Everything about Revit Schedules

The Schedule tool is found on the View tab of the ribbon and includes five types of schedules; Schedule/Quantities, Material Takeoff, Sheet List, Note Block, and View List.

Schedule/Quantities

The Schedule/Quantities type produces a schedule of a selected family category. Most of Alvine’s schedules are of this type. The image below shows a list schedules for differing family categories in the Alvine template.

To create a new schedule, select the Schedules/Quantities tool. This opens the New Schedule dialog.

Select the appropriate family category to schedule by clicking on it. Only one category can be selected at a time. <Multi-Category> can be used to use all categories at once. Typically filtering is used with <Multi-Category> to narrow the schedule to the desired categories.

The Name of the schedule will automatically fill out once the category is selected. The name can be accepted as is or cleared and typed in as desired.

Under the name, users have the choice of creating a schedule of building components of creating a schedule keys for every category except <Multi-Category>. Schedule keys can be used to apply information to multiple items that have the same characteristics. If an electrical device, mechanical equipment, or telecom device has a defined key, and is added to a schedule, fields in the schedule will automatically update with the keyed information, reducing the time required to produce the schedule. Schedule keys are instance parameters and project parameters which automatically apply themselves to every family of a particular category. Values applied to the key, are applied to the individual elements.

Select “Schedule building components” for this example.

Schedules are phase aware. Use the Phase drop down to select which phase of the current project to schedule components from. This way existing or future elements can be filtered out of a schedule.

Select “OK” to open the Schedule Properties dialog. The first tab in this dialog is the Fields tab. Different parameters for the selected category are listed in the Available fields: window on the left. Use the Add->  button in the middle of the dialog to add selected parameters to the right hand side Scheduled fields window. The <-Remove button can be used to send parameters back to the left window. If a required parameter is not available in the left window the Add Parameter can be used to select/create a project or shared parameter.

The Calculated Value button can be used to add percentages and formula driven data to the schedule. Give the field a name, select formula or percentage, then pick the discipline of the field. This is used to apply the proper units to the field. When entering formulas parameters are case sensitive.

The Filter tab allows a category to be filters by the parameters of that category. Alvine uses a schedule number parameter to associate families of the same category to differing schedules.

The Sorting and Grouping tab lets the user sort the data in the schedule by parameters either ascending or descending. A header, footer or both can be added to each sorted parameter in the finished schedule along with a blank line by checking those boxes.

Below is a check box for Grand totals. If checked the drop down to the right gives different combinations of data to associate with the totals.

The Itemize every instance check box creates a separate line for every instance of a model element. If left unchecked similar elements are combined into a single row in the schedule.

The Formatting tab addresses how each field in the schedule will appear. Select a field on the left to control its formatting. The heading of the schedules automatically reflect the name of the field, but can be overridden by typing a new heading in the provided box. The orientation and alignment can also be controlled here per field.

There is a check box to hide the field in the schedule. This enables sorting and filtering by a fields that are hidden in the schedule.

If Grand Totals is checked in the Sorting/Grouping tab for a field the Calculate totals box is enabled. This will place a grand total at the bottom of the schedule.

The Conditional Format button can be used to change the background color of a cell based of the value of the data in the cell. This is usually used to alert users of the schedule that a condition needs attention like low volume, under lit or exceeded distance.

The Field Formatting button is available for numeric fields, and allows for control of numbers format. By default the Use project settings box is checked. When checked the settings in Project units are used. When unchecked these settings can be overridden in the schedule. This is handy to remove the unit symbol, suppress zeros, or change the rounding of a number.

The last tab, Appearance controls the title, headers, fonts, and linework of the schedule. Alvine has standard line styles for the grid and border lines.