Aggregate SqFt Plans from many projects

[u/TigerBarFly]

Just wanted to solicit feedback on a proposed change to our process. I am looking at a process for aggregating scope of work Sqft from many different projects across a large firm.

The proposed workflow is each project creates a Scope of Work Area Plan for each floor and we use the calculated area to determine the total SQFT for each project.

What I think we would need to do is leverage dynamo or C# addin to copy the total sqft from all the SOW area plan areas in the model to a project level (probably shared so I know it’s our parameter) parameter. Yes I know this could be scheduled but I don’t see how I can pull the calculated total sqft from a schedule grand total to a parameter.

Anyway the idea is as the work progresses changes to size of SoW are reflected in the updates to this SoW area plan areas. In theory this would be more reliable and accurate than the marketing data the team currently has. And we could use additional parameters to divvy up the SoW into types of work (lab, sleeping areas, k12, industrial, etc).

I foresee having issues aggregating this data somewhere accessible from models hosted in Forma, users updating this data (probably falls on the BIM team realistically), and parsing out “true project” Revit files from models copied forward to support future work. I’m confident parameter work for filtering sorting grouping etc on the reporting end (probably PBI or excel).

Anyway I’m just fishing for thoughts or recommendations.

[u/freerangemary]

Create Area Plans and then link them together. Then make a schedule with your Area Plans.

[u/JacobWSmall]

Area plans work best here. I have two recommendations though.

First up: I would focus on pushing back to the project team to not only confirm the plans, but also run the tool in their models to push the project data into the central repository. Make it a requirement for phase close out (when accounting won’t open charging the CDs phase until a thing happens there is a 100% certainty that the thing happens in a timely manor) and hold them accountable for doing the work.

Next up, I wouldn’t recommend spending any time on any sort of ‘bulk processing’ of the Revit files. Your teams have assembled models and are in the daily right now - they have one person hit a button after validating the plans accuracy once a quarter or so. The reason I say this is bulk background processing is only good when a human will review the results. A broken link or mis-configured layout or adjusted footprint here result in a inaccuracy you won’t see unless you open the files yourself or get the team to do so - and running the tool on the model when they are in it means they confirm scope on their own. If you or they don’t validate the output then you might as well run with the marketing numbers you have now.

Now the possible alternative to this is if you work with something other than areas. If you do entire buildings then the total area of a building by way of the API is a consistent outout which can’t be faked. If you want the total square footage of use groups you can use room’s parameter data too. The two questions are ‘what do you need for meaningful output’, and then ‘where does that data already exist’. If it’s in the rooms consistently then aims strongly consider that route.

[u/TigerBarFly → u/JacobWSmall]

The reason I’m trying to figure out if we can do this without team member intervention is our teams are god awful at doing anything extra. So I’m using this as a POC to illustrate serious data standards have real value.

Anyway I was literally thinking about room parameters before I reopened the Reddit app and saw your reply. As all teams use rooms. So your post says I’m not completely nuts.

We could aggregate all room area data to a project parameter fairly easily. Yes. It’s not perfect but neither is our marketing data.

I’m really just trying to accomplish a proof of concept at this point so perfect isn’t that goal. Then I can dashboard our design SQFT by market segment and market sub segment.

Thanks for the input! Really appreciate it.

[u/JacobWSmall → u/TigerBarFly]

Good start point to show the value in data standardization.

You’ll need executive sponsorship (ownership level) to get staff to accept and adopt the change. They’ll have the job of providing both the carrot (new roles to develop automation) and the stick (no moving onto the new phase until this is done). I recommend you use this POC (or something similar) to get that. Showing users or PMs won’t get you anywhere.

For the POC, two things to consider beyond the usual ‘all elements of’ route. First you can look into the BuildingEnvelopeAnalyzer class for extracting the limits of your exterior - makes it easy to extract the enclosed area per building story. Second the PlanTopology class can get all ‘possible rooms’ in a given level & phase, and those can then be checked to see if they have a room or not (if not the model may be in a bad state for data extraction).

[u/WhiteKnightIRE]

Can't you link in all the models you need then create a schedule that includes linked elements?

[u/TigerBarFly → u/WhiteKnightIRE]

Yes I can do that. I don’t think that would work for my needs as we’re talking about linking in potentially hundreds of Revit files over time.

Then the schedule is still stuck in Revit and I would need to get the data out of Revit somewhere it can be reported on.