What's in a Multi-Category Schedule?

Ever wondered what’s in a Autodesk Revit Multi-Category schedule? Here’s the skinny…while a regular Revit Schedule reports on a single category of data such as Doors, Plumbing Fixtures, or Structural Foundations, a Multi-category schedule can report on many of the Revit model categories at once, which can be useful for quantity takeoffs. Sounds straightforward, but the catch is that some of the model categories are being excluded. What’s missing are the system families such as Walls, Floors, etc.

The good news is that Ideate BIMLink not only includes all the model category data that you need to do a comprehensive takeoff, but it also lets you select, on a per category basis, which elements you want to include. Furthermore, you can include not just the Length and the Volume, but also the Area, which is slightly important.

Here are the steps required to use Ideate BIMLink to quickly extract your quantity data from a Revit Building Information Model:

1.    Within Ideate BIMLink create a New Link that is based on <Multi-Category> 

2.    On the Multi-Category tab review the items to decide which you need for your takeoff. 

3.    Export to Excel. 

4.    Ideate BIMLink will create a row of data for each instance within your Revit project. If you want a summary, to include counts and totals, you can use Excel’s Pivot table – see video

That’s it. You now have a comprehensive list of the model elements and proceed with your estimating with confidence.

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Glynnis Patterson is a registered architect and the Director of Software Development at Ideate, Inc.