How do you audit projects?

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone,

Wanted to start a chat about project auditing.

Is anyone doing it? What do you look for if you do and how?

[Nathan Hildebrandt]

This is a great topic and worthy of discussion. There are several ways I audit a project when it comes to model review. Firstly I use a series of views with specific layer combinations and graphic overrides to identify specific things I want to make sure are not in the model.

Then the rest at the moment are a series of Interactive Schedules where I can check views are saved with correct settings and the like. 

Other tricks I have seen from other users is checks on dimensions and modelling accuracy for 90 degree modelling. Auditing really comes down to what are the key issues you need to check for your practice, based on issues you find when you do project checks.

I also have a detailed manual audit that I do on project files where I check a project against 83 criteria and mark actions for rectification. 

There is a great tool developed here out of Brisbane called BIM beats. Sadly they haven't got any Archicad clients yet to fund the development for that plugin but it identifies a whole lot of issues that practices can action against for Revit users right now. https://bimbeats.com/

[Anonymous]

Not sure what it is like on the other side of the fence, but I am finding Archicad quite fragile when it comes to projects. A lot of things can impact performance and not enough tools to identify and fix issues.

Frankly, for a "BIM" software, there is very little info a BIM manager can draw out of Archicad.
I desperately need better tools to manage projects as we have a lot of time wasted on spinning wheel.

[Barry Kelly]

Also use Graphic Overrides to highlight possible problems.

Such as dimension with static nodes - you want to avoid these if you can.

Or maybe walls less than 100mm thick and taller than 3000mm (or what ever requirements you want) as these walls may need cross bracing.

Or elements that don't have a classification.

Basically create a GO to highlight elements that might require attention.

Barry.

[Anonymous]

Key is I have access to data. In both cases it is a matter of relinking source for Power Bi to a new file. xml for attributes and csv for element info.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and Power BI is interactive so you can click on "Unclassified" for example and it highlights where items are...

[Nathan Hildebrandt]

I think that the auditing capability for a non computer programmer is limited not only in Archicad but Revit also. It is why there are so many products created to understand why the software isn't performing well on the other side of the fence. Many Archicad users haven't been questioning it. Maybe because the software works well, or maybe because they don't know any better. I agree that there needs to be something developed by a software developer that lets us understand what we are doing wrong in the software to improve its use and efficiency.  Here is a presentation from Matt Wash from BIMbeats on their product and use in Revit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=einG-MeWKmU

This is what we need to investigate as a community to get greater efficiency in Archicad. Identify the general issues that all users may do by mistake, which can be fixed.

[DGSketcher]

Like @Barry Kelly I find, as intended, GOs are the near perfect tool for my model checks and can be used to highlight 2D elements if that is what you want to see. They fail when it comes to parameter checks on objects but these can be managed through schedules. I think the checks are there in AC without resorting to exporting data, you just need to ask the right question in the right place.

[Anonymous]

Ignorance is a bliss I guess. After seeing this I feel like I am working with a stone axe. If Graphisoft is serious about mid to large studios, they need to give us the tools to be competitive. We need insight!

[Anonymous]

This is not viable option on large projects unfortunately as we have hundreds of viewpoints.

Yes there are some checks there, but they are not suitable on large scale. I need aggregated data that will give me insight.
Some checks simply don't exist - SEO for example or take the model report - it gives you IDs of problematic elements in a text file!!! Am I supposed to copy paste each ID to Find & Select? There should be a button to take user directly to the element. Again, I can and have previously pushed this data back into property and used a GO to see the elements, but this is once more time consuming. In other words, very costly.