One of the more annoying things users find with upgrading Autodesk Fabrication is losing their customizations. Things like column configurations in the old version do not magically appear in the new version.
But this problem is actually fairly solvable. You just need to know where to look. And those settings are located in a local folder on your system. They’re USER specific….VERSION specific and PRODUCT specific. Here’s where you’re going to look…
Each user will have a folder for the version and product they’re using. If the Version/Product isn’t there, that means the product is not installed or that combination of Version and Product was not run yet.
So as an example, if you’re using ESTmep 2021 and have your columns all configured, you’ll find that folder. But if you just installed 2024 and not run it yet, ESTmep 2024’s folder may not be there. If it is, the settings will not be the same.
In our theoretical example of upgrading from ESTmep 2021 to ESTmep 2024, you’ll copy the folder/contents from 2021 into 2024. If the ESTmep folder doesn’t exist in 2024, just copy the entire folder.
You can even copy the contents of ESTmep to the CAMduct folder. This would make the column configurations the same for those two product to be the same. You can also copy a product version from one user to another user. Either on the same computer or a complete different computer.
The folders may have different numbers of file between them. They control different things. The lack of a particular file within the Product folder means a particular feature wasn’t customized.
You could play around using trial and error and see exactly which file controls which settings. But I’ve personally not found that to be worth the effort. I just copy them all so I know that my new install is the same as the prior.
Another thing I usually recommend to people upgrading, is find the person who’s settings you want to use. Save those folders somewhere on the network for easy access. When you install/upgrade other users, copy them from the network local to the person you’re setting up.
Using this technique, you can easily keep your Fabrication product customizations consistent…version to version, product to product, user to user and computer to computer.
I have a lot of people ask how Pricing, Laborand Product Information (ProdInfo) works in Autodesk Fabrication. It’s a simple concept once you understand it. But it’s also rarely illustrated graphically so I’ll attempt a more graphical explanation here.
At it’s core Product Information requires the use of an ID, sometimes referred to as a Database ID. Pricing and Labor can be handled two separate ways depending how you need to price and labor your items. One of those ways is using Product ListedPricing and/or Labor. When using Product Listed Prices or Labor, you also use an ID.
Generally speaking, 100% of your parts should have and ID. ID’s should also be unique without a very good reason for duplication. There are a couple good reasons to duplicate ID’s across content but we won’t get into that here. If this article is helpful to you, those reasons would only serve to complicate the issue at this point.
Product Information & Product Listed Prices & Labor
When you have an IDassociated with your ITM content, that ID serves as the “Glue” to tie together all the other database tables in Autodesk Fabrication. An ITM with an ID, looks up that ID in the Product Informationdatabase to find the related product information. IT also does the same for Pricing, Fabrication Labor and Installation Labor.
The following images shows where the ID is stored in your ITM Content. For ITM’s which are NOT Product Listed, you simply type the ID into the “Code” field from the Properties window.
For Product Listed ITM’s, it’s handled slightly different. You add the ID column to the Product List and add the ID’s there. When you add a product listed ITM to your model or takeoff, the value of the ID for the size you select gets automatically placed in the “Code” property. When that ITM is merely sitting in your library on disk, the value here doesn’t matter. It can be blank or any one of the ones in the Product List. Adding the ITM to your model then updates it to the proper ID.
Product Information
Product Information or ProdInfo for short lists additional data about the fitting or item. The following image shows the related data in ProdInfo with the ID column outlined.
In addition to standard product information, you can also change to a Supplier view of ProdInfo where you can add additional columns for any other types of data or numbers you want to track. The following image shows some added data fields like UPC Code and Harrison HPH codes.
Pricing
The following image shows a Product ListedPricing Table. The ID is outlined. Here’s where you can add pricing information to the ID of the ITM. Note, the term Product Listed Price here is a little confusing because “Product Listed” prices can apply to non-product listed ITM’s. While an ITM may not contain a “Product List“, the pricing table is still a “List of Products” that are referenced by ID.
Labor (Fabrication & Installation)
In the same way Price List’s work, Fabrication and Installation Labor work in a similar way. Product Listed labor can apply to any ITM, Product Listed or not as long as it has an ID. The following image shows Fabrication labor but Installation Labor works identically.
Breakpoint Pricing & Labor
A second way to specify Price and Labor doesn’t require ID’s because they’re not looked up from a list. These would be Breakpoint Price and Labor tables. With this type of Price or Labor table, you build a 1d or 2d Breakpoint Table that uses the part’s size as a guide to look up the proper price or labor rate in a matrix.
Price Breakpoint
The following image shows a Pricing Breakpoint table. You can make more than one breakpoint grid and have each apply to a different material if you have the need.
Labor (Fabrication & Installation) Breakpoint
Similar to a Price Breakpoint, you can make a matrix for Labor as well. With LaborBreakpoints, you can also make more than one matrix and have it apply to various properties of the item labor is being applied to like Insulated or Non-Insulated.
Finding the Right Price & Labor Tables
While all you need for ProdInfo is an ID on an ITM and matching ID entry in the ProdInfo Database, Price and Labor need an extra step.
Price and Labor can have multiple tables to help you organize the values or even manage the price for the same item from multiple suppliers. To handle this, you set the tables in the ITM properties. This is true for both Product Listed ITM’s as well as Non-Product Listed ITM’s.
Setting these tables tells Fabrication which table to look in to find either the ID or the Breakpoint table which uses size and property criteria to apply to the ITM.
The following image shows where those tables are configured in the Costing tab of the ITM properties.
M-Rate is were the Price of the material comes from. This is set typically for bought items where you pay a set price. If you leave this set to “None“, material pricing would be calculated on a “Price per Pound” formula based on the material weight. This is typically done for Fabricated Sheetmetal fittings where the weight of the Sheetmetal is calculated based on area and gauge and then priced per pound. For piping or bought items, this table would typically point to a table that contains the pricing.
F-Rate is where you select the Fabrication Table to use to look up the Breakpoint Table or ID if Product listed labor. This is most commonly set to “None” for Piping items or other bought items where you just buy them but don’t fabricate them. It’s usually set to a specific table for Sheetmetal fittings which you fabricate and want to calculate fabrication labor.
E-Rate – This table is for Installation Labor. The “E” in “E-Rate” stands for “Erection” if that helps you remember. This will be set for most contractors who are installing duct or piping. It would typically be set to “None” if you were a fabricator only selling to others who install.
Summary
Hopefully this helps give you an idea how pricing, labor and product information functions (at a high level) in Autodesk Fabrication. There’s a lot more strategy and nuance you can get into but this is a good place to start understanding the basics of how it all works.
It’s recommended NOT to install this update for CAMduct or ESTmep. Installing the 2022.0.1 Update will prevent access to the Projects folder. CADmep does not appear to have issues with this update.
It’s been a long time, but Autodesk finally released an update to Autodesk Fabrication. 2022.0.1 Update was released recently and contains several fixes for 2022 versions of CADmep, CAMduct and ESTmep.
Install from the Autodesk Desktop App or download from your Autodesk Account portal (https://manage.autodesk.com)
I’ve added graphics to better illustrate the Autodesk Fabrication Object Model for COD Scripting,
If you write COD scripts for CADmep, ESTmep or CAMduct, this can help you better understand how the various properties and objects are structured when you write your code.
If you want to learn more about Fabrication COD Scripting and how to use these resources, register for MEP Force 2021 and look for my Fabrication Scripting sessions.
You can find links with the other Fabrication COD Language Reference items here…
If you’ve not downloaded the Autodesk Fabrication Script Libraries lately, you might want to grab an updated copy. There’s been several updates over the last month. Here’s what’s changed…
DamperRotation Property (undocumented) has been added to all Debug, Job and Library scripts. Support for this property was added in 2017 but never documented. It’s there to support the rotation of Dampers on Fabrication Parts in Revit. It should be noted, that this value is Added to the Angle property of the assigned damper. As such, it acts as an Adjust and not an Override. e.g. Damper w/Angle of 90 + Rotation Property in the ITM of 90 results in a damper rotated 180 degrees.
StiffenerGroup Property added to the Autodesk Fabrication 2022.0 and later versions of the Debug, Job and Library scripts.
AirturnGroup Property added to the Autodesk Fabrication 2022.0 and later versions of the Debug, Job and Library scripts.
SplitterGroup Property added to the Autodesk Fabrication 2022.0 and later versions of the Debug, Job and Library scripts.
InsulationStatusLock Property added but listed as “Unavailable” as it stopped working in 2017. Added in the hopes it gets fixed in future versions.
StructureType Property added to the Autodesk Fabrication 2022.0 and later versions of the Debug, Job and Library scripts. Property was “Write Only” in 2021 and prior versions so was unable to display in prior versions.
Product ListHasCustomData Property has been added to all Debug, Job and Library scripts.
Product ListHasFlow Property has been added to all Debug, Job and Library scripts.
ItemPCFSKey Property has been added to all Debug, Job and Library scripts.
ItemCostByLength Property removed from Material Debug scripts (never really belonged there).
If you run Autodesk Fabrication as a multi-user installation, there’s a defect in the Configure Users utility. When you run the utility from a 2022 installation, it won’t read any of the user accounts you have configured.
In fact, the only way to login, is to use the Default Administrator account Autodesk uses if there are no users configured. It won’t read your Administrative account regardless of what the login is. To see the issue, you can use the following to login and see the problem…
User Name:AdministratorPassword:Admin
Once logged in, there will be one account. You can make more but when you exit and come back in, those accounts don’t show up. IN fact, even the original Administrator account isn’t there, it’ll make a new one. The following image shoes the users accounts that were created in 2022 be repeatedly going into it. Next to it is the 2021 utility showing those same accounts. As you can see, they are there, its just 2022 won’t show them.
Note that all the other Fabrication products will read/honor the accounts properly. It only seems to be the Configure Users utility that had the issue.
How to Determine Which Version of Configure Users To Run
To make things ‘easy’, Autodesk chose not to add the version in the name of the shortcut. Simply looking for ‘Configure Users‘ shows a lot of indeterminate results.
To pick a particular version, Right-Click on one of the shortcuts and select ‘Open file location‘.
This will display a File Explorer window to the location of the shortcut you selected. As you can see below, the one I happened to pick was for CAMduct Components 2016. The product doesn’t matter, only the version, You can navigate back a folder then pick one of the Fabrication products for any version you want. 2021 and earlier will work.
Not sure if or when they’ll get around to fixing this. While 2022 has had a few issues fixed, they didn’t release any updates (yet) for 2021. Regardless if they fix it or not, it’s easy to work around by using any other version.
Update (2020.04.08): Autodesk released the Extension for MEP Fabrication 2022 on April 8th. You can get it from the Autodesk Desktop App or from your Autodesk Accounts Portal (manage.autodesk.com). This restores the MAJ Import/Export functionality and access to Fabrication Reports. It does NOT install the RME to FAB add-in. So part of the below guidance is still needed. You’ll want to copy the ADSK_Export.addin file per the below instructions. The other file is no longer needed and Autodesk’s newly released Extension will overwrite what’s needed if you used the below guidance.
If you’re an Autodesk Fabrication user and loaded up Revit 2022, you may have noticed some key Fabrication Add-ins are missing. It happens most every release. Deadlines for product releases always trump add-ins. This year, all the installers were reworked too so there was extra work I’m sure.
Don’t fear, they’ll get to them eventually. Just keep an eye on the Desktop App for when the updated Add-ins are release. In the mean time, here’s a temporary fix…
Enabling Fabrication Add-ins
To get the Fabrication Add-ins, you’ll need Revit 2021 installed and have those add-ins loaded in there. From there, there’s 2 files you’ll need to copy to a different folder.
The first file enables MAJ Import/Export and Fabrication Reports. The second file enables the Fabrication RME Extension in the Add-ins Ribbon.
You copy them from this folder…
C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\2021
…to this folder…
C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\2022
Here’s what that looks like in Windows Explorer….
What This Looks Like in Revit
Once you copy those files, restart Revit to see the changes. Here’s a review of what that looks like…
MAJ ExportsMAJ ImportFabrication Reports
A Parting Word
It should be noted that this work around should be considered “temporary”. You’re running 2021 Add-ins in 2022. The files you coped should be removed once the official 2022 Add-ins are released. This will ensure you get any fixes they may have added to the 2022 versions.
Most MEP contractors moving to Revit with Fabrication Parts at some point wrestle with renumbering parts. You can purchase tools or add-ins to make this easier or even write your own with Dynamo or C#.
But most contractors aren’t coders. And buying more software can also be a challenge. The good news is that those are not your only options, There’s some well written FREE Revit Add-Ins that make this a breeze.
Required Tools
Head over to DiRoot’s web site (https://diroots.com/) and download the OneFilter Add-In found here and the ReOrdering Add-In found here.
Once installed, you’ll find the tools in the DiRoots Ribbon in Revit along with any of their other tools you may have installed.
Getting Started
The following image shows 2 runs of Rectangular and 2 runs of Round duct work drawn in Revit using Fabrication Parts. One is drawn in a +2in WG service and the other -2in WG service. All duct has a tag configured to display the Fabrication Part’s Item Number property.
First Up – DiRoots OneFilter
Using the DiRoot’s OneFilterAdd-In, you can easily select not just Fabrication Parts, but also select them based on their properties.
Once selected, you can see Revit selects the specified items in your model.
Next – DiRoots ReOrdering
Now that your desired parts are selected, you can use the DiRoots ReOrdering Add-In to renumber those parts.
After applying your renumbering parameters, you can see how Revit then displayed the updated Item Numbers for the Fabrication Parts.
Wrapup
As you can see, with a couple free (well written) utilities you can quickly and easily select and renumber your fabrication parts in Revit.
There’s a lot of other reasons beyond renumbering to use some of these Add-Ins. They’re very functional for a lot of workflows. Those uses are beyond the scope of this post but feel free to explore these Add-Ins or some of the other DiRoots tools when you get a chance. They’re some of the highest quality free Add-Ins for Revit than you’ll find anywhere.
Do you have issues with duplicate entries in your Fabrication Database? These could be proxy entries…those followed by text enclosed within {brackets}. Or they could be identical..if someone made the proxy item permanent,
This can be caused by using the Strict matching setting in your database setting. It’s recommended to use Match by Name only.
When you use Strict naming, when you open drawings or MAJ files, the database settings within those files are compared to those in your configuration. If the data is deemed relevant and it varies, even something as small as a number 3 decimals vs. 4 decimals can add another entry into your configuration.
When using Match by Name only, as long as the name (and group) matches, the entry is considered the same and you don’t end up with duplicate entries.
The only change I’ve found in from 2020 to 2021 versions is the CADmep command DWNLDC Command (DOWNLOADCONTENT Alias) is no longer present. This use to download ITM content from Autodesk’s www.Building3DContent.com site. This site is no longer active and Autodesk has included all the content within the default Imperial and Metric configurations that ship with Autodesk Fabrication Content.
User’s of Trimble’s Managed ITM Content (building-data.net) use to use this command as well. It was just redirected to the Building Data site. It’s unclear how this change will affect them as the core DLL’s used for this process appear to have been removed in 2021 versions of Autodesk Fabrication.
If you’re a user of Trimble’s Building-Data, I’d suggest contacting them for support if you have issues.
