Coordination – Linking – Copy / Monitor

If you haven’t yet done some coordination between the Architect and Structural engineer in Revit here are some tips.

You can only copy monitor:

• Levels
• Grids
• Walls
• Floors
• Columns

Copy / Monitor is a two way process. One of the parties will do the original creation of the category elements and the other will copping. Example: The Architect controls and creates the Levels and Grids, and the Engineer creates the structural walls, floors and columns.
The monitoring will work both ways, but there is slightly different privileges the users will have, depending on if they are the original creator or copier of the element. I say privileges in regard to work correctly within the copy / monitor workflow.

Original creator privileges:

• Change type and element properties
• Modify the Profile or Sketch
• Move Element
• Add and edit Openings

Copy / Monitor Element user privileges:

• Change type and element properties
• Modify the Profile or Sketch
• Move Element
• Edit openings but cannot add openings using the opening tool. The only way to addopenings is to edit its profile or sketch.

So what does this mean?
Let’s say the Engineer creates a structural floor and the Architect copy / monitors it.
The Engineer can draw the floor, create openings in it using the shaft tool, change the type properties, and edit it’s sketch.
After copy / monitoring the floor the Architect can change it’s type, edit it’s sketch shape, move it, even edit the shaft openings the engineer has created, but if the Architect is to put an opening in the floor (using the shaft opening tool), it will not transfer correctly to the Engineers drawing.

Just remember you only copy monitor items both parties need to track. For a typical building I would suggest the following, but remember, you need to review this in detail before every project. All projects will be a little bit different.

Levels – Architect creates them – Structural Engineer Copy / Monitors them.
Grids - Architect creates them – Structural Engineer Copy / Monitors them.
Walls - Architect creates them – Structural Engineer Copy / Monitors them.
Floors – Structural Engineer creates them –Architect Copy / Monitors them.
Columns – Structural Engineer creates them –Architect Copy / Monitors them.

Now it is taken that in the original Architectural model they will draw the floors and columns, but when the Engineer comes on board they are deleted and the copy / monitored from the engineers model.

Copy / Monitoring does take up a lot of processing power and memory so only copy / monitor what is really necessary, Share the process between both parties, Ensure your worksets are set up so the other party can unload the irrelevant categories using worksets, and lastly make sure your model not bogged down by bad maintenance of Review warnings.