BEST PRACTICE: Loading Surface Presets per library

[Aurasphere]

Previously, going way back, I created a colour system whereby the colour consultant would fill out a form (in MSAccess) and it would then interpret and write out a specific GDL file (into the job folder)

Upon load of the project and assigning that particular 'Colour' folder, the newly chosen colours would be redefined and appear on the model which uses abstract naming rather than a colour 

eg Wall Finish - Primary

and so on using the colour design principles of 60/30/10

This meant colour consult responsible for choices > BIM tech opens model + folder addition > Renders image using template direct onto layout.

A long time has passed and I left, management changed the system back to colours per object and turned it back into a mammoth task for uses (vs loading a folder). They also destroyed the normalised structured data and ported to 'Framework' (spending years +consultant) and with no way to easily extract formatted data back into GDL etc...well some peeps, as lovely as they are...have no idea, I returned to work there and was booted out because I wasnt just trying to re implement but also fix all the crap that had leaked in.

BUT

With a chance to do it all fresh; is there now a way to simply create colour 'options'? I know its not geometry and I realise I could change the scheme, save the attributes out per preset and import/overwrite

When previously loading GDL, it would nicely just overwrite. Im developing for myself atm so the idea would be to assign as before, create an output and store variations in a folder, then just load them in eg like a master gdl object etc

Any ideas?

Operating system used: Windows

[Aurasphere]

Hmmm...no takers?

Programmatic material assignments must not be particularly important I guess

Or should this be assigned to a diff are...GDL?

Its more about NOT using GDL though