Victaulic Tools for Revit – Updates and New Spool Tracker

RALPH SCHOCH: Hello, everyone. I'm Ralph Schoch. I'm from Victaulic Company. Today, I'm happy to have-- that you're with us. Today, we're going to talk about Victaulic tools for Revit, all the updates that we've been working on, and also our new SpoolTracker app that we're coming out with and launching at AU. So, do a little backstory on Victaulic and what group I'm in. I'm in the virtual design construction, VDC, side of Victaulic.

So I think a lot of people probably realize Victaulic being a manufacturer. But we also have quite a large VDC group. We're over 100 people. I know when I started, we had drawings. And we've been doing projects since 1982. And that gives us 40 years of experience of doing projects before BIM. We used AutoCAD. We modeled everything out and did all prefab, all the way back then to now.

But obviously, as things change, we have more of a global presence now-- with eight training centers, over 100 employees. We have a lot of technical capabilities that we can meet your needs on the AEC side. Some of the stuff that Victaulic does-- as far as the group I'm in and I work wit-- I'm the software manager for Victaulic on the VDC side. So we work on the estimation, the content and software, the BIM coordination, and reality capture.

So we have a group of software developers. We're building tools. So the tools and things that I'm showing you today are tools that we really take a lot of passion and we built for our team to use. But we make them in a way that our customers can use them as well. So we're hopeful through this presentation, you can see some of the updates that we're doing to Victaulic tools for Revit. And also, I want to talk to you about our new SpoolTracker app.

So we've been working on this, actually, for quite some time. Victaulic is building an app within either iOS or Android. And what's neat about this app is it's going to help facilitate your tracking of hours and times through the fab shop and all the way out to the field. We've worked with customers over the years. I mean, everybody fabricates differently. That's something I always say. And it's true. Every company is different. Every BIM department's different.

And understanding how fast or how long something takes isn't always so obvious. We would get the analogy-- oh, it takes me 15 minutes to weld up that joint. Or it takes two minutes to groove and connect that joint. So what we've built here is really an iOS Android app that allow you to specifically track those times.

What's really nice is that this tool will help customers understand their field and shop productivity. And then from that, we can take all the data, then, that's collected in the app. You're going to see how that then later can get directly imported into Revit and how the two are connected.

So this is how a lot of things were done on our end for quite some time, to be honest with you. On the left there, you see how do you track productivity. And a lot of that was done through whiteboards and markers, or kiosks, and tags, and things. So at best, maybe some of that data then got plugged down into a spreadsheet and then you could track some of that.

And how accurate really is that information? Or is it even the information you're looking for? So that's some of the things that we understand, we see from customers-- is trying to give them a little more organization a better understanding of what their true productivity is.

So some of the benefits-- right now this is going to be our first forte into, really, a design to installation software solutions from Victaulic. So in the past, we've built tools and content around Revit, AutoCAD, Inventor. Now, this will be a tool that can be utilized by the shop and the field personnel so that they can get that information and data back into your Revit model. Why would we link it back into Revit?

That's a good question. One of the main reasons we find is that a lot of times, we'll find issues, or a customer could find some challenge in whether they're during installation phase, or fabrication phase, and maybe something-- a piece of equipment didn't come in the way they thought. And there's some change that needs to happen. For us, having that information in Revit allows us to make design change more efficiently and more effectively.

It's way easier to see the entire system in Revit or in Navis and understand how that change could affect the project-- and also, how you can modify things to not affect fab that's been completed on the project as well. So it's really about being thoughtful on how those changes and how we can prove out those advantages.

Having that transparent shop and site productivity-- that's going to help your company be more efficient and make sure you focus on build strategies that are going to be more productive. It's going to make more profit for your company. Over the last year, Victaulic has come out with a lot of installation-ready V fittings. And those really have challenged a lot of the traditional methods of construction. So our SpoolTracker app will be just another tool that companies can use to really understand their true productivity and make valid, data-driven decisions.

A lot of the core features-- like I said it's iOS Android compatible. Super easy app-- it's just a simple status you're checking off. And you'll see that. You can add notes. You can add photos to any spool. It works online and offline. So that was a big deal. It needed to work in a basement mechanical room as well as in the office if you're trying to make a change to a spool. So you're definitely not going to get internet connectivity out on site. So we had to make sure the app was going to be able to store that data and upload it to the servers.

Data is automatically synchronized. The real concept to our app is that it's a simple process. It's not going to change the way your fab shop works today. It's basically-- if they have a phone, they're going to be able to use the app. Basically, a QR code and a phone is all you really need. And the app is going to work for you. It actually tracks GPs locations of the scans, so you can see where somebody was when they scanned it off. So it gives you an understanding, then, of material migrating through the lifecycle-- from fabrication to installation.

Some basic search features to look at the status of different schools. And what's also nice, too, is it's going to be compatible with any Revit project-- as long as you're using Victaulic tools for Revit. So really, the key-- like I said-- is the link to the QR codes. By having that QR code on the virtual spool and also on the actual spool that gets printed out, or label it gets printed out in the fab shop, allows you to connect those two.

And that's how we're getting the statuses and things that come back into Revit. We have a very standardized QR code. So if you haven't really messed around with QR codes, I've worked with them now for quite a while-- sort of went to QR code college, I would call it in a way-- a lot of the things you can do and the redundancy you can put in QR codes. But really, what's nice is we can put any string, any amount of data, in that QR code.

And then, as long as we standardize that data, it really makes it easy to format and to utilize within any system. So whether you're using paper to markers-- or not paper-- but if you're using a marker or a crayon to mark your spools, or you're using another fab shop management software, we can easily plug in these QR codes into your process. So that way, you can have this level of organization and tracking through your shop and out to your field-- out to the field.

So let me show you how the app works a little bit. I'll just play his video. You can see here. Basically, what we do is we go into the Settings. We have a new option for SpoolTracker. Inside Revit, we can create a new project. When I click that Create New Project, it's going to create a project code. From that project code, I can go on my iPhone, or iPad, or Android device and plug it in. And that's pretty much it. You just need that code.

Now we just need a QR code. So the QR codes are available and can be applied to the spools and to schedules inside Revit. So that way, you can utilize and scan those that way. Or obviously, you can put them on the spools. For this video, I'm just going to be scanning them directly off of Revit to show the workflow.

So you can see, as I sent all the spools to SpoolTracker, in the Assembly Manager, the icon status for all the spools have changed. So I can come in. I can scan that QR code. Hit Confirm. And that's pretty much it. Now, if I go over to Revit, you can see if I refresh, I have a C there. And that stands for cutting over on the left.

So depending on how many-- or whatever statuses you have, we have algorithms set up in those icons that they'll automatically change based on different statuses. So there I just said another spool for cutting. So really, the key here is if you can use your phone, you're going to be able to use this app. It's going to be super easy, simple to use, really a clicker, too. It's not going to take a lot of time for somebody to scan QR code, set the status, confirm, done. That's all you need to do.

So really, our goal, here, is not to change your whole fab shop to allow for some basic tracking and understanding of productivity, but to give a simple tool that you can go in and get some real data on how long it takes you to do things-- whether it's the shop or the field. So you can see here, too, we're getting those same QR codes out on the schedule, there, using images. And those images are linked down to the assemblies.

And the same thing here-- you can see in the tags I'm actually pulling the actual status from SpoolTracker into Revit on those assembly tags. So it's-- what's really nice, too, is in Revit, obviously all the filtering tools that are in Revit allow you to filter out just all the installed products. You can see. You can change the colors based on what statuses are more meaningful to you. And those statuses-- or tasks, that we like to call them in the app-- can be can be customized based on the needs of the project.

So just to rehash a little bit-- you can see up here, here's our icons. Obviously, we can have as many icon types as we want. If you hover over any one of those icons, you're going to see the ability to see what that icon means. So IC means installation complete. And you also see that there's a Rev here. So that's showing the Rev that's in Revit on that sheet for that assembly.

If you're using some other software to create your spool sheets, that's fine as well. The app's going to work with that as long as they're using Revit assemblies. So we can apply these QR codes and these statuses really at any point of the process. So if you're utilizing some other fab shop software, but you want to utilize SpoolTracker for field tracking, you 100% can do that.

You just have Victaulic tools for Revit available to you inside Revit. As your assemblies are all created, can issue those assemblies, then, to SpoolTracker. And it's going to be fine. So you can see here, too, these are all the different statuses I have currently set up in this project. And then those are the colors. And that's how Revit filters that stuff out.

A big thing here-- I wanted to sort spend a little time on going over how QR codes and how labels are made. I know sometimes a lot of companies that look at trying to do this-- well, how do I get that on the spool? How does everything tie together?

So inside Revit, we have a tool to export a CSV file. It's in our Actions menu, under our Assembly Manager. So a click or two there, I can select all the spools. I can pull out the CSV. And just for reference, there's many different label printers out there. But you can see the cost of a label printer's pretty reasonable. And then from that, you're able to print out your labels.

Now what is nice is from Revit, using our Assembly Manager-- that CSV export-- I don't just have to put a QR code on the spools. I can actually label the spools. So we're still seeing, obviously a lot of customers still using markers or crayons to mark their spools and have those tagged.

But this is really a great opportunity to automate that process and really make things a little cleaner and more organized. But then-- very simple process to really apply those QR codes to any spool-- really, any shop level can really do this fairly easily.

SpoolTracker is going to be available. It's going to be a separate package, but it's going to be available up under Victaulic Software store. And up there where you Victaulic tools for Revit, you can also get a license of Victaulic SpoolTracker. And you'll be able to utilize that on your next project. So if you want more information on SpoolTracker, I'd ask that you reach out to your local salesperson-- your local Victaulic salesperson. And we can get you set up and have you tracking productivity on your next job.

So next thing I want to really talk about is-- finally-- is our Victaulic tools for Revit, our new features and updates. So we have been actually working a lot on our SpoolTracker app, which you just saw. But we've been doing a lot of work on our toolbar on Victaulic Tools. So what I wanted to do is take some time and go through some of that stuff today.

So some of the new tools is our Riser Tool. So one of the things that we're working on is really looking at automation in Revit. So a lot of our tools are very simple-- two or three clicks, right? It's AnyConnect, Delete Pipe, Rotate Selection. We kept a lot of that stuff really simple-- simple connection tools, really high productivity type, easy to understand, high value tools. So what we did-- what we're working on now are some more advanced things.

One of the things is we spend a lot of time in Revit. We're modeling the same thing over and over in a lot of ways, right-- whether it's a riser, whether it's a pump drop, or chiller drop, or heat exchanger connection. So a lot of that stuff is really repetitive and can be scripted. So we're looking at those areas of the project that we can automate. And risers really came to the top as being one of the first areas that we worked on automating.

So now we have a tool. And I'll go through that in the live demo, where we-- a few clicks we go through, and we'll create a whole riser from whatever floor to whatever floor. In combination with that, we have a new Expansion Loop tool.

So one of the methods of dealing with expansion contraction, especially on a riser, is with an expansion loop. A lot of times we use those in distribution, as well. We have other methods. But we built another tool around creating those expansion loops.

I'm going to spend a little time talking about our Family Tools today. So adding parameters to families that are needed for tools for Revit has always been sort of my pet peeve. I wanted a quick, easy way to just get Revit to do what I want it to do. And so, our Family Tools is going to be a great addition, it's going to make it very easy for you to add parameters to any family. And I'll show how that works.

We did a lot of updates around assemblies and the package creation. So a big request that we've had a lot has been two things-- tag filters. So a lot of people don't want to tag welds. Or they may not want to tag couplings or all their additional components in their views because then they have to move the tag around, potentially.

So now we added a whole new setting up under the Custom Tagging area that allows you to filter out different tags from different items from being tagged. But then, we also added the ability of supporting the multi-category tags. So now you can have one tag-- one marked tag-- for every pipe, pipe fittings, pipe accessories-- or potentially, for fab parts, and for pipe and duct. So it's definitely some nice features there.

So a lot of people love using our static bill of material on our spools. One drawback to the static bill is if you didn't like it up in the upper right, you sort of were out of luck. It was a little difficult to get aligned in different areas. So we tried to push people into using a specific format for the static bill. That's no longer. Now, you can set an xy coordinate for the static bill. And you can really place it anywhere on your sheet.

So that will be a nice addition for people that like to have their static bill of material in a specific location. So we also did some work around the creating packages. A lot of customers are utilizing our spooling tools. But then, they're also utilizing the package tools that we have to create fab maps, and system ISOs, or skid drawings. Some of the things, there, would happen is-- tags would take potentially a long time to place.

So now we have a new option to skip tagging. So that way, you can not have to wait for that and understand how long that was going to take. There's really been a focus, too, on this build is trying to reduce any of the bugs or errors that we see when we're spooling. There's a lot of ways in Revit to make views not show correctly, components not show, maybe tags not show-- come in correctly.

So we really took a hard look at some of those bugs.

And now we're able to catch those and those aren't an issue. So you should find a lot more-- less of the weird issues that would come up that was based because you missed the tag somewhere or you had some type of component in your assembly that was was hidden in a workset and you were trying to tag it, and some things like that. So that stuff's been resolved. We also added a PDF export to our Package Manager menu. So that's a nice feature, too-- so allows you to print out PDFs for those and issue those. We also have features in the Assembly Manager for that as well.

Procurement tool got a big update. So one thing you're going to notice immediately with the Procurement tool is, really, the update in improved performance. It used to be the Procurement tool on large models could take quite some time. Now you're going to find out that it's definitely going to be a lot faster. So we refactored some of that to really reduce the time it takes to pull in all the information.

And obviously, Procurement tool's doing a lot when it pulls gives you a bill of material. In a lot of ways, it's pulling a bill of material out of thin air. But through that process, we've found ways to improve the performance of it. You're going to see there's a new print button. So now you can print your bills of material. A lot of companies were exporting CSV's out of the Procurement tool or copying and pasting.

Now you have an option to print directly within the Procurement tool. You can do a right click on the table in the Procurement tool and copy and paste-- or copy from there and paste into Word or into Excel. And you're going to find the formats a little cleaner as well on some of those imports.

So I know a lot of people are using fab parts. And we worked on making our products-- our Victaulic tools as seamless, obviously, with fab parts as they are with families. So one of the things we found is some of the parameters weren't quite listing for when we had those in as custom columns. So we resolved some of that. We also found some double reducing tees may not be showing correctly for certain sizes. So we resolved that issue. So now none of that should come up. So that was actually a good fix.

We added the-- so some other content providers out there had a parameter inside their families called Pipeline. And what that would do, our toolbar was specifically looking for a parameter in any family called pipe length and it would pull that up and show it in the Length column. Now that we have the family update tool-- or the family tools-- we can populate that length parameter super easily. And now, we force that to being a specific shared parameter so that doesn't happen anymore.

And we resolved some issues with insulation categories being checked and still being shown. But most people figured out quickly that you could filter those in the Columns tab, so it really wasn't too much of an issue. Project Mentor is a big tool that we use a ton. And one of the challenges there is we always like to have ID numbers.

So now we put ID numbers on each of the issues. So you can keep track of what you're resolving. So that's going to be nice. I'll show that. Rotate Selection now works with Assembled Components. So that's a great update. So now, you don't have to worry. You can use rotate selection any time.

And then we had a big content ribbon update. So now the content ribbon is driven by XML files that are downloaded to your PC. So the ribbon can be updated at any time. And we've added some direct support for mechanical tees and mechanical crosses. So now, I'll show you-- in just a few clicks you can place a mechanical T or cross right on a pipeline. Pipelines and things, under options in Revit, we have a new screen, a new area called for Victaulic settings. And that's where we can set pipe length, and some of the print functions, and a new color ribbon inside the software as well.

So let's jump to Revit and show you some of these things. So first off, I'm going to go to our Riser tool. So if I click on the Riser tool here, now you can use the Riser tool, really, in a 3D View or a Plan View. I'm in Plan because it's going to make it a little easier to present.

First off, when we're creating a riser in the Riser Tool, we have the option at the top to set up different templates. Then we have the option down at the bottom here. We can tell it what starting level, and we can tell it what ending level. So you can see, as I change that level, it automatically populated this information.

So if I change the pipe size for the branch from 4 to 3, it's going to know that what I want is a riser that's pretty much going from one location to the other, and it's distributing out and reducing in size. So what's super nice about this Riser tool is that you can-- and really, honestly, in a few clicks of what level you want to go to and from, and what branch elevation you want to go to-- maybe I want to do 11 feet. Now, it populates for all.

Maybe I want to make this one 12 feet. I can populate just that one. So you have some options. Obviously, this is going to get you a basic riser in. And then, from there, you can go in and design it, and detail it, and resize it using normal Revit functions.

You can see over here on the left, we can set the pipe type for the riser. And we set the pipe type for the branches. So they can be taps or T's. You can set the size, and you can set the length. The length is going to set how long each branch is, and then, also, you can see in here I can set what couplings I'm going to connect with, and I can set what type of isolation valve I want in each floor.

So once you set this up once, you can pretty much come up here under Actions and save your template. And when that template's saved, then you can easily just recall it and use it on any project because it's going to follow through and look at the data in Revit. It's going to look at the levels that are available. It's going to look at the distance between the levels, and it's going to automatically populate the menu.

So really, this is what our goal here is, is take something that's really prescriptive but very specific and automate it with just a few clicks. So in reality, I could have came in here, really, and changed a couple of things. Click Create Riser, click, and you'll see in a few moments, it's going to create that entire riser.

So real-time. If I come over here, and I jump to this section. You can see here, it created the riser from level 1.

You can see, I actually have a top-of-pad level in here. A little trick there. If you have reference levels like that, what I always recommend is unchecking the building story as a parameter within that level. If you do that, then our Riser Tool will ignore that level.

But you can see here, it went through, and it put a branch at each level. You can easily just come back later and delete them if you don't want. Or you can move them, change your elevation, change your size. And you can see here, it also put a reduction in where it needed to.

So works pretty good. It's really our first pass at creating more of this automation. The next phase we want to go into this is going to take care of the engineering, too. So it doesn't do this today, but really, where we want to go with this is you would set up the temperature differential, and then it would give you suggestions on how much movement you'd have and where those movement joints could be. And then you can utilize that as a basis of design.

Then, we would also take that design, and we could port it over to our engineering group to help you create a final design, engineered design on your risers. So it's not a tool that's doing the full engineering, but it's a tool that helps you get there. That's really our concept.

In combination to the riser tool is the expansion loop tool. So if I come into this section, if I just click on the side of this pipe and the side of this pipe, what it's going to do is it's going to put in a little expansion loop. Traditionally, what we would do is come in and select that. And under Victaulic tools, we would find our couplings, and we would change those over to Flex couplings. And what that would allow us to do is you would get quite a bit of deflection there, and you'd be able to account for a lot of movement in the temperature differential for the riser.

So a lot of different ways. We have more than just that method for dealing with movement in risers. That's something we actually have a whole engineering team that can work with you. Just reach out to your local salesperson on that.

So let's jump back to the 3D view. I'll actually close these other two. I'm going to cancel. And what I want to do now is I'm going to run Project Mentor. And I guess I won't select that valve. That's for a minute.

So our Project Mentor tool is under is in our ribbon. So when I run that on that selection, you can see in here, I have a list of orphaned elements. If I click View, it'll take me directly to that component that isn't connected. Same thing here is an incorrect coupling type. I can click View there. And actually, if I take a look, what happened there is we're missing flex couplings over here.

So basically, our Project Mentor tool is able to be like a spell check for this model, and we can check to see if things are properly connected. So that's functionality that's been in Revit now for a year, or Victaulic Tools for Revit for a year. What is new is inside our Project Mentor tool, we're opening up to more rules. But we also added the ID number in front of each issue. So now, when you get into something where you're having a lot of issues, you can keep track of where you are. And you can view and go back and make sure you have those all resolved.

So that's the update to Project Mentor. I want to talk a little bit about our family tools. So a big thing, so Victaulic Families are going to be pretty much set up, ready to go with Victaulic Tools for Revit. You're not going to have any problem. Really, where the challenge is sometimes you're dealing with a control valve or some other component that is in Victaulic. How do you get the data you need in there to get everything to work correctly?

So if I select this generic valve here and run what we call our Procurement Tool, you can see here, it gives me a generic valve. It just gives me a generic description, and I'm not really that happy with it. If I come in here, though, and I use-- I go to annotate, and I tag by category, you can see if I tag the Victaulic pieces, they tag really nicely. No problems here. Everything's great, because they have shared parameters in them.

If I come in here and tag this valve, I'm getting a size, which is an inherent Revit parameter, but I'm not getting any descriptions. So to fix that in the past, you had to be a little more of a master in shared parameters, and go find our shared parameter file, and everything else. So that took the fun and excitement out of using Revit away.

So we have this new Family Update Tool. It's going to be on the left side of your ribbon. You can come in here. A common parameter, also, that people would put is Schedule Assembly Name. That parameter, if you put it in your couplings, or your welds, or maybe an elbow, it'll make sure your assemblies aren't grouped together as typicals. It will keep each assembly unique.

But we always had a problem where people would put that Parameter in accessories or multi-port families. And if you do that, it really blows up Revit, and Revit hates you. And then you hate yourself because you're having all these problems in your Revit project.

So a big thing is make sure, the new tool-- it'll make sure you don't do that. So that's a good thing that we got that error message. So if I click this again, what I want to do is I want to put in-- we're going to put in our description BOM, which is a parameter we use. I can click down here at the bottom. I can show more.

And we actually have some parameters for length as well. We have a description, BOM length. We have a BOM suffix. We actually have a length parameter, pipe length parameter, that you can populate in families. And our procurement tool reads all this stuff differently, so it's super handy to have.

So here, I added one parameter. It looks like maybe the other parameter I might have had in there. So if I go back to Create, take a look. Let's see under Identity Data. Here's my BOM length parameter, and here's my description BOM parameter.

So what I want to do is, this description is no good, so I'm just going to change that. And I have, actually, something over here I'm going to populate. So if I put it in quotes-- and this is a little bit of a trick. So if you want to populate all the types in a family, what I like doing is I just populate that to a formula. Now, I just modified every type in this family and I forced it and made it be exactly what I want.

If you have types in Revit, and you know a description, bill of material description, and you don't want it different, you can lock that down that way using a formula. And it's a nice trick to make sure your data is accurate. Now, there's a description BOM length, and I'll show you how that works. So there's a body length parameter. If I select that and hit Ctrl-C and then come down here and hit Ctrl-V, now the body length will populate for the description BOM length.

So if I click OK and OK, and I load it into my project and Overwrite Existing, I actually don't have to click the bottom one here because I used those formulas. So if I overwrite the existing, you're going to see there's my valve description now the way I want it. So utilizing non-Victaulic parts is going to be a little easier for people to do. And when you have to create an accurate bill of material and you have to create accurate tags, that will make that process a little easier for you.

A lot of times, too, we had customers not so much they were using our products, but then we also had customers using other content from other vendors, other content suppliers, and they inherently won't have the parameters that our toolbar needs. So this is going to make that process go a lot easier if you have to edit those family libraries. So now I can run the Procurement Tool, and you can see here, it's going to actually pull in that description. And you can see at the end it, actually put a length in.

So the Procurement Tool has a lot of little hidden tricks in its sleeves there. So if you're ever trying to do something, reach out to us. We probably have a workaround that we've figured out in the software to take care of just about every circumstance that ever comes up. So that's a little bit about our family tools, the new family tool. So what I want to talk a little bit, also, is about our procurement tool.

So let's window select a group of elements. So here, I'm going to run the Procurement Tool, and it runs super fast now. So the performance is a big, big plus as well.

So we can see at the top here, we have a new option. Now, you can print. So if you click the Print button, you can actually resize columns in here if you want. But you have the option to quickly print out a material right from Revit.

What you can also do here is change the comments here. If you do it here, those comments then will apply to all the sheets back here, too. So you do have some ability to customize the way that looks. And that Print button is going to be available under the Spool tab, but also in the Parts tab as well. So you have either one you can use.

Parts tab really is more of a summarized detail summary of the components. That's why we have this Detail in Summary here. If you click Summary, you can see, here's your counts for the whole material list. So it's just two different ways to look at the same data, and the same way those export to Excel, and all that still works.

You can do a right-click in here now, and you can copy to clipboard. You can also come in here and right-click on different things and actually hide categories. So if you want to hide pipes, or if you want to hide fittings, you can actually hide those categories. And what happens is it'll set that category to be hidden within here.

So if you're getting insulation, or you're getting some other component, maybe a generic component, and you don't want it, you can just either right-click on that component and hide, or you can come in here and know that category and uncheck it. So some neat little functionality that just makes using the Procurement Tool a little bit easier.

Now, this is a good one. We're getting into content placing. So let's show you some of that stuff.

So inside our ribbon, we have some new products. So we have our isolation outlet, which is actually a really nice product. It's using a mechanical T and a ball valve for isolation, all in one component. Now, you can see before, in the past, I could never place a tap component directly off the ribbon.

Now if, I hover over this piece of pipe, you can sort see the edges of the pipe highlight. If I hover over to the right side and click, it's going to size in place in that orientation. It's going to use 45-degree increments so you can quickly and easily place taps on pipe.

For those of you that have been using Revit Families, you know that this can be a major pain. So this is definitely a lot easier now. We had the Tap Creator Tool, which is still a really great tool, but we've just made that a lot easier.

And you can come in here and set your branch size size. So there's a button for option up here. And you'll see now, it's going to be a 1-inch size.

OK, what I also want to show you, too, is under Fire Protection-- actually, let's just drag that ribbon out for a second. Under Fire Protection, we actually have mechanical Ts in here, but we also have mechanical crosses. So in the past, a mechanical cross was a real challenge in Revit. Revit doesn't really support the concept of a mechanical cross.

So now, what I can do is come and select that and place mechanical crosses on pipes as well. And you'll see that it also put a piece of pipe on here, and then you can just root from that. So we have-- we always put pipe on our taps, and mainly we do that so we can use our Project Mentor tool to verify that everything's been connected. So it's always a great tool to use, or it's a great modeling method to use to keep that stuff connected and validate it.

We do have a parameter in here called Do Not Schedule. You can actually set that the pipes that are put on here are automatically set to that bit, Do Not Schedule. Where that is is actually a new area for settings it's under Options now.

So under Options, where we have specific user settings for our toolbar, we have a Victaulic area in here. And in here, you have the option to come in and place taps, or place pipe at the end of the tap. So if you don't want the pipe on, you don't have to have it. And then, we can also mark the pipe as do not schedule, so it doesn't show up on a bill, because it's just a short little pipe that I don't necessarily want to worry about on my bills of material a lot of times.

And then, here, you can set the length of pipe that comes off. So if you want 2-foot, or 3-foot, or maybe a 10-foot piece on there because you're using it for sprinkler design, you can do that as well. You'll also notice, here are some settings for our Print button in the Procurement Tool. And also, we do have a new ribbon. I'm not showing it here today, but we did add some colors to our ribbons.

So you can see them and understand what's a Victaulic metallic ribbon and what's the standard Revit ribbon. So some people like it, some people don't. So we made it an option.

You can turn it off or turn it on as you like. But these are all going to be user settings. So you'll see this area of our Settings Options window grow as we work on more of these tools that are more specific, user-specific, and may not be necessarily project-specific items.

So the last thing-- or actually, I want to talk about as well, if you come in here and one of the taps we have, or one of our outlets we have, is our 922 sprinkler outlet. And if I click on that, you'll notice sometimes when you hover over a piece of pipe when you try to place one of those taps, you'll get a Can't symbol. And what it's doing there is it's just telling you that that tap can't place on there because it's not available in that size. But if you click on a different-sized piece of pipe, you're going to see that it places because that product is available in that size. So that Tap Tool goes through the lookup table and validates what sizes that are available in that part and makes sure that you're trying to place something that actually exists so you don't get error messages.

So I talked about the Revit options. Wanted to talk a little bit about Rotate Selection and Assemblies. So a big thing that came up is in the past, when you came in here and you used our Create Assembly tool, you couldn't rotate elements once they were assembled. So there was no way for me to rotate something.

So now, our Rotate Selection- so if I come up to Victaulic Tools, and I go over to the left and go to Rotate Selection, you'll see here we have a message now that tells you have to select a component first, which is fine. So I can hit Tab. So if I hit a tab, I can select a piece through an assembly.

So this is a Revit assembly. So if I select one piece, I get everything. So now, if I come in here and hit Tab, and I Select, and I go to Rotate Selection, and I can select something to set the axis of rotation. And I get a little menu that pops up, and I can come in here and rotate, rotate around.