Changes/revisions management with hotlink modules

[PVBergkrantz]

Hello. I'm trying to start utilizing the transmittal/revisions/changes system in Archicad, and I think I'm getting the hang of it, but I was wondering how everyone else deals with changes in hotlinked modules?

If I create a change in one file (say a floor plan file) which is then hotlinked into the main project file, and the change is linked to some objects: then the change will show up in the main file (with a little lock and reference to the hotlink file in the change window). So far all is well, and I can include the change in a transmittal set. I can not, however, close the change.

This makes sense of course since the change "lives" in another file, but I'm interested to see if anyone has a good workflow for this. Do you make all changes in the "main file"? Also it doesn't seem possible to add objects from a hotlink to a change in the main file, which means you have to rely on change-clouds in the main file, or doing the change in the hotlink file.

[Gerry Leonor]

since the implementation of the Changes tool, i've been taught to not associate any element in any view to a Change. yes it's neat that the Layout Book can automatically detect an element associated to a Change, but i think the reason why we disregarded that was because it was always a pain to disassociate a drawing to a Change, when it was automatically detected by AC. changes such as moving a wall 50mm to one side would be detected, perfectly fine, in either a 1:100 Floor Plan, or Internal Plans, but would not be relevant in a 1:200 Overall Plan or 1:1000 Site Plan.

we only ever create the Changes in the Change Manager & associate Change Markers to each new Change & place them only in the Layout Book & not anywhere in the model (not in plans/sections/elevations etc).

there's complete autonomy between the Model & the Changes.

Perhaps it's better now with the newer versions, but i never went back to test if the manual disassociation of drawings from auto-detected element changes was better than before.

[PVBergkrantz]

Thanks for the reply.  I agree that there are flaws in the current system that makes it tough to  fully utilize. Your method seems reasonable and something we might emulate. Do you use the issue/transmittal systems as well, associating revision to layouts?

It will be interesting to see peoples different workflows for this, as I find the official documentation to be pretty lacking/not based on realistic project workflows.

[Gerry Leonor]

unfortunately, our Transmittals are still external. we use Excel & have to manually edit them.

i read somewhere that Central Innovation have released a somewhat workable transmittal for Select users in Australia / NZ for AC. can't remember which version it is. i think i may have found it here in the forums.