When new users migrate to BIM 360 Cloud Collaboration, they may be surprised that the occasional Revit feature performs differently to the Local Area Network (LAN) based Revit, or it does not exist.
It is common for architects to use groups when they start to design a building where rooms or apartments are repeated on separate levels (floors). Once the group has been defined to satisfaction, in a LAN environment, one can then save the group instances out as individual linked files.
Within the BIM 360 Cloud Collaboration Revit file, there is no such option. Instead one would have to create the links externally, delete the groups and then link the file back again.
One of the reasons why groups are useful is that one can assign identifiers to individual components. For instance, a door in a group on Level 1 may be given the mark of D101, while a door another instance of the group may be on Level 2, and one can then independently name the door D201. This is all great, but I have noticed, on a mechanical model, how a few hundred group instances can really slow a computer down.
Link instances can be put on their own worksets, which means that one can switch the instances off through not loading the workset. There is now no way to natively control the information in the door (what is its number).
Now for those that are familiar with Dynamo, there is a workaround for this (at least I have thought of a strategy that achieved the desired result). One could leave the links intact (not bind them). Each door can be uniquely identified through a combination of Link ID and the Door ID.
I used some BimorphNodes package nodes to grab these ID’s, although one could just as easily use the Revit API and Python, and use the unique identifier as opposed to the ID (more reliable).
In theory, one could then tag linked doors through a substitute family (containing only a point to identify it) that travels with the door through scripting.
If you would like to be able to save groups out as links from within Revit Cloud Collaboration models, please vote for the idea (the picture below is hyperlinked).
If you need help using and managing Revit, contact Micrographics so we may be of assistance.