In this session, we are going to take a quick look at Revit schedules. Let us go through the six schedule types in Revit first. Then, I will use the material takeoff schedule for walls in this project as an example for demonstrating how to perform sorting, totaling, and filtering in the schedule and how to export the schedule. The six schedule types are “Schedule/Quantities,” “Graphical Column Schedule,” “Material Takeoff,” “Sheet List,” “Note Block,” and “View List.” A quantity schedule lists the building components in a project. A graphical column schedule is for identifying structural columns’ intersecting grid lines, top and bottom constraints, and offsets. A material takeoff schedule shows more details about the assembly of a component with lists of sub-components or materials. A sheet list is a schedule of sheets in a project. We can use a sheet list as a table of contents for a construction document set. A note block, also known as annotation schedule, lists all instances of annotations that we can add using the “Symbol” tool. A view list is a schedule of views in a project. All schedules are automatically updated when we modify elements in this project. For example, if we delete this wall, then it will also disappear from the schedule. Now, let me use the material takeoff schedule for walls in this project as an example for demonstrating how to perform sorting, totaling, and filtering in it. First, we want to sort the schedule according to the materials the walls are using in this project. Go to the “Properties” palette. In the “Sorting/Grouping” field, click “Edit….” We shall see the pop-up window of “Material Takeoff Properties.” Under the “Sorting/Grouping” tab, in the “Sort by” drop-down menu, select “Material: Name.” Then click on "OK." The material of each instance is now listed in the schedule; however, we care more about the kinds of materials, so let us go back to the “Material Takeoff Properties” window. Under the “Sorting/Grouping” tab, uncheck the option of “Itemize every instance.” Then click on "OK." Now only the kinds of materials are listed in the schedule. For better understanding, we may add a title field for each material. Back to the “Material Takeoff Properties” window, under the “Sorting/Grouping” tab, check “Header.” If we would like to make the page even less crowded, we may also check “Blank line.” Click on “OK,” and now the schedule looks cozier. If we want to group the materials by floors, we can go to the “Sorting/Grouping” tab. Change the “Sort by” pull-down menu option to “Base constraint.” Now we can see the schedule with grouping of floors. If we want to specify additional sorting fields in the schedule, under the “Sorting/Grouping” tab, use “Then by” to specify other sorting fields. For example, we select “Material: name” in the pull-down menu and click on “OK.” Then we can see the materials used for each floor. Another useful tool is for automatic calculation of the grand total. In the bottom area of the “Material Takeoff Properties” window, under the “Sorting/Grouping” tab, check “Grand totals” and choose one of several ways to show the totals in the drop-down menu. For example, we select “Title, count and totals” and click on “OK.” Then we can see the total material area for walls of each floor. Then, let us move on to the “Formatting” tab. Choose the field we want to change its formats. Let me take “Material: Area” as an example. In this drop-down menu, we select “Calculate totals,” and click on “OK.” Now we can see the total area of each material. If we want to see the total area of each material for every element type, go to the “Sorting/Grouping” tab and find the first “Then by.” Check the “Footer” option, and in the “Footer” drop-down menu, select “Totals only.” Then go to the second “Then by” and select “Family and Type.” Click on “OK.” Now we can see the material areas of each wall type, the total area of each material, and the total material area for walls of each floor. Now let us move on to the function of “Filter.” We can use filters to see only certain types of information in the schedule. First, go to the “Properties palette,” select “Edit…” in “Filter.” Here we can see three pull-down menus in each row. The left one is used to select the field that you want to use for filtering. The middle one is for setting the filter conditions, and the right one is for specifying a filter value. For example, let us filter out the elements below the ground level. Open the first pull-down menu. There are several options. We select “Base Constraint.” If we want to see only the elements above the ground level, then in the middle menu, set the filter condition as “is above,” and the filter value in the right menu as “GL.” Now we can see all the walls above the ground level displaying. We can add other conditions in the following rows. However, when you set more than two conditions in Revit, only the elements that meet all the conditions would be shown. When we have lots of elements in a Revit model, the schedules can be pretty lengthy. So, we may need to use different colors to distinguish or mark the information in the schedules. First, select the field we want to alter its color. Then, under the “Modify/Schedule/Quantities” tab, click the “Shading” tool. The “Color” window will pop-out. Choose the color we want and click on “OK.” Now the color has been assigned to the field we selected. If you want to use the same color for the whole column, just click on the column title and choose the color you want. We may export the schedule for further usage. Go to the application button, select “Export” and find “Reports.” Then select “Schedule.” In the pop-up window, select the file type as “.txt” and browse to the folder you want to save the report. Click on “OK.” In the “Export Schedule” pop-up window, we can adjust some settings of the exported file. In the “Output Options,” the “Field delimiter” option is used to determine the way of separating data in the file. Let us select “Tab” so that we may open the file in Excel without format modification. Click on “OK” to export the schedule. Now, let us open the exported TXT file in Excel. We can see that it looks the same as the wall schedule we set up in Revit, except for the color of the chart. Because the exported file is saved as a text file, the color setting cannot be exported. Other than that, the format is the same as what we see in Revit.
