Revit 2020.2: Our Favorite Features
Last month, Autodesk rolled out just a few updates to Revit 2020.2 which improve an already robust BIM application.
Included in the Revit 2020.2 release are new Dynamo nodes for structural modeling, updates to the fly mode, and even updates to the display of linked BIM360 models. Although these features are helpful in automation and improve the user experience, we are particularly excited about a few updates that improve the way users manage BIM data.
Updates to Schedule Views in Revit 2020.2
Schedules are arguably one of the most import features in Revit; they allow users to review, modify, and even print the data within a model in a tabular view. Autodesk has left this critical feature of Revit with much to be desired in terms of user interface for several versions (which equates to over a decade).
Well, we have good news! The Revit 2020.2 update includes a few updates that should make managing data in schedule views a little less painful.
Freeze the Header Row
Schedules with dozens or even hundreds of rows are not uncommon in large projects. Since the interface to schedules have not been updated in several versions now, these large schedules have always been difficult to navigate.
One of the issues when working with large schedule views is that been that the header row disappears off the screen while scrolling, making it difficult to know which columns are which. This has been remedied in Revit 2020.2 with the ability to freeze header rows of schedules in a similar way to what most users are accustomed to from working in Excel.
In regards to data management, another user interface enhancement in Revit 2020.2 is the highlighting of active rows in Revit. This might be a trivial feature to some, but it is definitely a major UI improvement when working with large schedules with several columns.
Similar to the issue with several rows in a large schedule, several columns have also been challenging because schedule views have always only highlighted a single cell at a time. In Revit 2020.2, the entire row is now highlighted in a schedule view, making it easier to review the data of an entire row.
Electrical panel schedules are a special type of schedule in Revit. They do not follow the typical format of schedules by allowing users to add fields and filters, but rather are specifically generated for electrical panels. This has additional challenges when managing data from a panel schedule view. Autodesk has made a significant improvement towards making panel schedules easier to work with in Revit 2020.2.
Each circuit on a panel schedule includes a field for the circuit description, which has typically been a manually typed field which has always been challenging to manage at scale. In Revit 2020.2, users can now display combined parameters in place of a circuit description. This means more leverage of BIM data and less manual data entry, which of course means less risk for errors or mismatched information.
In addition, users can now review and edit these parameter values directly in the properties pane while in the panel schedule view.
Although these are just a few of the minor updates included in Revit 2020.2, they will undoubtedly make it easier to review and manage the data within Revit models while in schedule views. Happy Reviteering!