Workset Visibility in Revit 2011

Has this ever happened to you? 

"Frankly, I’m annoyed by having to turn on my workset every time I create a new view. "

When a workset is created, there is an option to make it not visible by default.  If you've run into the scenario above, this box was unchecked when the workset was created. 

One work-around is to create a new workset that is 'Visible in all views', and then delete the original workset.  When you delete a workset that contains elements, you have to option to move those elements to another workset, so you can move them to the newly created workset.  However, be aware that when you do this, those elements may be visible in views where they weren't previously visible (assuming their category is visible in those views).  So, you may need to 'clean up' after yourself, to turn off the worksets where they're not needed.

New in 2011 is the ability to change your mind about the workset visibility default.  In the worksets dialow, there is a new column titled 'Visible in all views' where you can toggle this setting.

This setting is then tied to the 'Use Global Setting' option in a view's visibility graphic overrides settings.  The Global Setting will indicate Visible or Not Visible as appropriate.  You also have the options of Show and Hide as in previous releases.

I have advised against unchecking the 'Visible in all views' option prior to 2011, because if a file had worksets marked as such, there was no way to turn on the worksets when linked into a host model.  However, now with 2011, you have the ability to control the visiblity of worksets in linked files.

 
However, I would still advise to exercise judgement when making something not visible by default.  Consider a scenario where roof drains are on a workset marked not visible in all views in the architectural model.  The plumbing designer, not knowing any better, doesn't go looking for roof drains in toggled off worksets.. he just expects to see them if they exist in the project.  IMO, it is better to have things visible, then turned off by the 'view owner' if/when not needed.

Better control of workset visibility, especially for linked files, is a great enhancement in Revit 2011. 

Comments

[w. wright]

great post, issues we had in the past was receiving structural models from revit structure linked into rmep and not seeing the cols and beams because that box was unchecked when originally creating worksets. glad to see the option now in workset manager

[BimGuru]

"it is better to have things visible, then turned off by the 'view owner' if/when not needed." Unless you are dealing with DWG linked. You dont want to have them visible in all views.

[Chanel Purses Outlet]

However, now with 2011, you have the ability to control the visiblity of worksets in linked files.it is better to have things visible, then turned off by the 'view owner' if/when not needed.