Template drawing management

[djhplanning]

I'm curious on how other users manage and update their main template drawing.  I have a really hard time trying to manage my main drawing template file that I use for each new project.  Whenever I do start a new project I use this file.  While I am working on a project, I am always making little changes here and there to the defaults, etc during the drawing process that I want the same way on future new projects.  I do not understand why Chief is not setup in a way that if you make a default change, etc. in one drawing, it is not a universal change that will be the same on all drawings you are currently working on (like program preferences is).  It is only changed on that one specific drawing file.  Bugs the crap out of me.  This would be fine if you were just working on one drawing at a time from start to finish.  But in reality, I usually have 12 projects going at different stages and it becomes impossible to get all the projects on the same settings.  The way I have been doing it is to make the change to the current drawing I am working on, then open my template file and make the same change to it.  It's time consuming.  I am out of luck with the current projects that I have already started, but at least my template file is changed.  Recommendations???  Thanks in advance.     

[Alaskan_Son]

This is is the method I generally recommend:

• Keep a notepad handy (a word processor document, text file, or spreadsheet will do as well if those work better for you)
• During your normal daily workflow, anytime you make a change that you think you want to make to your template, write it down.
• Periodically open your template plan, go through your list, and make the desired changes.  This can be once a day, once a week, once a month, or quarterly.  You just have to decide what works best for you.

A few of the benefits are that:

1. Its far more efficient.  You can just focus on the one task at hand and not have to lose all the efficiency and productivity that you do by switching back and forth between your current task and adjusting your template.
2. You're not making a change to your template that you later (sometimes that same day) realize wasn't such a great idea. 
3. You can more carefully consider whether each change is worth making or not.
4. It helps avoid file bloat.  I've seen more users over the years with settings, layers, layer sets, default sets, etc. that they have long since forgotten why the have.
5. It can help you skip over unnecessary generations.  Some of the changes we make when doing them one at a time end up affecting other recent changes.  A lot of the time as you're going through your list you'll find that some changes can just be skipped entirely because they're made obsolete by another change on the list.

[SH_Canada]

12 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Keep a notepad handy (a word processor document, text file, or spreadsheet will do as well if those work better for you)

'i try and do this, but I'll admit, I'm more likely to start a new similar project using the latest plan/layout file which is similar to my last one (especially if it is for the same customer). Although I will admit it gets annoying to keep adding the same things, eventually they will all get there, but probably not the most efficient

[glennw]

 

Quote

I do not understand why Chief is not setup in a way that if you make a default change, etc. in one drawing, it is not a universal change that will be the same on all drawings you are currently working on (like program preferences is).

 

So I am working on 4 drawings (I assume you mean open drawings) I change the floor/ceiling height default in one drawing and it changes the default floor/ceiling height in the other drawings.

If the other drawings are using the floor/ceiling default, their floor/ceiling setting would change, along with all the other things that could follow on automatically like rebuild framing, rebuild roofs, dimensions......

I can't see how something like that would work without creating a huge mess.

 

There are some tools that may help.

There is the Set As Default option in the current plan - this allows you to manually change a setting and then make that setting the default in the current plan.

There are all the individual Import options like Import Layer Sets, Import Defaults Sets, Import Saved Plan Views, etc, which allows you to import these from another plan file.

Then there is Import Default Settings tool which has a choice of 81 defaults you can import from another plan file.

So at the end of the day, say, after working on the current plan, open your template plan and import any defaults you want from your current working plan.

 

To get quick to your template plan you could place a Link in a text box anywhere on the plan that is a shortcut to your template plan.

Click on the Text item and then Follow Link on the Edit toolbar.

This will open your template file ready for importing defaults.

Note that it opens the template file itself - not a new plan based on the template.

So make your changes, do your imports and save.

 

 

 

[HumbleChief]

Hey Dan, it can be frustrating to continually make changes to your template plan (and Layout Template) but over time you may find, like I have, that eventually very few, if any, changes need to be made to those templates. I have my templates pretty well dialed in but sometimes I'll run into a little niggler change that I haven't made for a while and have ignored. I simply open the template plan make the change and get on with things. Or even leave that template file open and make changes as you're working on other plans. It takes time, but eventually there's very little work that needs to be done to your template files.