Securing Linked Files

These days I start blog posts by researching my own past writings and select others, to see if everything has been covered about the topic at hand. I guess it’s the sign of the times: BIM in our daily work is no longer solely concerned about Revit and there is so much information to manage and deal with. Since we are unable to upgrade our neurological hardware & software, I have to do this, else I risk excessive repetition! This will be a follow-up to Securing Links Through Worksets (see comments as well).

Steve Stafford also wrote about this topic indirectly at the start of the month. Since we use Shared Coordinates from time to time, securing linked files against accidental movement is very important, although deletion tends to be the worst since views/templates are so heavily modified (not using <By Host View> everywhere). Accidental deletion will undoubtedly result in wasted work and frustration, so anything one can do to avoid it is always welcome.

As stated in my original post, worksets are not an option when Monitoring is required. Since we’re using this on pretty much every project, I no longer suggest this technique. Luckily, there’s a simpler, more robust Option (unintended pun). This technique was mentioned in a comment in the above post, but I never got around to write about it until now.

Design Options are the best answer I have been able to find. The checkbox on the status bar shown below is at the heart of it all:

Revit automatically checks this option whenever you click the Modify button (or after completely escaping a command). This is great, because you’re not at the mercy of every user remembering to switch it on. With this enabled, anything displayed in your view that is contained in a Design Option is not selectable. So it’s there but you cannot pick it, hence it cannot be accidentally moved or deleted. The great thing though is that if you want to use copy/monitor, this technique will not interfere and the elements in the linked file (now also on a design option) are still picked by the tool and require no special treatment.

Implementation is easy: Create an Option Set (I like to call it Model Management) and a single option named Revit Links.

Now copy over your links to this Option…

…and since there’s only one Option in the Set, it will always be visible, but not selectable unless you uncheck the Exclude Options checkbox.

So far I have not run into any adverse issues, so if you try this and find negative side effects, please comment!

Securing Linked Files

Securing links through worksets

In my projects, I typically create a workset for my consultant linked models and check that workset out permanently to prevent accidental deletion/movement of links (ex: to user "RevitCOP"). The username just needs to be a unique one to prevent anyone from accidentally making an undesired edit.

I have never been a fan of Copy/Monitor functionality but recently I started using it and am running into a problem. When I try to stop monitoring elements or go through coordination monitor to make changes, I'm told that “RevitCOP” has the workset for the links checked out and has to relinquish it before I can make changes. Why is this necessary? All I want to do is move my grids & rename them to match the link (through coordination review). Because of this, I have to open my file under the RevitCOP in order to do copy/monitor & review operations, which seems totally unnecessary. Or I have to quit "securing" my linked files altogether, which I’m really not ready to concede.

During a copy/monitor and when going through warnings, all you're doing is to change the elements in the host file (unless you reject changes, in which case nothing is physically changed), but nothing is being done to the linked project. So why is Revit being so inflexible about a permission that is (intuitively) not required?

I sincerely think that the current logic of having to own the element/workset in order to perform copy/monitor and coordination review is something that really needs to be looked at closely by the Factory. Probably Revit is writing some kind of tracking information to it, but since the only mechanism of securing links is through forcibly checking out worksets, this is causing undesirable consequences and related frustrations (and we don’t want that, right?)

While we’re on the subject of Coordination Review, it would be really nice if we didn’t have to use the steering wheel in order to pan, and simply use the middle scroll button as we do in regular view navigation!

Securing links through worksets