Shared Parameters in Revit Tutorial

[Music] oh man oh man hello hello hey everyone jeff here also known as the revit kid welcome to a new episode of bim after dark live uh this is episode 56 believe it or not uh which is just pretty wild um i i took a little break for those of you that have been following along you may know i uh had a baby uh baby number two and so we took a took a little little break off here and we're back and i'm super excited to be back i have to say um i missed you guys uh so thanks for joining me today we're talking about shared parameters um not to mention just talking about them i i want to keep it in the context of just understanding the concept of parameters and shared parameters um we don't have to go off the deep end on them but i i want you to walk away understanding them as well as talking about what what do you do if you accidentally delete that uh that uh you know little share parameter file so so uh welcome uh as as usual uh the chat's going um i'm gonna do my best to to absolutely uh try to keep up uh we always have a fantastic uh active chat it's just me today no guests so i'm going to do my best to keep up with it again thank you for joining me i'm super excited for this um uh yeah let's just jump into it real quick again feel free to ask questions along the way let's jump into it i'll sort of set the context uh there's a new segment for those of you who who have been following along via email subscribe to my email channel [Music] where i'm gonna be doing a quick uh revit tip of the week submitted by you guys um so i've already selected one got a lot of submissions and so let's let's set the context we'll jump into the tip of the week and then we'll dig in really really deep so uh thanks guys so let's uh let's do this now so as far as um shared parameters are concerned um what i like to do is sort of start with with an understanding of of the type of parameters we have in revit and you know what it what what their purpose is and so this diagram that you're seeing here is actually by the way if you're interested this is a program called the app diagram i think it's called diagrams.net is the name of the program but it's a free program to use you can save your files on the cloud as well as here it's freaking awesome it's great for flow charting and and doing all kinds of great stuff but um oh yes thank you guys everyone's saying congrats on the baby uh yes thank you uh her name is adeline she's turning four months old actually since we have it on the screen i'll quickly show you uh you guys can see these are the kiddos uh so adeline's on the left she's turning four months now and jacob's on the right he's uh going to be turning three years old now he just started preschool three days a week last week so uh it's been it's been fun it's been a great time okay so when when when talking about shared parameters i like to put the in the concept or the context of um why why they exist uh you know what what is so important about them and so to me uh you know when i look at a diagram like this um you know there's sort of two things when it comes to parameters that that determine which ones you use um or just sort of give you an idea of the the the the features of each um and it's really uh does it need to be in a schedule or does it need to be in tag or does it need to be in both and and so um you know when when you think about that as a starting point that can give you uh sort of this list we have down here which is you know what what each parameter does so first let's let's just talk about each parameter type and so i'm going to roll down to the bottom here and let me get all this stuff out of the way you don't need to see that or that so so really there's there's five parameter types in revit there's system parameters shared parameters project parameters global parameters and family parameters and the the key is understanding the limitations of each when it comes to what it is you're trying to do and so the system parameter you can see can actually be used in schedules and tags system parameter a perfect example of that is the type mark some people don't realize that's a system parameter but it's a system parameter and you can use that in a schedule an attack the shared parameter comes into play when you need a schedule and a tag the project parameter can be scheduled but it cannot be tagged and that's that this is the project parameter and shared parameter is probably going to burn people the most with understanding the global parameter can't be scheduled and tagged um and then family parameters which is when you add a parameter within a family um it can't be scheduled and tagged either and what i'm going to do throughout this episode as well as feed off of your your comments and whatnot is i'm going to show you an example of of where where where and why shared parameters come in come into play and hopefully that'll give you a better understanding of exactly what they are not to mention um you know that evil scary shared parameter file that it's not really that evil and scary um so so that's what we're gonna do today uh we're going to jump into some real practical examples but before we do that i did want to introduce the new segment that some of you may have heard of uh based on my email and that is the big bad bim tip of the week super exciting um and what's really exciting about it too is uh this segment is brought to you by enscape and i know a lot of you know about enscape but if you don't know about enscape and you've been following along to the live streams definitely check out the previous live streams where i talked about enscape but it is a real-time 3d viewer for revit phenomenal i've been using for over five years and definitely something worth looking into and looking at my previous videos to see for design and renderings and so on and so forth so head on over to enscape.bimafterdark.com and you'll get a free 14-day trial as well as they'll know that you've heard about them here so if you haven't tried enscape yet you know now's the time to try it for sure but yeah so thanks for sponsoring this segment enscape and also thank you guys for submitting tips so those of you who who are on the email list uh initially i was gonna have the guests on this show do tips and then i was also going to have myself just pick tips but i thought it'd be really cool to ask you guys you know what is your favorite sort of aha moment or face palm moment in revit um not necessarily 100 related to the content of the day but just just to give us something cool uh going through it so this tip actually came from peter i don't have your last name peter so i apologize but uh you'll know the tip once i show you and um if you see peter if you see if you see this tip and you're watching this make sure to email me let me know and i'll send you a free t-shirt so submit your tips shoot me an email and you guys will get free t-shirts but uh this tip is really cool uh essentially uh what it comes down to is in a schedule so we have a schedule here that's a furniture schedule and um as you can see there's a count and a cost um a cost parameter or a cost column here so i don't know if you guys know this but uh you cannot use the count parameter in a formula which can be challenging let's say i want to know the total cost of this what would i do i would probably go in here and maybe i um maybe i uncheck itemize everything and i sort it by type uh let's say family and type so now you can see i have total counts i have six of this at 150 etc right so if i wanted to i go in here and i can say total cost so i'm going to make a calculated value total cost and i'm going to say account times cost and i press enter look what happens it says the field count cannot be used in formulas so you can't actually use the count of the objects in a formula which can be challenging depending on what you're trying to do in revit schedules but this tip from peter who i believe he sent the link i think it came from revit cat which is tim waldock he was on the on the show i don't remember the episode i apologize tim but i will post it in the show notes instead of using the count what you do is you make a calculated value and i'm going to call this one count new and the formula you just put the number one and you click ok now you've made a separate count count column if i click ok there's one thing you've got to do to make it work is you have to make it calculate total see how it just says one there so if i go to formatting and i say count new calculates totals click ok you'll see now it says 6 1 8 etc and now if i go in here i can create a formula called total cost and i can make this cost times count new click ok now i can actually do it right and then i go to formatting and make sure that one's totaling two so total cost needs to be calculating totals and click ok and there you have it so six times 150 is 900 so awesome tip really cool tip uh thank you peter for submitting it so the trick there is you make a calculated column or calculated um value in in your in your in your schedule and you just make the the formula the number one and then all of a sudden you can start doing formula and math using the count parameter even though it's a it's a fake computer so thank you peter shoot me an email and i'll send you a free lock noob or a t-shirt anyone who has an awesome tip like that that you want to share on the next 15 or so episodes feel free to shoot me an email if i choose your tip you get a free t-shirt and thank you enscape again for sponsoring this segment um head on over to enscape.bimafterdark.com okay sweet cool i don't know how many of you guys knew that but um when he sent that that that message and i actually forgot that you can't use the account and i've ran into that before and it it it drove me nuts but uh awesome tip really cool tip so thank you so much guys looks like a couple folks um a couple folks are uh have used enscape so fantastic awesome all right so uh back to shared parameters so as i mentioned um you know there's the the multiple types of parameters and the only two parameters that you can schedule and tag are shared and system system are system parameters you can't make new system parameters as much as you'd want to or maybe you don't want to but you can't make new ones so if you need a parameter if you need a value to be tagged and scheduled your only option is a shared parameter okay so so the way i'm going to sort of run through this is i'm going to walk through an example of of of how someone may approach this and realize that um or realize the value of where they shared parameters but also realize the concept of what a shared parameter is okay so the reason you need a shared parameter as opposed to utilizing a family parameter is parameters themselves have unique identifiers so let me let me walk through this so you guys can see exactly what i'm talking about so i'm gonna i'm gonna use the sample project because i think it's just the easiest one to use when we're talking a little more general um a little more general like this so um i have if i go to level one this project you guys all know this the sample project so if i have this piece of furniture here which is a chair okay and what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna make a project parameter so i'm just gonna add i'm going to go to manage and i'm going to say project parameters i'm going to add one of course i tested it on the other monitor so i apologize guys i'm going to add one called let's call this one order number so for some reason we're looking at order number and i'm sorry if i dropped off for a second i don't know if i did but i just accidentally refreshed youtube okay so i'm going to call this an order number i'm going to make it an instance and i'm going to go under here and i'm going to save furniture okay so i just made a a parameter a text parameter that's an instance called order number and it's it's linked to furniture and it's a project parameter so globally it exists in this project and i've assigned it to the furniture category so if i click ok and i select this you'll see order number is right here okay so i can give it an order number i can say 1002 uh whatever dot one i don't care whatever so that's that's an order number here this guy's zone order number you know 2002 whatever okay now if i go to my furniture schedule i can schedule that because you remember project parameters are schedulable right so let's add order number click ok let's undo the sorting for a second so we itemize everything okay so you can see there's our two order numbers there so it's schedulable right but now if i want to see that order number in the tag right in a tag a furniture tag can i do that and so i'm going to go to tag by category i'm going to place a furniture tag a couple furniture tags around here and as you can see obviously this tag doesn't have the information if i go and edit type it doesn't have the information if i go to edit if i go to edit the family of the tag it doesn't have right the order number okay i can go in here and add a project parameter or a family parameter whatever but that's still not going to going to go to give me the ability to do it so i'm like okay so so what if i added order number to the family instead of the project so i'm going to select here i'm going to go to edit family and uh oh sorry i'm sorry i just i just saw the chat and uh julio he julio just asked how did i get my ribbon dark gray and you know what's hilarious is i knew i knew i knew someone was gonna ask this question if not more than one so that that gray ribbon bar uh and because i knew you were gonna ask this question i made sure that aaron and the parallax team knew that uh this was probably going to come up and uh and they actually um gave me the links to hook you guys up with this this is a an add-in from parallax team that lets you [Music] create a darker theme which is pretty awesome and it also gives you the the colored tabs so it's color tabs plus or something like that it's called i don't remember sorry guys um neat ui i don't remember what he calls it but if you head on over to uh p-lacs.bimafterdark.com uh there's a uh uh free trial i believe of that for you guys so i'll post it in there so um that's how i have the dark screen and that's how that's how i have the dark ui and that's also how i have the tab view so thanks john pearson and parallax team for making this because i love i love uh dark themes i mean my my browser or my explorer is even dark as you can see everything is dark themed on here okay so now i'm in the family environment now okay so i'm gonna go in here and i'm going to create a parameter called order number order number and i'm going to make it a text make it an instance go like this and there we go click ok so now i'm in the family i made order number i load it back into the project now when i select this chair oh wait a minute hopefully you guys see that huh i have two of the same name parameters hmm kind of weird right and this is this is exactly why shared parameters exist so a parameter in revit whether you care to know or not has its own unique identifier okay even though the name that you see here of the parameter is the same the unique identifier the object according to revit is not so it's confusing because why can i have the same thing well because revit no one told revit that this was the same parameter okay revit doesn't know so so in the family environment there's an order number that has a unique identifier in the project environment there's an order number that has a unique identifier right so when you put the two together revit just sees the two unique identifiers and says all right they're different things this is where shared parameters come into play the shared parameter file and the shared parameter itself right the shared parameter file i should say uh is is is the definition it is it is what tells revit hey this parameter is the same as this one and this one and this one no matter what file or family or project you're in and that is where it's key and that's what allows you to tag and and um and schedule it so because when you think about this right the tag is also a family so if i'm going into edit family for this tag now i have a new family file a dot rfa file that i build parameters in so even if i went in here and i created a new parameter project parameter and i call or sorry an instance parameter and i called it order number and i'm going to make it an instance call it day okay okay okay i load this into my project if i select this oops i didn't load it incorrectly that's okay don't worry about that but you get the idea the idea is that the family that the parameters can exist with the same name but but revit doesn't know they're the same thing the other thing is this order number from the family this is not schedulable right so if i go if i put 3000 in here and i go to my furniture schedule okay so furniture scheduler here if i said i want to add my second order number right it's not here it doesn't exist in this list because that is a family parameter that is not a shared parameter it's not a project parameter it's a family parameter i created it in the family environment it existed in that family environment and that's where it was created okay so what if we want to connect all of those dots right that is where the shared parameter comes into play we want to connect all of that we know that the order number okay the order number for this for this chair um is going to want to exist in the chair family in the tag in a schedule and so on and so forth okay so that's where the shared params come to play so how do we create a shared parameter well the first thing we need to do let me i'm actually going to undo all those i'm going to undo all those uh here we go try to undo all those parameter adds that i did let me see just so that we don't have the multiple parameters in here okay so we have that there if i select this there's no order number perfect okay so we're going to use this order number as our example and so we're going to use the shared parameter file as the as the the i guess dictionary is an okay word but really it's it's the it's the program that that's telling telling revit hey uh i want you know this parameter is going to be the same in this this this and this hey revit don't make it do unique ids this is the same parameter okay so the first thing we need to do is actually make the shared parameter file not gonna get down the road of managing shared parameters files should i already have one all that stuff i'm gonna go with the idea that you're not working in a place that has this all set up yet and and you're just trying to understand the concept okay we can go down that road at another time so i'm going to go to shared parameters and you'll notice hey the shared parameter file does not exist i was messing around before so obviously i've been messing around with with different so initially already revit's like oh my god there's nothing telling me anything about shared parameters so we need to tell it okay so i'm going to click close here and the dialog is going to pop up that says okay well there's no shared parameter file yet so i can't actually create anything notice how this is all gray all right so what we're going to do is we're going to click create and we're just going to make a new shared parameter file as far as and i'm going to call this bim bim bad live shared new click save as far as as far as sort of the the management side of things is concerned just um you know ideally you're working at a place where where someone is paying attention to these things and if you're the person doing it obviously a shared parameter file is very important because when you think about what i just told you this shared parameter file is the file that you can use to tell revit this is the same as that as far as between files and between families however you know it's not the end-all be-all if you lose it obviously some people have spent a lot of time creating these and so on and so i get that but long story short what i wanted to say is is a good practice if you don't if you don't have a shared parameter file on your network that was created for you or you created etc is to make sure that you have a common shared parameter file kind of like you would a materials folder that moves with you from computer to computer right for the most part unless it gets really ugly then you might want to ditch it but but that's sort of the way i approach it is if i'm locally working on my stuff and i know the deal if you're a sole practitioner out there etc um you know you want to create a shared parameters file don't just create this this is usually what people do is they just create a new shared parameters file every time they're doing something that needs it and then that file just disappears into the ether and no one ever sees it again that's not necessarily a best practice i would say at a minimum your best practice is to make sure that the similar to your custom materials texture folder i would say you make sure there's a shared parameters file that you can move from project to project or computer to computer and so on so forth this way you can point revit to it and you always know what's happening there and you can just add to it and so on and so forth so hopefully that's helpful i know some some of the big managers out there might be cringing a little bit when i'm talking about the the whole sharepoint but that's okay uh i just wanted to sort of get it out there especially for like sole practitioners who maybe haven't really thought about this too much that's a great great way to set it up is you have your custom textures folder called materials or whatever that always moves with you from computer to computer shared parameters file is a great one to do that okay so so i created a new file just on my desktop uh doing the the one-off thing that i just said you shouldn't do um and now because i created the file i can create a new group and so for this one and again this is this is gonna be you know place to place in in project to project or or firm to firm um you know how you group them and how you name them is is one thing i usually like to use um categories as the groups essentially that's just me but um again it you know it all depends so now i just made it i made a group called furniture and i'm going to make a new parameter called order number now here's the funny thing right all we're defining right now so order number common length and okay all we're defining is that parameter and that parameter type right so all we did was say this is the name of it um it's a text parameter and um and that's it right we haven't actually assigned it to categories or anything else yet it's just now it's a definition in this folder that tells revit hey when this person places this parameter from this file this is what it is it's it's it's this unique id so now anything i do if i create a brand new family if i edit a family if i create a project parameter anything i do i can point to this and that's what i use to generate my parameter definitions i point to a category whatever now revit knows hey i know that this order number even though you know it's you you created it in the project environment if i'm with the same as that which is the same as that which is the same as that right yeah so i just created the shared parameter definition essentially right it's called order number hasn't assigned anything so i click ok like all right so if i click here it's not there yet right because all it is is a shared parameter sitting in this file we haven't told revit okay take this now and apply it to this so first we're going to apply it to is let's apply it to a project parameter so i'm going to go to project parameters i'm going to add one and now instead of clicking where it says project parameter i'm going to click shared right and i'm going to select that shared folder sorry i'm going to click select i'm gonna select that parameter which is called order number and click ok so notice i can't fill out any of this stuff i can't fill out the name the discipline or the type of parameter why because we already did that right that that exists inside the um inside that definition i can group it after the fact which is kind of nice i guess graphically group it wherever it makes sense for for your project right but now i can assign it i can assign it right to a category okay i also just real sorry i just realized that uh the the the floating watermark of me is like is like right or the of the logo is like right there it's pretty funny so if i go like this i'm like inside the rabbit kid logo i should probably move that out of the way let's move myself to this side why didn't even say anything it's not distracting to you guys i was like half in the the revoked logo and half out okay okay so now i'm applying it to a category so i'm going to apply it to just furniture notice you can apply it to multiple categories it is what it is whatever you want it to do so i'm applying it to furniture right it's an instance parameter now i'm so now i've told revit to make this parameter the same way i did before remember i just went to project parameters and did my thing apologize by the way i know hopefully you guys all have cocktails depending on where you are in the world this is actually fresh brewed green tea ice cream tea with uh steel dust vodka in it because that's what i think when my wife makes fresh green tea is let's put vodka in it so just like i did with the with the uh project parameter now you'll notice that this exists right here as order number the same as the project parameter did okay oh you guys don't see the logo oh okay never mind then i guess i move my head for no reason that's really weird in my in my in my preview of it i see a little teeny logo on the bottom right interesting okay anyways so if i um so if i click this right now we're kind of back to what i originally showed you i added a project parameter this project parameter i can add 1000.3.3 press enter and then if i go to my furniture schedule i can add it so i can go in here and i can add order number because remember you can schedule shared parameters okay there it is there these are instances so i can i can type them in over here of course that was part of a group lovely jeff uh 1005 here okay right so now now that i have this as a shared parameter i have all i need for the schedule but now how do we add it to the to the tag right how do we add this thing to the tag well now if we go in the tag family we can add a label so i just went to the top and clicked add label and you'll notice it's not here yet because we haven't told this family now to load that shared parameter but instead of just saying new parameter in the family environment we're going to say new parameter and tell revit to point to the shared so now revit knows oh even though i'm in a family right i we just told revit that this this parameter is the same as that parameter all right so let's just add so i just hit the little uh add parameter there i'm going to select my shared parameter file if if it's deleted we'll we'll go through the you know if you're missing the the file i'll show i'll we'll go through that in a second so i'm just going to click order number click ok okay and now there's order number i can add this here click ok there's my order number now and remember this is now from the shared parameter so we pulled that information into the shared parameter and i see a bunch in the chat i don't where i'm gonna i'm gonna check you guys questions in one second i'm gonna load this in click ok overwrite values and now look at this right now my tag my tag is showing whatever information i put in this shared parameter so if i type in here and i say 2000 the tag shows 2 000 if i go to the schedule the schedule shows 2 000. so we've connected all of the dots for revit right we told revit this is the same as this which is the same as that and that essentially is what a shared parameter is that is why it exists type system parameters actually work the same way because revit already knows this this this is that which is that which is that but that's because they're baked in there you can't change them right and so uh you know how can revit know how many custom parameters you you're going to be creating and how how to connect the two and that's why a shared parameter file exists it exists to connect all the dots for revit which is pretty cool so i'm going to take a quick second to check the chat before we move into the the the shared parameter file itself but uh um we got a whole bunch of stuff here let's see some people were cringing when i was talking about the shared parameter file i'm sure i'm sure uh check your revit the ini file um uh awesome there's too many questions which is awesome just people talking each other which is always great do you have a company policy with network controlled paths um i think not james i'm not sure if you're asking me or just anyone in general um so we you know we don't we don't we don't have a network policy like that but um it is what it is awesome all right looks like those are all the all the questions so and jim x jim ball that's a great point uh shared parameters are customizable system parameters yeah right that that that is exactly what's happening here you're you're giving yourself the ability to to to customize a parameter that but but then also connect that to me to me the the concept uh that i really want you to take away from today is that concept of think of parameter as its own unique object in revit with its own unique id and we use the shared parameter to connect the dots for revit so i can go and do another project load that in same exact thing i can build a new custom family uh and and load in that and pull it push it in and all of a sudden you have the information right awesome okay uh can you input the order number directly to to uh to the tag yes 100 so again because all this information is because all this information is linked now all right and i'll actually let's do this let's uh let's tab views here so we have all this stuff open so that this way you can kind of see the schedule update at the same time as everything else updates so yeah the other thing is you could input the information into the tag and it updates everywhere so if i type 2000 here you notice it updated there and if i click the family it updates right there right so so yeah you can you can also input the information the tag because remember it's all the same thing right and you know again sort of going back to the whole type mark this guy right here this is this is a you know this is a system parameter by default right the the the type mark so you know i can type it in there and notice it updates here the same way right that was a type parameter on instance parameter but you get the idea so again that that that is exactly what that is it's the same exact thing just um you know we're able to customize it which is always really cool um awesome hey hey steven what's going on okay sweet right pretty cool uh so hopefully for those of you that that perhaps are new to to revit or maybe even just haven't dealt with shared parameters and what it is that whatever it is that that you do on a daily basis i hope that concept helps again the concept of connecting all the dots um and and also thinking about um you know some mentality or some people may think okay well if a shared parameter lets me tag and schedule it why would i ever even use the other parameter types right and that's a good question um and the truth is it depends but um you know unless you need to tag or schedule the item there's you know there's there's really not a huge reason not to uh and so so i mean again that that can be up for debate but that's something that that comes up from time to time and i'm sure you're thinking yourself when you saw that that other graphic that i have there so real quick before before um before we take any more questions and sort of move on a little bit i did want to talk about the shared parameter file and what you can do um if it's missing deleted if you if you moved computers i don't know whatever but this is again one one of the biggest issues um you know with with not understanding shared parameters in general but but um you know with this process is usually and i'll say i'm guilty of it in the past i have been um if you if you don't have a standard location for it and you're just trying to get something done you might just create a shared parameter for that option for whatever you're doing and and then you know forget about it maybe it was you know in your desktop you clean it up you know two months from now and then it's gone forever um the which is you know obviously not great practice but the the the cool thing about uh these shared parameters is once once you apply them to a project or a family uh they're stored in the project or family so you can actually kind of recover them which is really neat so if you if you delete your shared parameter file and you want to uh you know you want to make this connection happen so maybe how about let's do this let's let's um let's undo i don't know if we're gonna be able to undo all that let's undo the tag family not sure if we're gonna be able to project parameters load family edit schedule hopefully i don't go too far back let's see okay so we undo the tag family do i saw the shared parameter i still have a shared parameter so if i go if i go under manage and share parameters right here's our shared parameters file okay so let's say let's say we open this i'm going to go to my desktop and i'm going to delete that parameter so i just deleted our shared parameter file [Music] all right so now if i go in my project so remember that's loaded in there um it's loaded in there right but the shared parameter files deleted so the file that tells revit right in another fold in another family you know what what this object is is gone so if i went into uh you know edit family and said okay now i want to create that label again and i click plus here and i go select oh shared parameter file is missing so without that shared parameter file guess what i can't make that connection anymore with with this object so initially you might be like oh my god i'm screwed what am i going to do fortunately though the shared parameter actually does get stored in your project to some extent and so this is what you need to do to recover it so if you've never done this before i'm showing you how to recover a shared parameter so let's go under manage shared parameters and you can see it's going to yell at me and say there's no file so the first thing you need to do is you need to create a new shared parameter file to recover it too otherwise it wouldn't know how to export the information okay so let me click close here and notice i have to create a new one so i'm going to create a new one called bad live new new new file final final final and click new so now i have a new shared parameter file sitting on my desktop and revit's pointing to it so revit's happy with that if i wanted to i can make new shared parameters and so on and so forth right so let me click ok here now if i go to my project parameters notice the order number is still there and remember this order number was created from a shared parameter file right so revit we gave it that definition from the shared parameter file so if i go to modify check this out it says revit remembers it's a shared parameter right it's grayed out i can't do anything with it but you'll notice there's a little checkbox here or a button here for export so revit knows this was a shared parameter and now we're pointing to a shared parameter file so revit says sure export me so if i click export you'll see what it says is the parameter will be exported to the current shared parameter file in the parameter group exported parameters so it does put it in its own group called export exported parameters which can be kind of annoying to some people but it is what it is i'm going to click ok click ok click ok because we're in revit and we like clicking ok i'm going to go to go back to shared parameters and you'll notice we have a group called exported parameters and it's called order number so we've now just re redefined not redefine actually we just took that definition and put it back into a new file which now means if i wanted to i can go into this go into this tag family and do exactly what we did before click label click add go to select there's my order number okay okay okay ta-da right we have order number back and if i load this in guess what it's linked to the information still revit knows this connects to that which connects to that and we are golden so there you have it what happens when you delete your shared parameter file you can get it back i do believe i do believe there are a couple add-ins that will batch export and control that and before i did this live stream i did spend a little bit of time digging through dynamo stuff to see if you can do it yourself and i just didn't get far enough uh uh to be comfortable showing you anything i came up with but uh but uh there are some add-ins out there that appear to be pretty good with batch exporting um the shared parameter files so let me take a quick gander at some of the chat here you must know what you're doing or you will cause issues editing in the text editor gives you access to hidden ones though oh boy john john and aaron are [Music] wreaking havoc over there so i told myself i was not going to open the the notepad file for the shared parameter in this live stream and i think i'm going to stick to that for today aaron you're coming on the show uh this season so maybe when you come on we could we could just touch on that but i just i refuse to for the sake of of um the concept that we're trying to get to get through today but yes there's i'm not gonna go down that all right let me let me uh let's see what else we have in here um how can you keep your properties browser free from cluttered parameters martin i'm not really sure what you mean but um but the uh when you create parameters the the way you would wanna you know clean up your properties is um is exactly what you're seeing on here which is you know they have these groupings extents underlay well that's that's not a great example that's review but identity data phasing dimensions right you can use all these when you create parameters and even when i create a a project parameter if i go up here and say project parameter you know when i add these right here martin this these are all the built-in groups that you have so you do have a lot of options for trying to sort of sort those a little better and i guess in theory you could you could think about naming conventions for sorting too but you know the the groups are are pretty helpful so um you know pay attention to what you're choosing your your grouping for your parameters under um so good question martin by the way um let's see keep multiple backups yes james keep multiple backups but as you saw you know you can get them out and i have again i haven't dig in dig deep into the into the add-ins for i've never had to recover gigantic shared parameters before so i haven't had to go there uh amazing for occupancy stuff yes definitely um uh anthony harwood great point there so for the noobs there isn't a live link to the shared parameter file so that's a great point that i was trying to sort of get out with the whole deleting it so revit's not consistently looking at this file for you right and that's why the parameters exist in revit so it's it's just the the shared parameter file is just holding the definition for revit right and and then you know you're pulling it in and creating a parameter for it so that's just good to know because um you know i guess i guess if you edited the text you know that but but that that's why you're able to delete the file and keep using keep using revit and you don't even notice it happening that's why most people don't even know what revit shared parameters are because they may be in files where everything's set up and they don't have to worry about it because all those things are built into the template so great point there um jeff show the gu ids you guys really want me to open the damn notebook file don't you i'm still gonna i'm gonna stick to my laurels and not do it today i'm gonna do it we'll see maybe maybe if enough enough people enough people bother me enough maybe i will but i'm i'm all right we'll open it why not okay you guys there's too many questions about it i just i'll open it okay so i guess if anything the only reason i'm opening it is because because uh to uh to who mentioned it james james point um if i open the the shared parameter file here it is guys i opened the shared parameter file right you'll notice you'll notice there's a little there's a a a category in the shared parameters file called the g-u-i-d for anyone who doesn't know what that is that's revit's uh um you know identifier so your identification it's it's it's what the database every element has a number and letter combination that tells revit this is a unique identifier this is a unique element i should say so you'll notice the parameter itself has a guid and that to me is the key the key is understanding that even when i'm in the family and i create a new parameter called length right that parameter is given a guid right and that to me that you know that that's the key and you'll see right the very first thing it says up there is do not edit manually so do not edit manually you guys happy i open the text file uh let's see the make jeff show the gu ids is the coupon code for the dark mode i don't think that's true aaron but uh if it is then you guys know now what it is all right awesome i'm just double checking to see if there's any more anymore any more questions on there you guys are awesome this is great um so shane shane just asked a question i'll quickly hit that if you start a new project without a shared parameter file built into the template you have to load the file into the project is it what you're saying so that that chain is a great question and that's exactly what i'm talking about with with template and how it's built and how people actually may never never even know that the shared parameter file exists if you have a template built and the families the sched you know the families and and all that stuff already have the shared parameter link created right so what i just did if i save this as a template then no you actually don't need the shared parameter file you need the shared parameter file when you want to make that connection again so if you build a new tag or a new family title whatever it is right [Music] and you want to make that connection with an existing uh parameter in the file so let's say that um that furniture tag i just created maybe i made a a a um i don't know a different furniture system tag custom from scratch or something like that for a different project then you know in that new furniture tag you need the shared parameter file to tell revit this is the parameter so it's a yes and no question or yes or no answer technically and you know with a well-built template where you never have to add any more content in theory yeah it's it's already all those connections have been made for revit but um you know having that you know already there obviously as you can see makes it a lot easier to add and modify content awesome question shane by the way um do not edit challenge accepted go for it eric okay thanks thanks aaron made respect for me talking about pear i have to say uh this is episode 56 right so if you guys haven't seen go go go back and look at uh live dot bam after dark dot com and watch all the 55 episodes this was the most nervous i've ever been for an episode this is a hard subject to figure out how to talk about for 49 minutes and also make it hopefully comprehensible so thank you guys for sticking around and i hope it helps i really do i i try my best to make these things understandable um and john you just mentioned it john just said john pearson just said absolutely worth noting that you pretty much never need to view the scary stuff yes and that's the whole idea and that's what i was trying to get at is is understanding what it is and the concept of it to me is the important part but hopefully you never have to actually manage a shared parameter file necessarily to the point of like managing across large swaths of people type of thing and let's see mj just asked uh do you keep one shared parameter file for all projects to point to or do you make a copy of the file for each new project uh depends i would say the you know the the best your best bet would be as a standard for the office would be you have one um set of shared parameters that you use for that template for your office and if you needed to modify things you have it there but again it all gets built and saved into your templates and files so it's not like you ever lose it uh if you needed to make that connection in one place it's actually not that bad right if you need to make the connection again you know 30 times that's where it can be a little more challenging um let's see trying to wrap it up here what do we got parameter file was big in last company james made a point to to lock down the uh the parameter file yes i guess i guess depending what you're doing and i think what you mean is making sure that people can't override it or something or making it right protective giving permissions you know the downfall is anyone who actually knows how to use it and needs to create a new parameter or something may run into issues but as you can see and as we just mentioned this you know ideally in an ideal situation there's not many people who need to even know that this thing exists as far as a shared parameter file is you as a revit user regardless of what level or what you do with the company you should understand what a shared parameter is because you know understanding why you can't schedule something understanding why this dot isn't connected to that dot is the important part that's the key right anything where you can think of where you need to show tags and schedules and all that information together this is where all those dots get connected um awesome all right i think i think we we hit most of the big big questions here one last question from scout hey scoward good to see you again buddy scourd was a regular regular viewer a couple months ago for the first 55 episodes um i encountered manufacturers two different families they mix up the value with another and makes it hard to get rid of in a project um oh oh so so the manufacturer had something funky going on with their shared parameter file i could see where that's an issue i'm not but i don't know how it would clash um if it's if it's its own shared parameter it has its own guid it shouldn't necessarily clash unless what you're saying is um it has the same name but two different guids even though they're both shared parameters which could happen too right because it's two different parameters that might be what it is um awesome uh and anime walk wolf kid just mentioned it's good to note that you can now put shared parameters into key schedules yes you can a good point there so that's helpful if you guys are key schedule users with your details to be able to connect all those dots that we're talking about awesome okay i think with that i'm probably going to wrap it unless there's any dire questions you guys are amazing thank you for showing up thank you for tuning in tonight i'm back thursday nights 9 00 pm uh this uh i've already got 15 episodes lined up every week um there may be one or two that are going to be at a different time based on the guests but new guests returning guests new content new topics uh super excited for this uh i'm excited to be back i enjoy this so much if you want to check out all the previous episodes head on over to live.bimafterdark.com thank you enscape for uh for sponsoring the tip of the day today thank you guys for showing up and talking about parameters with me and i'll see you guys next week feel free to uh subscribe to the channel if you enjoyed this here on youtube we're at like 40 something thousand we're pretty close to 50 so let's let's let's bump ourselves up to 50 which would be pretty wild and hit me up on twitter at the revoked you guys are amazing if you have a tip of the day you want to submit make sure you email me jeff at the revit kid and with that i'll bid you all to do have an awesome night and i'll see you guys soon you

Channel: TheRevitKid

Views: 22,928

Keywords: revit, revit design, architecture, architecture design, autodesk revit, revit tutorial, architect, revit tip, revit tutorials, revit architecture, BIM, building information modeling, autodesk revit tutorials, architecture tutorials, revit 2022, revit 2021, shared parameters in revit, shared parameters in revit tutorial, what are shared parameters in revit, when should we used shared parameters in revit, how to use shared parameters in revit, shared parameters in revit family

Id: TEChpajMsnA

Length: 53min 34sec (3214 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021