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Understand shared parameters, tagging, and scheduling.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
9 min.
Transcript
00:04
Shared parameters can be created within a family or in a project environment.
00:09
A shared parameter can be used across multiple families and
00:12
projects and hence is an externally stored text file.
00:16
Shared parameters can be tagged and scheduled
00:19
and exported to open database connectivity.
00:23
In the diagram below,
00:25
you would typically have one shared parameter file on the file server.
00:29
When you are required to create a specific parameter,
00:32
either in a project or a family,
00:34
you can browse to the file server and use the shared parameter
00:39
in the examples below. You can see that the parameter load in FZ
00:43
has been added multiple times to the project.
00:46
This can happen when multiple people create their own
00:49
shared parameters and add them into a project.
00:52
This is likely to happen if the project has work
00:55
sharing enabled and several people are working on the project,
00:59
shared parameters should be very carefully managed.
01:02
Also note that if a shared parameter is deleted,
01:05
then order tags and schedules that reference that
01:08
parameter will be invalid and need to be recreated
01:12
in the level one plan. You can see that we have a foundation layout.
01:16
These foundations here have been created with shared parameters
01:20
before we edit the family and take a look at how this has been created.
01:24
Let's look at the functionality with tags and schedules.
01:28
You can see that some of these pad foundations have already been tagged
01:31
and the tag is showing the length, the width and the thickness of each foundation.
01:37
We'll now select this tag here
01:39
and on the context ribbon, we'll go ahead and select copy
01:44
on the options bar, ensure that you have selected multiple.
01:50
And for the move start point,
01:52
I'm going to snap to the top left hand corner of this foundation
01:56
and I'll then snap this to other foundations.
01:59
And as we do this,
01:60
you'll notice that the tag then reads
02:02
off the correct dimensions for each foundation.
02:10
Let's also take a look at a schedule
02:13
in the project browser under schedules and quantities.
02:15
Go ahead and open up pad foundations
02:19
note here that the type name is not controlled in the tag.
02:23
The tag is built up out of some shared
02:25
parameters and those parameters are based on the length,
02:28
width and thickness of that foundation panel.
02:31
We also have some instance parameters here allowing us
02:34
to add the vertical load on these foundations.
02:38
OK. Let's go back to the level one plan
02:42
before we open the family up.
02:44
Let's see what happens when we make a change to one of these families.
02:47
So I'm going to select this family here
02:49
and in the properties pad it, I'm going to select edit type.
02:55
Normally, the tag will be reading off the type name of this foundation.
02:59
So I'm going to duplicate this and I'm gonna call this one T four.
03:05
And here you can see that we've got some dimensions controlled in the pad size. Here.
03:09
In this example, I'm going to set this to 6 ft,
03:12
er, the width I'll set to 8 ft
03:14
and a thickness to 3 ft
03:17
if I click. OK.
03:19
The first thing you'll notice here is that
03:20
the tag automatically reads off the correct sizes.
03:24
And this is quite an important point because it's very easy
03:27
to edit a family and forget to update the type name.
03:30
And therefore your tag is displaying the wrong information.
03:34
We'll now edit the family to understand more about the
03:37
shared parameters and how they're used within the foundation.
03:41
Go ahead and select one of the families. It doesn't matter which one
03:45
and on the
03:46
and on the context, ribbon, select edits family.
03:52
So we're now in the family editor. Let's begin by looking at the creates ribbon
03:56
and selecting family types
03:59
in the family types dialogue box.
04:01
It's not obvious that these are shared parameters, but in fact,
04:04
the shared parameters are foundation length,
04:07
foundation thickness and foundation width and also the force in the Z axis.
04:14
I'm going to select foundation length.
04:16
And if you look at the bottom left hand corner of the dialog box here,
04:19
you'll notice we have edit parameter.
04:22
If I select this. We can now clearly see that this is a shared parameter.
04:27
You'll notice that the parameter name discipline and type is grayed
04:31
out because this is actually defined within the shared parameter file.
04:36
Notice here that the type is selected.
04:39
If I click on the select button,
04:42
you can now see that we're now looking at the shared parameters themselves
04:47
in the shared parameters. Dialog box, you'll notice we have parameter groups.
04:51
So I have a structural loading group.
04:53
And as we've said before,
04:54
I could use these parameters in multiple structural categories and families.
04:60
If I go to foundations again, I would have piles, I would have pile caps, pad,
05:05
foundations, strip footings and so on.
05:07
And I could use these for all of those different foundation types.
05:13
If I select the edit button here,
05:15
you'll notice that we can see the file path back to that shared parameter file.
05:20
Now, like I've said,
05:20
this would normally be on the server and normally there'd
05:23
only be one and this would be centrally managed.
05:26
You'll also notice in the edit shared parameter dialogue,
05:29
we can create a new shared parameter file.
05:31
If we wish, we can also change the parameter group.
05:34
And of course here we could create new parameters and new groups if we wanted to.
05:39
OK, let's click, cancel to the edit, shared parameter dialogue.
05:43
We'll also hit, cancel to shared parameters,
05:46
enter parameter properties
05:49
to show the dynamic nature of these shared
05:51
parameters and how they affect tags and schedules.
05:53
We're going to change the foundation length and
05:56
foundation width from type to instance parameters.
05:60
So let's go ahead and select, OK.
06:03
In the project browser and the floor plans, let's open up ref
06:06
level.
06:08
You can see here that we have foundation length and foundation width.
06:12
I'm going to select foundation length here
06:15
and let's take a look up onto the context ribbon
06:17
and of course, you'll see here that we could swap out the parameter that we're using.
06:21
But more importantly,
06:22
we can then decide whether this is an instance parameter or a type parameter.
06:27
So I'm going to convert this to an instance parameter
06:30
and I'll do the same again here for this one
06:33
and that's done
06:35
now, something that's quite useful is to be able to identify
06:38
instance parameters versus type parameters in the family types dialogue.
06:42
So let's take a look at that family types dialogue on the modify ribbon.
06:46
Let's go ahead and select family types.
06:51
If I expand the parameter column,
06:53
you'll note here that the instance parameters have
06:55
the word default in bracket besides them.
06:58
So that's a very quick and easy way of seeing which
07:00
ones are in instance parameters and which ones are type parameters.
07:05
OK. Let's select. OK.
07:08
And here we're going to load into projects and close.
07:11
And in this example, we will not save changes. So we'll select no to save changes.
07:17
And here we will overwrite the existing versions.
07:22
If I now select one of these foundations.
07:24
You'll now notice that we have shape handles on each of the faces of the foundation.
07:29
This is due to the fact that we're
07:31
now using instance parameters versus type parameters.
07:34
If I now drag these grips,
07:36
you'll see in real time, the foundation is now changing.
07:42
If I want to, I can also select here and I can type in my actual dimensions that I want.
07:48
So for example, here, I might want 60 inches
07:50
by 60 inches.
07:53
And for the foundation thickness,
07:54
I'll leave this the same because this is in fact a type parameter.
07:58
If we go ahead and select, OK,
07:60
you can now see the family's been built and the tag has updated.
08:04
Now, normally, if I hadn't used shared parameters,
08:07
it would be very difficult to put off
08:08
the physical dimensions of that instance driven foundation.
08:13
Let's now make another change to this. This time. We'll use the properties pad it
08:17
in the properties pad it because we've
08:18
now converted from type to instance parameters.
08:21
You'll see here that we can just simply make some changes here if we wanted to.
08:25
So now I'm gonna make this 4 ft by 4 ft
08:28
and you can see now the foundation's changed
08:31
and I'm now going to hold the control key down and simply duplicate this.
08:37
The reason why I'm going to do this and I'll just drag this back onto the grid here.
08:40
The reason I'm doing this is in the project browser.
08:43
If I now go ahead and open up the pad foundation's schedule,
08:46
you can now see that everything is updated again.
08:49
The schedule is reading off the shared parameters.
08:53
So you can see here if we look down through the dimensional sizes we have
08:56
now two T fours at 4 ft by 4 ft by 3 ft thick.
Video transcript
00:04
Shared parameters can be created within a family or in a project environment.
00:09
A shared parameter can be used across multiple families and
00:12
projects and hence is an externally stored text file.
00:16
Shared parameters can be tagged and scheduled
00:19
and exported to open database connectivity.
00:23
In the diagram below,
00:25
you would typically have one shared parameter file on the file server.
00:29
When you are required to create a specific parameter,
00:32
either in a project or a family,
00:34
you can browse to the file server and use the shared parameter
00:39
in the examples below. You can see that the parameter load in FZ
00:43
has been added multiple times to the project.
00:46
This can happen when multiple people create their own
00:49
shared parameters and add them into a project.
00:52
This is likely to happen if the project has work
00:55
sharing enabled and several people are working on the project,
00:59
shared parameters should be very carefully managed.
01:02
Also note that if a shared parameter is deleted,
01:05
then order tags and schedules that reference that
01:08
parameter will be invalid and need to be recreated
01:12
in the level one plan. You can see that we have a foundation layout.
01:16
These foundations here have been created with shared parameters
01:20
before we edit the family and take a look at how this has been created.
01:24
Let's look at the functionality with tags and schedules.
01:28
You can see that some of these pad foundations have already been tagged
01:31
and the tag is showing the length, the width and the thickness of each foundation.
01:37
We'll now select this tag here
01:39
and on the context ribbon, we'll go ahead and select copy
01:44
on the options bar, ensure that you have selected multiple.
01:50
And for the move start point,
01:52
I'm going to snap to the top left hand corner of this foundation
01:56
and I'll then snap this to other foundations.
01:59
And as we do this,
01:60
you'll notice that the tag then reads
02:02
off the correct dimensions for each foundation.
02:10
Let's also take a look at a schedule
02:13
in the project browser under schedules and quantities.
02:15
Go ahead and open up pad foundations
02:19
note here that the type name is not controlled in the tag.
02:23
The tag is built up out of some shared
02:25
parameters and those parameters are based on the length,
02:28
width and thickness of that foundation panel.
02:31
We also have some instance parameters here allowing us
02:34
to add the vertical load on these foundations.
02:38
OK. Let's go back to the level one plan
02:42
before we open the family up.
02:44
Let's see what happens when we make a change to one of these families.
02:47
So I'm going to select this family here
02:49
and in the properties pad it, I'm going to select edit type.
02:55
Normally, the tag will be reading off the type name of this foundation.
02:59
So I'm going to duplicate this and I'm gonna call this one T four.
03:05
And here you can see that we've got some dimensions controlled in the pad size. Here.
03:09
In this example, I'm going to set this to 6 ft,
03:12
er, the width I'll set to 8 ft
03:14
and a thickness to 3 ft
03:17
if I click. OK.
03:19
The first thing you'll notice here is that
03:20
the tag automatically reads off the correct sizes.
03:24
And this is quite an important point because it's very easy
03:27
to edit a family and forget to update the type name.
03:30
And therefore your tag is displaying the wrong information.
03:34
We'll now edit the family to understand more about the
03:37
shared parameters and how they're used within the foundation.
03:41
Go ahead and select one of the families. It doesn't matter which one
03:45
and on the
03:46
and on the context, ribbon, select edits family.
03:52
So we're now in the family editor. Let's begin by looking at the creates ribbon
03:56
and selecting family types
03:59
in the family types dialogue box.
04:01
It's not obvious that these are shared parameters, but in fact,
04:04
the shared parameters are foundation length,
04:07
foundation thickness and foundation width and also the force in the Z axis.
04:14
I'm going to select foundation length.
04:16
And if you look at the bottom left hand corner of the dialog box here,
04:19
you'll notice we have edit parameter.
04:22
If I select this. We can now clearly see that this is a shared parameter.
04:27
You'll notice that the parameter name discipline and type is grayed
04:31
out because this is actually defined within the shared parameter file.
04:36
Notice here that the type is selected.
04:39
If I click on the select button,
04:42
you can now see that we're now looking at the shared parameters themselves
04:47
in the shared parameters. Dialog box, you'll notice we have parameter groups.
04:51
So I have a structural loading group.
04:53
And as we've said before,
04:54
I could use these parameters in multiple structural categories and families.
04:60
If I go to foundations again, I would have piles, I would have pile caps, pad,
05:05
foundations, strip footings and so on.
05:07
And I could use these for all of those different foundation types.
05:13
If I select the edit button here,
05:15
you'll notice that we can see the file path back to that shared parameter file.
05:20
Now, like I've said,
05:20
this would normally be on the server and normally there'd
05:23
only be one and this would be centrally managed.
05:26
You'll also notice in the edit shared parameter dialogue,
05:29
we can create a new shared parameter file.
05:31
If we wish, we can also change the parameter group.
05:34
And of course here we could create new parameters and new groups if we wanted to.
05:39
OK, let's click, cancel to the edit, shared parameter dialogue.
05:43
We'll also hit, cancel to shared parameters,
05:46
enter parameter properties
05:49
to show the dynamic nature of these shared
05:51
parameters and how they affect tags and schedules.
05:53
We're going to change the foundation length and
05:56
foundation width from type to instance parameters.
05:60
So let's go ahead and select, OK.
06:03
In the project browser and the floor plans, let's open up ref
06:06
level.
06:08
You can see here that we have foundation length and foundation width.
06:12
I'm going to select foundation length here
06:15
and let's take a look up onto the context ribbon
06:17
and of course, you'll see here that we could swap out the parameter that we're using.
06:21
But more importantly,
06:22
we can then decide whether this is an instance parameter or a type parameter.
06:27
So I'm going to convert this to an instance parameter
06:30
and I'll do the same again here for this one
06:33
and that's done
06:35
now, something that's quite useful is to be able to identify
06:38
instance parameters versus type parameters in the family types dialogue.
06:42
So let's take a look at that family types dialogue on the modify ribbon.
06:46
Let's go ahead and select family types.
06:51
If I expand the parameter column,
06:53
you'll note here that the instance parameters have
06:55
the word default in bracket besides them.
06:58
So that's a very quick and easy way of seeing which
07:00
ones are in instance parameters and which ones are type parameters.
07:05
OK. Let's select. OK.
07:08
And here we're going to load into projects and close.
07:11
And in this example, we will not save changes. So we'll select no to save changes.
07:17
And here we will overwrite the existing versions.
07:22
If I now select one of these foundations.
07:24
You'll now notice that we have shape handles on each of the faces of the foundation.
07:29
This is due to the fact that we're
07:31
now using instance parameters versus type parameters.
07:34
If I now drag these grips,
07:36
you'll see in real time, the foundation is now changing.
07:42
If I want to, I can also select here and I can type in my actual dimensions that I want.
07:48
So for example, here, I might want 60 inches
07:50
by 60 inches.
07:53
And for the foundation thickness,
07:54
I'll leave this the same because this is in fact a type parameter.
07:58
If we go ahead and select, OK,
07:60
you can now see the family's been built and the tag has updated.
08:04
Now, normally, if I hadn't used shared parameters,
08:07
it would be very difficult to put off
08:08
the physical dimensions of that instance driven foundation.
08:13
Let's now make another change to this. This time. We'll use the properties pad it
08:17
in the properties pad it because we've
08:18
now converted from type to instance parameters.
08:21
You'll see here that we can just simply make some changes here if we wanted to.
08:25
So now I'm gonna make this 4 ft by 4 ft
08:28
and you can see now the foundation's changed
08:31
and I'm now going to hold the control key down and simply duplicate this.
08:37
The reason why I'm going to do this and I'll just drag this back onto the grid here.
08:40
The reason I'm doing this is in the project browser.
08:43
If I now go ahead and open up the pad foundation's schedule,
08:46
you can now see that everything is updated again.
08:49
The schedule is reading off the shared parameters.
08:53
So you can see here if we look down through the dimensional sizes we have
08:56
now two T fours at 4 ft by 4 ft by 3 ft thick.
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