Adding or Modifying Shared Parameters

Alright. So when you make families, you can actually assign shared parameters inside of them. And what this allows you to do is make some really good schedules. So light fixtures are one of the prime examples of where you really wanna use a bunch of shared parameters. And we've organized the shared parameters into something that's pretty easy to identify.

Everything has, like, s, you know, s for shared parameter. And then, like, for lighting, we call them s elect l t g and then the parameter name itself afterwards. So this makes it really simple for us to create a light fixture schedule that's well organized. And the fixture, you can see over here under fields, it's the same shared parameter, just laid out in a neat, orderly fashion. So this allows us to do some clean, organized scheduling, and it's highly recommended to make sure that you use this.

So if you ever need to change or add share parameters to a family that you wanna use with this schedule, it's pretty easy to do if you have the shared parameter file, which we do provide with you. When you get the template in the warehouse, there should be a shared parameters. It's like a text document. So, essentially, you take that and you put it in, like, a safe location. It's kind of a central file for us, and you wanna use that to make any adjustments in your future families.

So let's take an example for instance. We're gonna go over here to, I guess, just this light fixture. I'm going to edit the family. And then if I go up here to family types, you can see that I have a whole bunch of parameters already in here that are from the shared parameters list. But let's say you are using a fixture that doesn't have this. You can actually go here to the new parameters button and then click on shared parameter. And then from here, hit select. I'm trying to see how I can break this here. So if you hit and so, normally, let's see. Browse.

I already have mine assigned. So, essentially, what what's gonna happen is if you hit share parameter and you hit the select button, if you did not have a share parameter file available, it'll ask you where you wanna find it. And, basically, it'll take you to this window, and you're gonna hit the browse button. And then from here, go to the location where you saved the share parameters file that we give you. So for us, we put it in a central location with, you know, SP files or share parameter file.

And from here, we're just gonna click the the file itself, and then it's gonna open up this window where you can pick the group that you wanna work with. So we have for electrical, we have the electrical equipment, which is all the loading information, and then we also have the electrical lighting. So what this has all the parameters for light fixtures. You can add new parameters if you wanted to. So, like, we have pretty much the basic, what you would need for, I believe, construction, manufacturer, model, height, description, length, and all that stuff.

But in case you find something that for some reason we didn't include, you can always add a new parameter, and it'll add it to the shared parameters, text document so that next time you open this up, it's already there, you don't have to add it again. If you need it a separate group, let's say you have, I don't know, elect systems or something, you can always make a new group. And this new group will be added to the share parameters, and then you can add parameters within that group. And this allows you to just make it a little bit more organized so that when you wanna add them to your fit to your families, it's easier to find. Okay?

So I'm not gonna keep adding more stuff to my share parameters file because if you ever need to delete something, like, for instance, like, if you if you wanna get rid of this and you hit the delete button, there's a whole explanation here on, are you sure you wanna delete it? Because if you delete it and you want it back and you add the same parameter back even with the same name, it's technically not the same parameter anymore. In the background, Revit probably assigns a unique ID to this specific parameter. And if you delete it and add it back, that ID number changes. So even though it's named the same thing, like, I could literally add it back s l, like, wire size up to 375 feet, it won't be the same.

So you have to make sure that you're very deliberate with what you add to the share parameters list and what you take away because it's, not always recoverable. So be very cautious of what you add and what you delete. Alright. So for that reason, I'm not gonna mess with the shared parameters list. What we gave you is usable. If you wanna add to it, that's great. So, anyways, I'm gonna hit cancel. But if I wanted to add more share parameters, I can go into this window. And let's say, like, you have a new lighting fixture and you have to add all of these. So normally, you would have to go one by one.

So, like, you would click on depth, hit okay, and then I'd always hit type for this one. So it's always type based, group it under something consistent. So for us, we did text. So you can always move it under text. And as long as you do the same thing over and over, it all appears in the same group of parameters.

So since mine is already in here, I'm not gonna do it again because it's gonna make a duplicate. But normally, you would hit okay, and then it would pop in here. So after it shows up in this family types group, you can organize it. So I always I like I guess notes up here is fine, but maybe some people wanna do, like, type first. So they would take the type all the way to the top, and you take the model all the way to the top.

So you can organize it in here so that every time you open up the family types in your project, it shows up the same way over and over. Ideally, this would probably should be organized the same way that's the schedule so that it's the same chronological order. Might do that at some point, honestly. So, like like, notes, I believe it's, like, all the way down at the bottom or something. Alright.

So there you go. So, like, let's say all our shared parameters are in here. You hit okay, and now it's loaded into this family. If I were to go to, like, here, you can see, like, these shared parameters can also be used for dimensions and things inside of this family. This for for instance, this dimension right here, this dimension calls into the shared shared parameters for length, and you can change this to be something else.

So I could use it for depth or width or whatever. Okay. So that's how you add in the shared parameters. You can use it for dimensioning, and then you can also obviously, for us, we we use it for scheduling purposes. So every single fixture will have all of these parameters.

And then if you do all this correctly, you'll be able to go into your lighting fixture and be able to make a good schedule that allows you to schedule everything. So let me just show you quickly how to make a schedule. So if we go over here to schedule, we're gonna right click, new schedule quantities. And if you wanted to make the light fixture schedule again, you would scroll down here to light fixture. So you click on light fixture, and you can hit next and make this exact light fixture schedule.

I'm going to use, I guess, the electrical fixtures. So electrical fixtures, I can schedule this. Hit okay. And then from in here, you can see that electrical fixtures has a couple share parameters that I can use. So I'm gonna just click, drag that over, and maybe I wanna do let's do voltage first, number of poles. Sure. Apparent load, load class, power factor. Okay. So if I hit okay, you can see that now it schedules all of my fixtures. So, really, this is mostly electrical.

Oh, here. Here's some equipment. If I were to pull this, go to, I guess, my floor plan. Let's figure out let's see. I want to find, this equipment. So, like, maybe this this, this equipment. If I click on it in this schedule and then I click on the floor plan, you can see that it points to this disconnect switch. Alright. This disconnect switch oh, darn. So, normally, I have multiple windows.

So it's on this window here. If I click on this disconnect switch, you could see that, you're right. There's no apparent load in here. But if I click on electrical circuits, you can see I definitely do have a load, and that's because I powered up the water heater directly, and the water heater itself carries the load. So it's a good way to, like, schedule things, use the schedule to check to make sure you have your loads in.

In this case, this is kinda how I want it. I I don't want the load in the disconnect switch itself. I want it in the hot water tank. So as long as these two are circuited together and I put the load into one of them, it gets fed back into the panel schedule. So, little bit of a tangent, but, essentially, what I was getting at was that you can make schedules for these things, and shared parameters allows you to make some really nice schedules.

I can even go in here if I wanted to and change the the actual loading. So it's nice. Like, let's say you found a whole bunch of equipment that doesn't have load and you wanted to put them in here, you can. And then vice versa. If you found load in here that you actually don't want to, you can go ahead and change them back here. Way faster to change it on here than it is to go through all the equipment and change it one by one. And then same thing. For lighting schedules, let's say I wanna change, like, all of these a types to b types. I basically just change it in one spot. It'll say, okay.

Do you wanna change it everywhere? Perfect. Come in here. All of a sudden, you see that now my 24 fixtures are all b's, all done in one shot, except for that one. That's a different type. Alright. So shared parameters. They're really nice to use in all of your families. They're great for scheduling. They're great for keeping things organized and consistent across your entire warehouse of, families.