Communicate with Project Team

Here is something we have encountered several times over the years and the most recent incident has prompted this post.  The title says communicate with your project team, but what does that really mean and to whom does is apply.  In most cases we think of our project team as fellow production staff assigned to the project, project managers, interior design staff, and the occasional consultant.  However, I think we need to include operations personal into this grouping.  Although they may not have a direct  impact on the project; they are part of the project team and should be educated in the DO's and DONT's of renaming folders. Sometimes this needs to happen to reflect the project name on our invoices (this could be initiated by in-house staff or by the client).  Regardless, educate all staff with the consequences of renaming top level folders, especially from a Revit standpoint.  We had a project recently where this happened and no one on the project team could work because they all recieved an error message that said the central file did not exist.  Well, it did exist, except the folder rename reverted the central files (all 6) to local files. If you know how to correct this, its not a big deal; however, had I not been on the project team or alerted to the issue, all the staff would have been working "at risk".  I am just glad this happened after hours and it was caught first thing in the morning.

The moral - make sure everyone is educated with respect to Revit file management and their involvement in the project.

Enjoy
Make it, don't fake it.