Lessons Learned While Uploading Data to BIM 360 Ops

MICHAEL DULANEY: So welcome to Lessons Learned While Uploading Data to BIM 360 Ops-- a very nice and exciting topic at 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon after you're probably tired and burned out. But we'll try to keep it lively.

So I'm Mike DuLaney, and I am the BIM manager for UCHealth. And we are a 10-hospital health care provider. We have about 19,000 employees and about six million square feet of inventory. We've got two hospitals under construction right now. And we're kicking-- well, we're actually midway through a sports medicine clinic. And we're also fitting out a medical office building. And we've got a third tower at our main campus, which is the University of Colorado Hospital, which is actually going to the board for approval. We've got pricing on that. So needless to say, we're pretty busy.

And right next to me is Bill Carney. And I'll let Bill-- want me to talk about you, or you want to do it yourself?

WILLIAM CARNEY: I can do it. Hi. Welcome. That's what I look like.

So I'm the BIM director at BSA LifeStructures. We're an A&E design firm. We have pretty much everything. We actually have an FM group inside of there. I don't have the FM credentials that Mike does. But I'm here because I kind of work for Mike, too.

So we're doing a lot of the architectural projects that UCHealth is doing. So being the director with our firm, I've gotten into the BIM back end with it. And so we've been working through this.

I'm also an adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis. I teach digital construction technology. It's a fun class for me. I also do LinkedIn Learning. If you see me on there, I'm not going to get into Dynamo at all, but I do a lot with it.

I'm really active with the St. Louis Revit user group. So I think it's really important to give back as much you can. So that's pretty much me in a nutshell.

MICHAEL DULANEY: I'll embarrass Bill here, but some people can speak French and Spanish and other foreign languages. He can speak Dynamo. He's in St. Louis. I'm in Colorado. And one day, he said, well, we can do this script right over Skype. And so he's-- pull this down, do that, add this package, do that, do that, do that. Oh, put a Boolean in here and make that false. I was like, wait a minute, you're throwing Booleans in here, I don't even know what you're doing. So he can definitely navigate his way run around through Dynamo.

So our third speaker-- I'm playing the role of Bryan Fairchild. Unfortunately, Bryan Fairchild could not make it, so I'll be filling in for him. He's with Mortenson Construction. And he is working on our Highlands Ranch project.

So we're going to talk about two workflows for uploading data to BIM 360 Ops. One is using the Revit FM model to upload directly to BIM 360 Ops. We need to format that FM model and get it all set up. And then we have the other workflow, which is on our Highlands Ranch hospital project. And that's where we are using the trade contractor files, uploading them via BIM 360 Glue to BIM 360 Field, and finally, to BIM 360 Ops.

Our learning objectives-- understand the process of uploading information to BIM 360 ops directly from Revit. And we'll primarily be talking about that. Understand the process of uploading information to Ops through a combination of Glue and Field. Understand the process for the Revit FM model development and learn how to identify a software workflow that will work best with your organization.

I want to make sure that you know that this is interactive. So if you have questions, you can go ahead and interject anytime. If I feel we're getting stuck in a do loop, we may end that particular question and we can readdress it at the end of the presentation.

So a little introduction here. I joined UCHealth in 2015. And my boss said, get all these models, put them to work, do something with them. So we were just getting ready to schedule our Long's Peak Hospital project. BIM 360 Ops was not out at the time. So we went and used BIM 360 Field as an FM package to go mobile and take the data and do QR coding of our equipment.

I'd seen a presentation here. It was in 2015 by Western Michigan University, who was also using BIM 360 Field as their FM package for going mobile. And I liked what they did. So that's what we went with, as well.

So it was our first attempt to utilize the models for maintenance. It started, again, just prior to BIM 360 Ops. BIM 360 Ops entered the market about six months later, but we had to make a decision, commit to it, and buy out the project.

We utilized BIM 360 Glue and BIM 360 Field. And BIM 360 Field is used by the technicians in lieu of using BIM 360 Ops. But I think we're now going to start looking at migrating that over to Ops.

BIM 360 Field is actually overkill for what we're using it for. There's a lot of features that we're just never going to use in an FM role. So it really does make sense to look towards migrating that to BIM 360 Ops.

And I mentioned Western Michigan University.

So we do have some short-term and long-term goals. We want to use the building information models in the field. And we're starting to do that now. And we're realizing that by using BIM 360 Ops. We want to go mobile. We want to manage our data better.

[CLEARING THROAT]

Excuse me.

And with all that, we want to evaluate the best methods and technologies of using BIM 360 Ops and other technologies in the field. Our long-term goals are using models to become the foundation for everything from our facilities maintenance to using it for space management with another system ARCHIBUS. Hopefully, we'll mine some data out of there, as well, refine processes, and rely on field feedback. And then we do have an initiative coming up to track major medical furnishings. And we'll be using the models for that, as well.

So why two workflows? So our UCHealth Greeley Medical Center-- we've actually provided funds for the FM BIM, developing the FM model. And the intent from the outset was to use Revit as the FM model and go and export that to BIM 360 Ops.

On our Highlands Ranch project, that was a little bit of a tighter budget. So we weren't able to procure FM Revit models. So we are using the trade contractor models and going through Glue to Field to Ops on that workflow.

So this is where Bryan would be talking right now. This is the Highlands Ranch project. So it consists of a hospital, medical office building, central utility plant. It has 73 beds. And we have shelf space for 77 more beds that will be in future.

Let's see. There we go.

So the work process on this is, we're starting with the subcontractor. And they're taking their models and they're sending them over to the contractor, which is Mortenson. Mortenson's federating those models. They, in turn, will put them into Glue. And then they'll put them into Field. And then ultimately, in Field, they're adding the additional data that's required. And finally, it goes over to us. So it's kind of a simplified workflow, but that's the Glue to Field to Ops workflow.

So we have a summarized process. The process for going from Glue to Field to Ops is actually 32 steps, but I summarized it down to 13. And I'm not going to go through every single step in here.

[LAUGHTER]

But again, subcontractor inputs the EQ tab and description in designated property fields within CADmep or whatever the particular trades are using. It's then exported to Navisworks. And the contractor aggregates all NWC files into the FM NWF.

Navisworks file is saved as an NWD and uploaded to 360 Ops. We open the FM model in BIN 360 Glue and execute Share in the Field command, and we get it over to Field. Basically, Glue is really a conduit just to get from Navisworks over to Field.

We open up the BIM 360 Field in admin mode and we add the BIM 360 Glue FM model. From there, we create the equipment types and tags and categories. And we match selection sets that were created in Navisworks.

We then create the custom property fields, add all the properties that needed to appear in the equipment lists, save mapping in a non-admin mode. So you go back, there's an admin and a non-admin mode on 360 Ops-- or, excuse me, BIM 360 Field.

And then we link all our O&Ms and PDFs and submitals. And then, finally, we open up the portfolio on BIM 360 Ops, obtain an export code. And then we export the model over to BIM 360 Ops. So 32 steps down to 13.

WILLIAM CARNEY: [INAUDIBLE]

MICHAEL DULANEY: One of the things that UCHealth developed is what I call the component data matrix. So you can call it COBie lite. You can call it whatever you want. But basically, I sat down in 2015 with our facilities manager and we basically, on the Longs Peak hospital project, pulled up the list of all the mechanical equipment, electrical equipment. And we just went through it and said, what data do you want to capture? And we just went through each component. And then we painted this off to the people that are inputting the data. And we want this particular data with these particular assets.

Now, you can find this data in the PDFs. You can find it in the submitals. But we want it to be quickly assessable so that they don't have to go searching-- the technician doesn't to go searching for the data. So there's pluses and minuses to this route. And we'll get into that with the lessons learned.

One of the lessons learned is just test the process with all involved. So with a subcontractor, work through this. Test the process with them. Test it with the contractor. And then me, the owner-- let me see what the output is. And we work and we meet together. But you've got to test and test and test to make sure everything's working.

One of the things we've realized is that any custom field-- and this is regardless if you're using the Glue to Field to Ops workflow or if you're using the Revit to Ops workflow. You need to put dashes in these custom fields, or those fields will not transfer. So you go to all this trouble of adding these custom fields. And then you export over to Ops, and then you open it up in Ops and you're not seeing these fields that you added. And you have to go back and add the dashes. And then the fields will transfer.

WILLIAM CARNEY: And it doesn't have to be a-- just something in there.

MICHAEL DULANEY: Some placeholder.

WILLIAM CARNEY: If it's blank, Ops is smart, that it tries to not give you a whole bunch of data you don't want that you didn't track. But in that you already added all these parameters that you want to fill out information field, then it doesn't transfer over.

MICHAEL DULANEY: Make your life easy-- clearly mark and name all your PDF files, your submitals, your O&Ms, and all that. So when you're doing searches to go and upload, it makes it a lot easier.

So that was very quick with. Highlands Ranch Hospital, as I mentioned, there weren't that many lessons learned on that. But we're going to go into Greeley Medical Center. And this is the Revit to Ops workflow. And this, actually, you would think would be simpler because there's not so many, as I call it, hops or transfers. But getting the model right and formatted right took some effort. And we're still learning as we go along.

So at Greeley Medical Center, it consists of a hospital, medical center-- which is basically a surgical center-- ambulatory surgical center, central utility plant. It has 58 beds. It's being built in 21 months. The hospital, the medical center side of it's 19 months.

Architect is BSA LifeStructure's contractor is JE Dunn. And our commission agent is eCube. And eCube is acting as the data collector and the QR coding entity for us on this project.

So I'm going to turn this over to Bill. He's going to talk about the Revit prep side. And here you go.

WILLIAM CARNEY: Thank you, sir.

So when we started off with this, Mike reached out to the project manager on this project and said, hey, I want to do BIM for FM. Can you guys put in a bid? So I rarely show up on projects. I'm an overhead person in our firm. And I help strategy and train and that sort of thing. But this was one we said, well, we've never done this before, so let's figure it out. So that's when I get plugged in.

So a lot of this stuff was working documents. And we've massaged it along the way as we've learned a lot of stuff with Mike. In trying to bid it-- because we had to give him a number of what this was going to cost. And I really don't know we're getting into.

Who am I talking to? Has anybody worked on the design side, like through the CA process? So if you're doing that, it comes and goes. You can't just say, you're going to be on this 40 hours a week, and you're going to work with-- it's very heavy in certain periods of time, and then very light in others. And this is very similar. Instead of some submitals that we're reviewing, we're getting documents from the contractor.

So the best I could do is say, we'll go hourly with you. We don't want you to overpay. We don't want to lose money in doing this. And we want to make sure this happens, because it's going to be a lot of fun. So for me, it's been really exciting.

So you'll see we kind of look like a middleman in this diagram. And we are. We've decided to keep a separate FM model-- separate from the design model and separate from the construction model. We made it as a group decision. So far, I still feel like it's the right decision. The design model is in flux. They're making changes on the fly. They're having to do design options.

One thing about hospitals is, the duration of that project is so long, you bring in a new user group, and you have to make those changes during that. And we react to it. So the design model is just something we couldn't really rely on because it's not published. And then we looked at the contractor model-- not everything they were doing was in Revit. Some of the things weren't modeled. Some were. Some were shop drawings. So we stayed with the FM model.

So basically, we had the design, the contractor working through this contractor site. And then BSA LifeStructures reviews it, updates the information, sends it over to Mike. Mike puts it into the owner database, which is Ops.

You'll see this dashed line up-- let's see if this works. Yeah, up here. And so we have eCube in the field, and they're putting the information in. We've had troubles with Wi-Fi connecting and putting information into Ops. So we're working through a workflow of, they put information into a spreadsheet and then we import it into our FM model before we send it to Mike, before it goes to Ops. If you email me, I'll let you know how it's going.

So when we're doing this, I had to explain to a team what we're doing and how we're doing it, and processes that they don't really work with that often. So we tried to put together how the software was going to work throughout and just make a flow diagram with rules as far as what to do, when to do it.

And so we came to this. So the project team from the contractor site-- we get Revit files, PDFs, CAD files-- all sorts of things. They come to us. We review those files to see what changes are there. If it's a PDF, we compare another PDF to a drawing. If it's a new Navisworks model, we'll use the Compare feature. So try to review it as best we can, create a list of things that need to be done.

Then we do that work into synchronizing the FM model. And then we try to do as little work as possible. And so we use Clarity to automatically transfer files over to Mike every Friday. So the whole time, we've been trying to automate as many things as possible to make it as quick as possible and cheap as possible.

So the contractor site-- JE Dunn's contractor. This is just a screenshot of what the site looks like. And these are some of the things that are on there. You see there's cast pates, steel reinforcement. So there's all sorts of things that are on there.

You can see we get drawing changes. We get models. So this is the stuff that gets posted.

And what we tried to do is figure out how to keep ourselves on task. I mentioned that I'm not on projects very often, so really, I'm more wired to fix the issues in our office and address all the people in our projects. And so I'm not actively managing any projects. So I need things to help me.

How many people have heard of or used Microsoft Flow? Good. It's really cool. So how about Power BI?

So they've got a couple tools-- Microsoft Power BI, PowerApps, and Flow all work together. Flow is very similar to SharePoint workflows. So you can say, if this happens, then do all these things. And it's completely cloud based. And it just runs on your stuff.

So I can have it looking at my email address. So with the JE Dunn construction site, I can have it email me when a new file gets posted. It can read it and it can talk to Trello. Has anybody used Trello at all? Good. So Trello's how we're keeping ourselves on task. So I send off teams-- because I'm also remote from my team, too, which makes it a little bit harder. The guys doing the work are in Indie. I live in St. Louis.

So we work through Trello. And then we also create a ceiling drop schedule. One of the things, too, is, you have this entire hospital. You're attacking different areas. You get files, and you need to know, when do we actually have to have this updated? We needed deadlines. So JE Dunn provided us a schedule as far as when the ceilings were going in place. Because once the ceiling's up, it's a pain to QR codes some of these things. So that was our deadline. We did it by areas.

And these are the things that keep us on task. And so the way we're using Trello with it is, we have a resource area. And that's the information that we needed for the site. So it's like login information, how to get onto Ops. Anything that we learn, we keep there.

Then we have our to-do list. And so that started out with all of the areas from the ceiling drops. And then anything that comes up from the JE Dunn site, we put them on there. And then we create this doing list.

So Kyle Foley is in the Indianapolis office. He'll grab a task from here, throw it into doing. He'll work on it. He puts comments, notes, different things for me, so I know what's going on. If he needs information, we queue it up here. And then anything that's done we just put in this list.

And so every Friday, we meet for a half hour. And we talk on the phone. We talk through all these things. We talk through the things that he's doing and what he needs information on. And that's how we stay on task with it. And so far, it's been very, very nice. And the goal is to just empty out this list by archiving cards.

So I mentioned we get the different file types. So what I tried to do is create rules as far as, you get this type of file. You look at it in this way. And then we do that type of work. So if we get a PDF, we do a drawing overlay. I tried to put some links as far as things to read as extras. They're in the handout, too. But if you've never done a drawing overlay, it's beautiful. I always show this image. One, I'm proud that I modeled that in Revit. But--

[LAUGHTER]

It was a weird Friday. But how many people have seen these in Highlights Magazine, where it's, what's different between these two pictures? And it takes you forever. Well, pretty much every program lets you overlay those two pictures. And it just highlights in color what those things are.

So we get something new from a contractor site and we have something existing, we compare it. It tells us what to change. And we put that on Trello and say, do this stuff. And so it works pretty well.

The one thing that is a challenge for us-- and I've even said I haven't gotten to do it yet, but here's the plan. As we get 3D CAD, if we don't have any way to link it into Revit. We don't have anything previous. So it could be a fabrication model with MEP stuff.

We look to do like a reverse clash detection with it. So similar to construction, you clash against a point cloud. You can select geometry, smash against geometry. And instead of looking at what's overlapping, we're going to look for what isn't overlapping. And that'll tell us what areas we need to align or move. So it's all just to help.

And so some of those things-- we also created rules as far as what types of files we get and how we work with Revit, because there is a design file. There is the construction files. So if we get a fabrication model and there is stuff that was modeled, we align the stuff to match. If we get small design changes inside of Revit-- so the architect puts up a new Revit file that there's changes, we align the small changes-- so move a wall, move a door, something like that.

Now, a lot of times, we get whole suite changes. Moving and aligning-- it's just not realistic. So what we'll do is select all the stuff inside of that suite, turn into a model group, get rid of it, and replace it with the new stuff from the other file. And so it's a full-blown replace.

And then the other one-- and this is an image of Unistrut. So a lot of the things to remember with an architectural file is, it's design intent. It's directions for the contractor to do something. There's things that are covered with specs. There's things are covered with general notes. You don't model everything.

And Unistrut's the example that I've been showing for this one, because we didn't model Unistrut. It was required to support some of the equipment. There's certain equipment that you don't pick when you design a building. You say, I want the equipment to do this. Get me the cheapest one that you can.

And so we don't know where all those points that need to connect to Unistrut-- we know you need it. So we just tell them that they need it, and they provide a line for it. But we wanted to make sure to have that above the ceiling. So we just model the drawings to match what we get.

Does that makes sense? Any questions from anybody? Good.

The file transfer-- has anybody gotten down to see Clarity? Make sure to. It is a wonderful-- especially if you're doing FM stuff, because they do a lot of things-- are you with IMAGINiT? Good. I don't know, it's a love affair.

[LAUGHTER]

I love it. But go down there, see their booth. See what they do. They have a lot of connections with ARCHIBUS that can help, if you're doing that sort of work with FM. But what it does is runs automated tasks on top of Revit files from your network. And it can be anything from open up a file, recreate a central file. Or it could post on an FTP site, in this case.

So ShareFile's one of our sharing platforms. So we have it open up our file every Friday, purge out all the extra views, purge all the extra families. Anything that's junk, we get rid of it so it's as small as possible, so Mike doesn't accidentally upload something that doesn't need to be in there. So it opens up, does all those things, and then posts it on our ShareFile site without anybody doing anything. And that's the beautiful part about it. So I highly recommend checking it out.

So once we've done that, Mike takes it. He uploads it to Ops. And then some of the stuff's either done in the phone, put it into the site, or it's done on the computer. And I think I'm going to not show this one. Hang on. I figured I'd go with the actual video. It's a little better picture.

So this is Tally. He's with the eCube. He's out in the field. And this is the process of what and why we're doing this. And you'll get to see some of the good and the bad.

But he is walking up the ladder and he's putting the QR code. He's already taken a picture of it before he goes up there. And there's the asset ID number. You can see he's taking a picture on the side of the VAV. And that picture was the label of that item.

One of the things-- if somebody does credit cards with photos and captures those, I want to talk to you, because I think you can save a lot of time. Because he takes that photo and comes back to his laptop because the Wi-Fi sucks. And he goes and-- it's awful. I won't lie. But he opens up his email and he takes a picture of that QR code. So he associates the QR code to Ops. Then he goes in and fat-fingers in all of the information from that sticker.

This is a wonderful example of a horrible way of doing it. We sat and watched, we're just like, oh my god. This is bad. So that's why we're doing the Excel thing right now. And we'll see how it goes.

But these are the realistic challenges of what you have. A site, especially a hospital-- getting Wi-Fi around while it's under construction-- I would like to see it improve, because it helps us do things. And that's not always everybody's priority.

But here's why we do it all-- so he can go after the fact and snap that picture. And then it brings up the BIM 360 Ops site.

MICHAEL DULANEY: And he tried using-- I'm sorry for interrupting.

WILLIAM CARNEY: No, you're good.

MICHAEL DULANEY: He had a Motorola mobile hotspot, as well, but that still wasn't helping him.

WILLIAM CARNEY: How many people actually have used Ops or just-- OK. How many people are just interested in it? Good.

So this is what it looks like on the phone. There's nice parts with the 3D model that's in there. But it's really simple. It's just getting all this data out of the Revit file. And here, he's able to see the QR code in there. He's able see, what level is this supposed to be on? And then the different documents that are associated with it-- so the owner manual, that sort of thing. So that's really the whole point of it. And I tried to highlight some of this stuff in my wonderful editing. Yeah. So there's the two PDFs that he uploaded from his computer.

I will talk about Dynamo. I'm not going in it. I've had too many bad conferences lately with it.

So a lot of the things-- Mike has a really good BIM standard for UCHealth. It's fairly simple. It's flexible. And one of those things we've talked is to not add extra work on the design team or the contractor for things that we can pull information from. So we don't want to say, number the doors this way because that's how we number our doors if we can just fix it on the back end by running a script. So we've tried to automate and process data the best that we can.

Some of those things are, there's equipment-- like, the mechanical families were modeled and they weren't room aware, so they didn't checkbox the room calculation point. So we use Dynamo. Found all the rooms, extruded the rooms up as boxes, see where they intersect with things, and then concatenate the level, the room, the building that it's in or the area with the mark that the design team used, and make that the new asset ID that goes into Ops. So anything that we can do after the fact really quickly without changing the team-- it helps save the owner money. And for us, it's kind of fun. So we spend some Fridays talking through it and figuring it out.

And I'll give it back to Mike.

MICHAEL DULANEY: Thank you, Bill. So that was one of the things with the Revit design model, is that the mark-- they actually use the comment field for the asset on the Revit family and also the mark. And then what we needed on our equipment, especially dampers, is, our facilities management team wanted to know what room or where those dampers were. So we had to go through and add the room number to the mark on all those dampers. If it was a fire smoke damper, we gave it an FS prefix. If is was the FD or fire damper, it was the FD prefix.

And then they also wanted to know if that damper was in the hospital. So then we had to add a HOS prefix. Or it was it in the medical center? So then we added a GMC for Greeley Medical Center prefix. So we added a lot of those to try to make the marks more intelligent.

So starting off with our lessons learned, one of the things is with the parameter grouping-- if you're adding custom parameters, they have to fall under one of these groups-- electrical, electrical circuiting, electrical lighting, electrical load. You can read it right there. So if you don't put your parameter and group it that way, it's not going to be read by Ops.

Lessons learned-- exporting your assets. The first time I was playing with Ops, I just went and I circled everything and exported it. You don't want to do that. You are going to get things like duct and cable tray and everything else that will show up in ops. And it's going to give you all the data about that. Well, you're not maintaining duct. You're not maintaining pipes. You're not maintaining a cable tray, unless maybe you're a nuclear power plant-- who knows.

But in this case, we just want our maintainable equipment-- things that have to have maintenance, something that may get tested once a year. Our rule of thumb-- if it gets touched once a year, then you want to include it. So in the example here, we've got our dampers circled in green. I have our air terminal or VAVs also circled in green. But you don't want to select the duct. You don't want to select pipe or anything static.

Now, the thing with Ops is, when you select these items to be exported, it will export the duct and the pipe and everything in the background, as a reference. But it's not going to show up in Ops as something with data. So you don't have to worry about, what am I exporting and what am I not exporting? If it's visible and it's there, it's going to export over. But if you want the data, then obviously, select these items, and then click them and export.

Placeholder data part 2-- one of the things here with the Revit shared parameters is, over on the left-hand side, you can see that some of the custom parameters we added are the capacity and tons for this particular asset, the temperature and the LWT or the EFT-- so forth and so on. Fan RPM-- this is probably a fan cool unit.

So this data-- in order for it to transfer, you have to have a placeholder. So we added the dashes. On the right-hand side is a screen capture of what came over. So you can see the ambient air came over-- has a dash. The horsepower came over-- has a dash. So again, we're getting the fields that we want.

Lesson learned-- do not start QR codes with zero. This was a very painful lesson learned, because if you export out to a spreadsheet which is a CSV, it truncates. Actually, the barcode field becomes a number field. So all your leading zeros go away. And if you try to re-import that back to Ops, now your QR codes do not match.

So we were too far along in the process when we found this nasty little thing out. So what we did find out, though, is when you are reimporting the CSV file, if you don't include a particular field in the spreadsheet, it won't import. So truncated all our QR codes, but by not importing the barcode, then we don't have to worry about it overwriting it in Ops.

Another very painful lesson learned-- additional exports from Revit to BIM 360 Ops may overwrite data in BIM 360 Ops. It's kind of long-winded. But what that is is, you've exported a device over to BIM 360 Ops. You put dashes in for your placeholders. Tally goes out there. Tally scans it, gets the data in there. He puts it, in this case, three for the phase on this particular device.

And then we have a change. In this case, we had a CCD 47. We actually had a pretty nasty leak out there during construction. And they had to go in and replace all of the equipment. And I guess they took advantage of it by rearranging some of the equipment.

So this particular asset got moved. No problem. So we updated it in Revit. And then we re-exported it with the dash. Well, now the dash overwrote the phase. So now, the data that Tally entered has been overwritten. But thankfully, he has it in a spreadsheet. We can go back. But nothing worse is to get a call from the guy in the field saying, all the data I entered in Ops doesn't exist anymore.

So general considerations for both processes-- plan ahead. I think we all know that, but I can't overemphasize planning ahead. Plan, plan, plan, plan. Meet with the BIM 360 Ops end users, your technicians. Find out what they really want.

As I mentioned, I went and met with our director three years ago for facilities management about the data he wanted. And I actually said, let's get one of the technicians. And for whatever reason he said, no, no, I can do it. It's like, OK. Well, now, on one of our other jobs, our Inverness job, we have the technicians involved. And we're finding out there is some data they do and don't want.

So just meet with the end users. Do they want the marks revised to include room numbers? That's how we are doing our marks in Revit. We want our assets and our marks to have the room numbers there. We are also taking that and exporting it up to our CMS system that we're currently using. So they did want the intelligent data with the mark naming.

What custom parameters do they require? We talked about that. Will the data be shared with other systems? Well, TMS, it is.

Plan for changes. we never really thought about changes. Like I mentioned CCD 47, we just never considered it. We thought we were far enough along in the design that it was relatively stable.

How and where will the data be entered? Is it going to be entered in Revit, BIM 360 Ops, BIM 360 Field, or the CSV? Whatever we happen to be using in that particular workflow. Another thing is, Ops is formatted for IOS phones only-- iPhones. So be aware of that.

You can use an iPad and download the IOS phone app for BIM 360 Ops and run it that way. It's formatted funny. Or you can actually run BIM 360 Ops web version in Safari. And that's what we're doing on our iPads right now. It has to be IOS 10 or higher.

So coming up on the end here. How do you decide which workflow to use?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

MICHAEL DULANEY: Yes.

AUDIENCE: --let you know, we have an update to the app coming up shortly that will work nicely on an iPad. [INAUDIBLE]

[TRIUMPHANT TRILL]

MICHAEL DULANEY: OK.

[LAUGHTER]

All right. All right.

AUDIENCE: Just a couple weeks as it's coming out.

MICHAEL DULANEY: Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. What are you doing for a beer afterwards or anything?

[LAUGHTER]

I've been fighting with our own maintenance people about this, and I've been sweating it out, too. Thank you.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] community [INAUDIBLE].

MICHAEL DULANEY: All right.

[LAUGHTER]

If anybody-- I should call out Mark Mergenschroer here. But he's a BIM 360 Ops expert, in my opinion. If you've sat through some of his classes today, he's really a lot farther along than we are. So he's an excellent resource. And Katie Murff over here-- she's also the BIM 360 Ops project manager for Autodesk. And I don't know-- Adrian. I can't read.

AUDIENCE: Adrian, yeah.

MICHAEL DULANEY: Adrian. He's with Ops.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

MICHAEL DULANEY: Ops developer. OK. Nice to meet you.

So we got sidetracked there. BIM 360 Glue to BIM 360 Field to BIM 360 Ops workflow-- the advantages itself-- the ideal method for using your trade contractor models, which should reflect the installation. So you're not really worrying about as built. If they coordinated correctly, if they installed correctly, then that should be pretty accurate.

One of the other points I want to make, too, is that-- well, I'll get to that in a minute. I'll come back to that. It's also the least expensive of the two methods.

Disadvantages-- you're the owner. You're going to have multiple file types to maintain. Hopefully, it's an AutoCAD product. It may not be. It may be an AutoCAD third party add-on. You're going to start dealing with object enablers and everything else. So it gets a little bit squirrel-y there.

Also, you as the owner now need to own a copy of Field and Glue in order to update and get those changes up to Ops. How often are you using Glue and Field as an owner? Not that often.

And then the other thing with this method is, multiple parties are involved-- your trade contractors, the contractor. I really don't like that. I like a single source where I can go to and deal with somebody. And that's how we're doing it out on our Greeley project with eCube and Tally. He's doing all the data collection. He's doing all the data entry. He's doing all the QR coding. Just so I'm not dealing with trade contractors. So it works.

So the Revit to BIM 360 Ops workflow-- and one of the things is, as Bill was mentioning, he's taking the trade contractor models and he's aligning Revit with that. You're not using the FM model to build off of. You're using it to manage. So when you are doing that, utilizing the trade contractor models and the FM model-- I call it aligning.

If I'm within a tile with a VAV, I'm happy. It doesn't have to be dead on. I'm not looking for LOD 500 people to go out there and laser scan and dead on. We don't need it. We just need to be able to say, it's over there, and it's within a few feet of where it was actually coordinated. And that's good enough.

Advantages-- with the Revit file, it's easy to maintain and export to BIM 360 Ops if you plan it out correctly. Data can be exported third party or via Dynamo back to the Revit model. And that's one of the things that we are going to do to avoid writing over in Ops on subsequent exports by replacing those dashes with the actual data.

Data can be manipulated easier in Revit using Dynamo. Some data may already exist in the Revit family. So you download that. And the Revit families from the manufacturer have a lot of that data already pre-populated.

Disadvantages-- there is a price. It must be updated basically to the as-built conditions to reflect coordination and asset installation. And there is a cost to do that. But I like the Revit to BIM 360 Ops workflow.

As an owner, there's going to be small renovations where me, I'm going to have to go in there and do the updates myself, because it just doesn't require a full BIM effort. We're, I don't know, maybe subdividing this room and changing the mechanical around and turning it into four exam rooms-- we just don't need a full BIM effort on that. So I'll be stepping up to update the model.

So conclusions-- what to use? Well, large facilities may undergo frequent renovations, so consider using the Revit to BIM 360 Ops workflow. Kind of went over everything about that. You directly export to BIM 360 Ops.

If you're using the BIM 360 Glue to BIM 360 Field, BIM 360 Ops workflow, that works best on facilities where you don't expect a lot of renovations-- smaller facilities, a facility that may not have a large FM budget, as well. So you're going to want to use trade contractor models.

That's it for us. You have any questions? I know I was all over the place there, but-- yes, sir?

AUDIENCE: When the next generation of Field comes out and adds asset management, do you see that being a real change? Because it changed the dynamics of Field. A different flow would work better.

MICHAEL DULANEY: Yeah. I'm not really familiar with that. The biggest thing for me is maintainability. And that's where Revit comes in, is with my work flows in the future. And I've talked it over with my boss, and I said, the Revit workflow is the one I want to use.

But I would presume it would work just fine if you can do that in there. I don't know enough about Autodesk, but it sounds like they're merging a lot of these things down. I don't know if there will be a BIM 360 Field and Glue later, two or three years from now, if it's going to be narrowed down. I don't know. That's just me speculating.