Elevate Your Workflow - Revit Schedules

Hello! We are back with our monthly newsletter. In this edition, we are looking at tips and tricks while working with Autodesk® Revit® schedules.

Revit schedules offer a lot of customization options that go beyond the default options. To make Revit schedules truly work for you in your project, here are some tips to elevate your workflow while working with them.

Note: These elevated workflows are demonstrated in Revit 2021, and some examples are more exaggerated simply for illustration purposes.

1. Close the Gap

Upon first creating a schedule in Revit, you are given the option in the first prompt to add as many or as few fields as you would like. Simply selecting fields to schedule and clicking "OK" will indeed create a Revit schedule. However, you'll see that a gap displays between the header and the rest of the schedule.

If you don't like the gap and want to get rid of it, you'll want to go to the Appearance Tab in Schedule Properties to uncheck the box "Blank row before data." This box is checked by default when you create a schedule.

2. Customize Colors and Text

You can customize text such as headers in the Appearance Tab as well in the Schedule Properties. The drop-down menus offer a selection of options. However, what if you aren't satisfied with that list? Go to the Annotate Tab along the top Ribbon and click on the Text flyout arrow. This opens up the System Family Text Type Properties. Duplicate one of the existing ones and customize the font, size, style, lineweight and more. Then, back in the Appearance Tab of the Schedule Properties, you will see the new option pop up for you to select from.

Beyond this, you can change the appearance of a whole column of data by right clicking on the column. Here is an example with shading and changing the font.

You can also customize a given part of the Revit schedule, such as the title.

Of course, if you want to reset any of your customizations, you can click "Reset Override."

Finally, you can introduce striping of colors for every other row to make your Revit schedule a bit easier to follow. You can do this in the Appearance Tab of Schedule Properties. Check the box for Stripe Rows and select a color of your choice.

3. Conditional Formatting

What if you wanted your Revit schedule to highlight or change appearance but only in certain parts and only in certain circumstances? That's where conditional formatting can come into play. Within the Schedule Properties prompt, select the field and create a condition for which that field will be affected. Note that the field you will have highlighted in the first prompt will be the one that expresses the effects of the condition in the second prompt.

4. Sorting & Grouping

You can sort and group your schedule in various ways to keep it organized. To break apart one large schedule in a more organized way, go to the Sorting/Grouping Tab in the Schedule Properties prompt to select the fields to sort by. You can sort by multiple fields in an ascending or descending manner, and you can even show counts and totals after each "group."

5. Filtering

What if you only wanted to filter by certain conditions in your schedule? You can do that by going to the Filter Tab in Schedule Properties and creating a condition for which to filter your entire schedule.

6. Freezing the Header

Do you have a fairly large Revit schedule? No worries. Freeze the header to make it easy to see as you scroll down. You can do this by clicking the Freeze Header button.

7. Consolidate, Combine, & Merge

Have you ever loaded multiple Revit families into your project only to realize that they have very similar yet different parameter names, or they perhaps have duplicate names? You can consolidate, combine, and merge fields for various purposes of a schedule.

Go into the Fields tab of Schedule Properties and click on the "Combine Parameters" button.

From there, you will have a prompt where you will need to specify the parameters you want to combine, any potential prefix, any potential suffix, and a separator value. Now here is where it can get really interesting.

In this first example, you can specify a prefix and a suffix. Revit will add the extra characters and separator value. This could work in a scenario where you need to consistently add something before and/or after any given field value as well as combine values of any given couple fields. Note that the Separator character does show up as a default, so if you do not want that showing up after everything, you can clear it out or change it to a different character.

In this next example, you can create a merge situation if you have two similarly named parameters. Duplicate and non-standardized parameters across Revit BIM libraries are part of a much bigger topic, but let's just say you want them to show up in the same column in the Revit schedule for sake of easy reading in the moment. You can do that with this next example by clearing out any separators.

The third example functions a bit like the the first example but it more or less is about concatenating things together with just the values of the fields as opposed to adding a prefix and a suffix as well. It also shows that you can combine more than two fields. Here is how that one would play out. Again, if you don't want that separator to show up all the time, you can change it in this prompt.

Now let's see what these new fields did in our Revit schedule. The first two columns are our original two similarly named parameters. The "New Model Field" adds a prefix and a suffix and merges the contents of "Model" and "Model Number."

"New Model Field 2" merges the values of "Model" and "Model Number" into one column.

"New Model Field 3" merges the values of "Model", "Model Number" and an unseen other parameter value that was present in some families but not all, just to show that you could do this with more than two fields.

8. Move on Up!

Have you ever put together a Revit schedule and realized that all the fields were out of order? You can quickly organize the order by moving fields up or down in the Fields Tab of the Schedule Properties prompt. But get this: you are not limited to moving just one parameter at a time! You can select multiple parameters and move them all up or down at once! Simply highlight whichever parameters you want to move and then move them all. Note that they need to be next to each other for this workflow to work.

9. ZOOM!!

In the ENGworks Global office, we are often sharing our screens. One of the challenges is making sure that everyone can see what we are showing and that we are all on the same page.

One critical tip involves the zoom feature. Within your Revit schedule, hold down the Ctrl button and then scroll your middle mouse button forward. This will allow you to zoom in much further to your Revit schedule.

As a bonus tip, this tip also works in the Properties window where system flow calculations, user selections, and more are located. We are often showing the robust functionality we build into our Revit content, and the zoom feature allows us to zoom in to the details that matter most.

10. Quick Cost Estimation

Revit offers various options for coming up with other values in a schedule based on formulas and more. One quick example is if you are looking for a total cost based on the square footage of a wall in your Revit project. You can create a parameter based on a formula to come up with a certain total cost. In this example, we simply multiplied the area by a completely fictional price just for illustration purposes.

That field can further be formatted in the Formatting Tab within the Schedule Properties. Since this particular example involved a fictional cost, you can make it display with a currency symbol, comma separator, and even round up to certain values. This kind of workflow can work great for establishing packages and costs of them within the Revit schedule.

Conclusion

So there you have it: Ten tips to elevate your workflow while working with Revit schedules. Please feel free to let us know if there are specific topics you would like to see in the next edition of NEWS YOU CAN USE, brought to you by ENGworks Global.

Autodesk Trademark Notice:

Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, Revit, AutoCAD, and Fabrication CADmep are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries.

This publication is independent of Autodesk, Inc., and is not authorized by, endorsed by, sponsored by, affiliated with, or otherwise approved by Autodesk, Inc.