Phases & Worksets

This blog started out as a blog for beginners. These days I mostly tend to cover advanced topics so here's a little tip for the beginners out there.

Always Be Phase Aware
In every project file your modeled components have a phase created and a phase demolished parameter whether you like it or not. And most views have phase and phase filter parameters. If you place a model component in a view that is set to the New Construction phase (under View Properties), that component automatically gets placed in the New Construction phase. So if you are doing as-builts, make sure you set all of your views phases to Existing. That way when you start placing your components they end up on the correct phase. This can easily be corrected in a 3D view if you skipped this step. As you start to model your proposed design distinguishing between existing and proposed content becomes ever more critical.

Always Be Workset Aware
On workset enabled projects every model component is place on a user defined workset (usually Workset 1). Make sure you check the workset toolbar and select the correct active workset. You don't want to place a whole lot of content on the Shared Levels & Grids workset. This can easily be corrected in a 3D view if you skipped this step.