Yay!!! We have just upgraded to the newest version of Revit......now what?
This will inevitably bring up the question of ‘Do we
need to upgrade our project?'. The short answer is no you don’t “need” to. I
encourage projects to upgrade as 2014 offers a slew of niceties that will make
modeling smoother and kinda fun (take a look at parts and displaced views ;-).
But that in itself is not a reason to upgrade your project, it really comes
down to the Project Team, that is, can all your consultants upgrade along with
you. As with many things in life, we are only as strong as our weakest link so
if one consultant cannot upgrade for some reason then the entire project shouldn't I usually rely on the input from the PM on a project to make this
determination based on the 2 questions below. With that said, look to your PM
for direction if you are going to upgrade or not.
- General rule of thumb is if you are less than half way through CD’s then upgrading is reasonable.
- If your project is in CA and you are looking at another few years of construction then upgrading is reasonable.
- Staring a new project should always be started in the newest version of Revit, providing your consultants are up to speed.
2. Is your consultant team able to upgrade?
- All linked in models need to be upgraded to 2014 so if you have a consultant that is not ready or is unable to upgrade to 2014 then upgrading is not reasonable.
Now that you have the direction to upgrade (I’m assuming
there will be projects upgraded) what and how do you do this? I like to think
of a Central Model as a spider web with the central model being the spider
perched smack dab in the middle. We have all these other files linked into our
model to create a complete view of the project. So, the simple answer on how to
upgrade is start at the outer edges of the web with your upgrading before
upgrading your central model. Seems metaphorical but the reality of it is if
you try to just upgrade your central model right away you will have to allow
Revit to ‘temporary upgrade’ every linked in model. This is rather slow and you
have to upgrade them anyway so why not start with them.
Here’s a quick guide:
1. You need to get a list of all your Revit links so you can
go and upgrade them so open your project in the version of Revit it is
currently saved in. Head over to your ‘Manage Links’ area and take a snapshot,
write them down or do something to know what the names and locations of each
model. Then close out of your model.
2. This is the right time to make an archive of the project in
case the upgrade glitches. Copy all your consultants models into an archive
folder but not your central model just yet, we’ll cover that in a minute.
3. Start marching
through your hit list of linked models and start opening them one by one and
let Revit convert them to 2014. Save each one and move on to the next. Once
they are all upgraded then we can move on to our Central Model.
4. Now we are ready to address our Central Model.
a. Click on the ‘Open Project’ and select your Central Model,
you need to make a copy so select the ‘Detach from Central’ option at the
bottom of the window. When you open the model you will be asked if you want to
detach and preserve or discard worksets, choose to preserve them.
b. After it opens you might get a warning about missing
links. If so, take care of them by selecting the ‘Open Manage Links’ option. In
this interface go through and ‘Reload From’ and select the upgraded models.
c. Now you have a completely detached Central Model, it’s
time to save it as the upgraded model. Save the file and you will get a ‘Save
As’ window pop up. We are going to be changing the standard naming convention
in the upcoming release of the Office Manuals so rename it as you always have
with the project number first then a discipline indicator of A for architectural and S for structural then ‘CENTRAL’ at the end. The
additional naming we are adding is to add a Revit version identifier in the
name. So, after ‘CENTRAL’ add ‘-R14’. The name should look similar to this: NUMBER+DISCIPLINE_CENTRAL-R14.
You should also take a look under the ‘Options…’
button and make sure the ‘Maximum backups:’ is set to 3. You can also set the
‘Thumbnail Preview’ if you feel the need.
Click ‘Save’
d. Before closing out of the newly upgraded Central Model
you need to synchronize and make sure you are relinquishing all the user
created worksets. By default you will own them after making a new Central Model
so this is important to relinquish these before closing the file.
5. Now can move the old Central Model to an archive folder if
you feel the need…….and we are done with the upgrade.
6. All team members will need to make a new local copy from
the new Central Model before continuing with the project.
I hope this helps and as always you can e-mail me if you need
additional information on upgrading your project.
Regards,
Mike Adams
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