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Revit Worksets and Worksharing

Worksets are a very useful but often misunderstood feature in Revit. Worksets allow a team to collaborate and they facilitate organization of building projects into related elements. They can even be used to speed up performance when opening and working in a model.

Using worksets effectively requires planning and a basic understanding by all team members. Most company BIM standards will include a section on Worksharing and Workset management and should be part of a successful BIM implementation and training plan. Let’s take a look at some basics of worksets and how they can be used for collaboration in a team environment.

Workset Basics

An easy way to think of worksets in Revit is to compare them to layers in AutoCAD. Layers and Worksets both contain groups of organized entities that need to be managed together or displayed to follow a set of standards. When beginning a Revit project, a designer will begin working in a single file to develop a design that may include walls, doors and other building elements. By default, all elements are placed in a single workset called ‘Workset 1’, much like drafting on ‘Layer 0’ in AutoCAD. This, however, is where the similarities between Worksets and Layers begin to diverge.

Unlike AutoCAD, individual object types such as walls, doors and windows each get their own layer in a 2D AutoCAD environment. Worksets, on the other hand, contain entire groups of elements such as shell walls, interior walls, furniture, etc. and will include any ‘hosted’ objects. An example of this is an exterior wall that contains doors and windows and would be placed on the ‘Shell’ workset. Any elements that require a host should ALWAYS be placed on the workset of the host unless otherwise instructed by the project manager or CAD/BIM manager. We will look next at the process of enabling Worksharing and Worksets.

Sharing the Work

Once the design has reached a point where responsibilities need to be distributed to a larger team, you will need to enable worksets. This is normally done as an event on the project schedule by a single responsible party. Under the COLLABORATE tab you will see the Worksets button, and you will be warned that you are about to Enable Worksets. Let’s look at what happens within the Revit environment once Worksharing has been enabled in your project.

Central File vs. Local File

Enabling worksets also changes the dynamic of how files are accessed, saved and worked on by the design team. Once worksets has been enabled, Revit will automatically create what is called a Central File, and each team member will create his own Local File that maintains its connection to the Central file. The Central file is NEVER to be worked in directly; doing so may result in files becoming corrupt or loss of work by other team members.

The user’s local file is usually saved to the local computer (please consult your company’s BIM standards for best practices) and not to the network for file storage and performance considerations. The local file is the same size as the Central file and can exponentially increase the storage space required for a project when multiple local files are saved on the network. Saving the file on the local computer will also allow for faster access and operation within the user’s local file where network traffic and other network operations can be eliminated until synchronizing the user file and the Central file is required. This operation is managed by Revit, and other users will be notified when another team member has made changes that need to be loaded into the user’s local file.

Synchronizing Changes

After enabling worksets you will need to be aware of how to save your changes. You can save changes to your local file at any time during your editing session, but since you are working in a local file that is still associated with a Central file, you will periodically need to synchronize your changes to the Central file on the network. The second function of synchronization is to load the contributions and changes that other team members have made to the project. NOTE: The save interval prompts a user receives can be modified in OPTIONS.

Below is the ribbon tab for Synchronization which not only allows you to save your changes back to the Central File, but also allows you to reload latest changes made by others. This tab has functions in which a team member can relinquish the Workset(s) they have been working on, and, if a problem occurs to the file, restore a back-up file or view the change History of the model during its lifespan.

Creation and Addition of Elements in Worksets

After Revit prepares the file, you will have an opportunity to view and edit worksets in your model. By default, Revit creates a workset for the level and grid objects and the Workset1 for all other objects. By clicking on the New, you will be able to create new worksets and control the behavior of the workset. In this example I have created typical worksets that can be assigned to individual team members. NOTE: Only the User-Created worksets can be renamed as the other types of worksets are managed by Revit.

To add elements to the worksets that were created in the previous step, you can begin to navigate within your model and select the elements that you would like to migrate. By locating the Workset property, you will have a dropdown list that allows you to place objects on the chosen workset. You can change the workset that an object is on at any time - assuming that it is not part of a checked out workset.

TIP: A quick way to select groups of objects is to use the Filter tool. Select multiple objects with a selection window and only check the ones that need to be moved. See examples:

Working within a Workset

Worksets allow for individual team members to work within a project that they are responsible for that may be adjacent to elements that others have established ownership of for editing. Each workset can be ‘checked out’ by a single team member that is responsible for those elements. Once a team member touches (edits) an element they automatically take ownership or ‘checks out’ the contents of the entire workset until they relinquish that ownership.

Checking out a workset prevents another user from inadvertently editing an element that belongs to another team member. If another team member legitimately needs to modify that element, they can put in an Editing Request and the owner of that workset will receive a notification that can either be accepted or denied and the requesting party is notified of the status of his request.

NEW! Workset Display modes

New for Revit 2012 is a feature that displays several display modes for the status of worksets in your building project. The visibility of worksets will help team members coordinate their work and visualize the status of the worksets. This includes a mode for the Checkout Status to know which worksets are checked out, who has Ownership of worksets, Worksets that need to be Updated in your model, and finally, a way to color code worksets so that you will see graphically in the view what workset any given element belongs to. These display settings will allow for much better understanding and control of your worksets.

Below are examples of the display settings of worksets and each can be adjusted to follow a team preference or to follow a BIM standard established in your organization.

Since this is a project setting that affects the work of others, your BIM manager should be consulted before making changes to display settings.

Performance Gains using Worksets

Now that you understand more about how worksets are used within a project, let’s discuss how you can realize some performance gains by turning off selected Worksets that don’t need to be seen or edited. When opening a Revit model, you may also select the worksets that you would like to open. When you select Open, you can click on the down arrow to select the Specify option and you will receive the Worksets dialog box once you click Open.

When the project opens, only the worksets selected will be displayed, therefore Revit does not have to calculate all of the elements in the worksets that are turned off. Navigation choppiness and lag encountered between editing commands and when switching views is noticeably reduced. It is a simple matter of opening the Worksets manager and turning on additional worksets only when they need to be displayed.

In conclusion, learning to master workset management will make you a very valuable part of a BIM project team and will deepen your understanding of Revit. I hope this has been informative and will give you more confidence when working with Worksets.
 

This page last edited on Tuesday, December 06, 2011