over to my Plumbing sheet view, notice I populated that. I got that little warning. I'll type this one too.

It's going to say this will be applied to all elements of the Type. Because again, this is a Type parameter, not an Instance parameter. Hit OK.

If I go back to my plan and I look at my Sink 1—this is just to show you how these work—if I select this guy here, I Edit Type and I scroll down in Manufacturer,

You'll notice that Kohler is now populated here in the Type Properties. That's how these schedules work. The data is linked.

I'm going to hit OK. Let's go back to our plan.

Fixture schedule. We'll make this one also Kohler. OK.

We'll make this a Toto. OK. We'll make this a Toto.

OK. We filled out many data. You could also fill out specific model numbers, Type Comments, all that kind of stuff.

The other thing you can do with these is change these names. These are more like display names compared to the field's actual hard names (the parameters). So I can come into here, and to make this look correct, I'm going to type Mark.

I'm going to type—let's go with—let's go with Specifications. Let's go with Type. This one, I always like to retype just because I like it in capitals: Manufacturer.

We're going to go Model. And then some people like to say Remarks here, some people like to say Comments.

I'm just going to go ahead and say Comments. And actually, Type—I'm going to go ahead and change this to Description. There we go.

OK. We can go ahead—and I feel like I spelled this wrong. There we go.

That's a little bit better. OK. It's one of those words.

Also, sometimes I like to make this all caps. So I'm going to go ahead and make this ALL CAPS. And there we are.

That does change the name over here, just as a heads-up. So just be aware that that will change the name here. You can't have two Plumbing Fixture schedules without having something different in the title.