Inside the Factory: Tips from the Trenches - Using Parameters To Filter Views in Your Browser

The un-sung heroes of Autodesk are the Customer Success Engineers (CSEs) - the brave souls who spend 99% of their time in the trenches lending their expertise to individuals like yourselves. They pitch in on projects, impart their knowledge, and save many a you-know-what. Inside the factory we rely on these guys to be our eyes and ears on the ground. I recently found that many document their tips and tricks. I thought I would share some of these gems periodically. This first one is from Emmanuel Di Giacomo, a BIM Technical Advisor CSE based in France. This is one of those expert techniques many of you BIM managers already know. But for those that have not yet organized your browser in this manner - have fun! Thanks Emmanuel...

Using Parameters To Filter Views in Your Browser

You know that organizing your Project Browser can sometimes be kind of challenging. Some organizations and Teams often work by specialty like curtain walls experts, steel structure experts, façade experts, etc. Using parameters (either project or shared ones) to filter their views can help them directly see what they have to work on. Let's see a small example below. Let's imagine that some of the Team Members would have to work on the building skin and the rest on the Curtain Walls.

First step would be to create 2 parameters that will be used to "tag" our views. To do so, go in your "Manage" tab and click on the "Project Parameters" button as shown below. Then click on the "Add" button, the "Parameter Properties" dialog box will appear. Type in "CW" (for Curtain Walls) in the "Name" input field, choose a "Yes/No" Type of Parameter and apply it to the "Views" Categories on the right hand side. Click on the "OK" button to finalize your creation.

Do the same operation and create a "SK" parameter for the building skin.

You now have to create the corresponding views that will be used to help people working on the right architectural elements without having to see too many views in their browser. We will simply base our workflow on: one plan view, one section and one axonometric view for the 2 Teams, e.g. 6 views. Duplicate the 3 original Revit Architecture views 2 times by right clicking onto it in your Project Browser as shown below.

Then rename them using the following convention:

View Name – Skin / View Name – Curtains

This should give you the following structure:

It's now time to concretely "filter" these views in order to filter them further in the Project Browser.

Let's take an example for the "Curtains" views. For each of these "Curtains" views, do the following:

1/ Hide all Categories, except Curtain Walls by right-clicking on the Building Skin. In a more complex situation where you would have had more categories, you could have used the Visibility/Graphics dialog box.

2/ Then, from the View Properties dialog box in the left hand Properties Palette, uncheck the "SK" check box to indicate to Revit Architecture that this view is not about skin but only about Curtain Walls. Propagate the same properties for each of the "Curtains" Views.

Do the same for the "Skins' related views. In this case, you'll have to hide all Curtain Walls and deactivate the 'Curtain Walls" parameter in the View Properties as shown below and for each view of course.

It's now time to set up our Browser in order to have 2 sets of view displays, one for the Curtain Wall Engineers and the other one for the Skin Engineers.

To do so, switch to your "View" tab and then select the "Browser organization" item from the "User Interface" button.

Then, click on the "New" button to create the "Curtain_Walls_Only" browser organization. Once prompted to, type in the ad-hoc name for this set of visibility as shown below and click OK.

The "Browser Organization Properties" dialog box will then display. Choose to group by "Family and Type " first from the drop down menu as shown below, then to sort by "View Name" in an ascending way.

Once done, click on the second Tab, so called 'Filter". Once on that part, choose to filter by "CW" (your custom parameter) equals to "Yes". Click on the OK Button.

Once clicked on the OK button, you should reach the below dialog box. From the "Type" drop down menu, choose your new Browser Organization set up "Curtain_Walls_Only".

Please note that you should verify that all your Views'CW or SK parameters are correctly checked and not slightly grayed out as shown below. If this would be the case, the parameter would not work. To remove its "grayed" state, just click once on top of it.