CHAPTER 11 Schedules and Tags To begin, I want to clarify something specific to the people who have been using AutoCAD Architecture: you do not need to tag an item in order for it to appear in a schedule in Revit Architecture. You can’t really just draft a sched- ule either. But this is not a bad situation to be in. Say, for example, you have a typical door schedule. Wouldn’t it be nice to just add a door to the model and have that door automatically show up in the schedule? Creating schedules Creating material takeoffs Creating key legends and importing CAD legends Adding tags Creating custom tags Keynoting Chapter 11 • Schedules and Tags 506 Creating Schedules Revit allows you to instantly schedule an item based on the fact that we are now using a full database. A door, for example, already has most of the information you need built into it. Didn’t it seem funny that when you placed a door in the model, it was automatically tagged with a sequential door number? This is the power of BIM. We are now going beyond 3D. Schedules do not stop just at doors and windows in Revit. You can schedule almost any item that goes into the model. Along with schedules comes the abil- ity to quantify materials and square footages. You can even create a schedule for the sole purpose of changing items in the model. In Revit, it is always a two-way street. The first topic we will tackle is creating the most common of the schedules in architecture: the door schedule. Once you get this procedure down, you will be off and running. The good news is you have most of the information you need to create a mul- titude of schedules. The bad news is the Revit-produced schedules are not going to look like your company’s schedules at all. Before we go further, it is important to note that some of you will be able to get a perfect duplication of your compa- nies’ standard schedules; some of you will not. Those of you who will not have to get as close as possible to your standards, and at that point know that some- times the cost of doing BIM is not in the pocket but at the plotter as well. Given that, let’s get started. I think you will find creating and using schedules a wonderful experience. You are about to learn how you will save hours upon hours of work, all the while maintaining 100 percent accuracy. Adding Fields to a Schedule To begin, open the file you have been following along with. If you did not com- plete the previous chapter, go to the book’s web page at www.sybex.com/go/ revit2011ner. From there you can browse to Chapter 11 and find the file called NER-28.rvt. The following procedure is going to focus on creating a door sched- ule. Grab a cup of coffee or a power drink, and follow along! 1. In the Project Browser, go to Level 1 floor plan. 2. On the Create panel of the View tab, click the Schedules ➢ Schedule/ Quantities button, as shown in Figure 11.1. 3. The next dialog box, as shown in Figure 11.2, allows you to choose which item you would like to schedule. Select Doors and click OK. Creating Schedules 507 FIGURE 11.1 Click the Schedule/Quantities button on the View tab. FIGURE 11.2 Select Doors and click OK. 4. The next dialog allows you to add the fields (parameters) required for your schedule. The first field you will add is Mark. To do this, find Mark in the area to the left, and click the Add button in the middle of the dialog, as shown in Figure 11.3. 5. When this field is added, add the following fields using the same method (see Figure 11.3): Height Width Level Door Finish Door Hardware Group Frame Finish Chapter 11 • Schedules and Tags 508 Frame Jamb Type Comments FIGURE 11.3 Adding the fields to produce a door schedule 6. Click OK. Your schedule should be similar to Figure 11.4. FIGURE 11.4 The door schedule up to this point Creating Schedules 509 The next step is to start organizing our data in our preferred display format. We have a long way to go, but when we are done, this schedule can be used over and over again. NOTE A schedule does not have to be placed on a drawing sheet. Many times you will produce a schedule to simply manipulate data without having to search for it in the model. Sorting and Grouping Since Revit is a database, let’s think of building a schedule as simply creating a query in a database, because that’s exactly what we are doing. By creating a sort, we can start to see our doors in groups and have a tangible understating of where we are. Let’s get started. 1. In the Project Browser, you will see a category called Schedules/ Quantities. Open the Schedules/Quantities group and open the Door Schedule. (This procedure applies if you are not already in the schedule.) 2. New to Revit 2011, you will see that the schedule’s properties are vis- ible in the Properties dialog while you are in the schedule. However, you can still right-click and click View Properties, as shown in Figure 11.5. FIGURE 11.5 Right-click the schedule and click View Properties. 3. In the Properties dialog, you will see a category called Other. Click the Edit button in the Sorting/Grouping row, as shown in Figure 11.6. 4. On the Sorting/Grouping tab of the Schedule Properties dialog, set Sort By to Level. Chapter 11 • Schedules and Tags 510 FIGURE 11.6 Click the Edit button in the Sorting/Grouping row. 5. Check the Header option. 6. Check the Footer option. 7. Select Title, Count, And Totals from the Sort By drop-down list (see Figure 11.7). 8. Click OK. 9. Save the model. FIGURE 11.7 Sorting the schedule by level The next step is to get the header information grouped the way we would like it. Most schedules include groups such as Door Frame and Hardware. We will create similar groupings. Creating Schedules 511 Controlling Headers Although this step is not crucial to producing an accurate, readable schedule, it is important in the attempt to get this Revit-produced schedule to look like the schedule you have been using for years in CAD. The objective of this procedure is to combine the header content into smaller groups under their own header, similar to what you can do in a spreadsheet. To start in with controlling the schedule headers, follow these steps: 1. In the Project Browser, open the Door Schedule (if you do not already have it open). At the top of the schedule are the title (Door Schedule) and the head- ers (which include Mark, Height, Width, and Level, among others), as shown in Figure 11.8. Focus your attention here. 2. The goal is to combine Mark, Height, and Width into a group under one header called DOOR INFORMATION. To do this, click on the Width cell and drag your cursor to the left. You are selecting all three cells. 3. Once the cells are selected, click the Group button on the Headers panel. TIP Sometimes when you are picking the first cell to do this task, you will accidentally click into the cell. You do not want this. If this keeps hap- pening, click into the Width cell, and then click just below the cell into the gray area. This selects the cell the way you want it. You can now pick the cell and drag your cursor to the left to highlight all the cells. FIGURE 11.8 Clicking and dragging across the three cells. This will activate the Group button. 4. Click into the new cell and type DOOR INFORMATION. Chapter 11 • Schedules and Tags 512 It would be nice if the defaults in Revit were all caps, but they are not. The next procedure will rename some of the headers. This will not change any values. 1. Click in the Mark header and change it to NUMBER. 2. Click into Height and change it to HEIGHT. 3. Click into Width and change it to WIDTH (see Figure 11.9). FIGURE 11.9 Adding the new header and changing the descriptions 4. Change the Level header to FLOOR. 5. Change the rest of the headers to uppercase. This includes the Door Schedule title, as shown in Figure 11.10. 6. Select the cells DOOR HARDWARE GROUP to DOOR FINISH. 7. On the Options bar, click the Headers panel. 8. Call the new header DOOR. 9. Remove the word DOOR from the cell DOOR FINISH and DOOR HARDWARE GROUP (see Figure 11.10). 10. Highlight FRAME FINISH and FRAME JAMB TYPE. 11. Click the Group button on the Headers panel. 12. Call the new header FRAME (see Figure 11.10). FIGURE 11.10 The groups are now complete. Now it is time to start filling out some of the blank fields. This is where you can increase productivity by using schedules. Instead of going door by door in the model, you have a list of every door right in front of you! Creating Schedules 513 Modifying Elements in a Schedule In Revit, data flows in multiple directions. When you created a schedule, the data from the doors flowed into the schedule to populate it. Now, we will ask Revit to collect data that we input into the schedule to flow into the doors. To learn how to populate the schedule, follow along with the procedure. 1. In the Project Browser, open DOOR SCHEDULE (if it is not opened already). NOTE Note that Door Schedule is now DOOR SCHEDULE in the Project Browser. This is because you renamed the title in the schedule— proof that we are dealing with bidirectional information. 2. Click into the DOOR FINISH cell for door number 101, as shown in Figure 11.11. 3. Type PT (for paint), as shown in Figure 11.11. 4. Click in the DOOR FINISH cell just below the one you just changed. 5. Notice there is a menu arrow. Click it, and notice that PT is in the list. Click PT (see Figure 11.11). 6. Save the model. FIGURE 11.11 Once you start filling out the fields in a schedule, the items will become available in the list for future use. Now, let’s see how this affected the actual doors in the model, and perhaps find a door that needs to be tagged with a WD (wood) finish: 1. In the Project Browser, open the Level 1 floor plan. 2. Zoom in on the door between the corridor and the east wing, as shown in Figure 11.12. . using AutoCAD Architecture: you do not need to tag an item in order for it to appear in a schedule in Revit Architecture. You can’t really just draft a sched- ule either. But this is not a bad situation. create a mul- titude of schedules. The bad news is the Revit- produced schedules are not going to look like your company’s schedules at all. Before we go further, it is important to note that. duplication of your compa- nies’ standard schedules; some of you will not. Those of you who will not have to get as close as possible to your standards, and at that point know that some- times the cost