How to Use Worksets in Revit

ByMohamed Fakhry Updated

Worksets in Revit allow multiple people to work together on the same model. They help organize different parts of the building, such as architecture, structure, and systems.

In short, you control how you and your team see and interact with things in each view.

worksets in Revit

Here are seven simple tips to help you understand how to use and manage worksets.

1. Find reasons to use them

You don’t need to use worksets for every project, they are only useful when you need to enable worksharing.

Worksharing is a feature that allows multiple users to work on the same model at the same time.

Worksharing requires you to create a central model and local copies for each user. Learn more about Revit worksharing

If you are working on a solo project or a small model, you don’t need to use worksets.

2. Choose a logical structure

Worksets should be organized in a way that makes sense for the project and the team.

For large projects with multiple teams working on different aspects of the model, worksets can be used to separate areas of a site or for discipline-based models.

It is recommended to not go deeper than Discipline and Sub-discipline.

You can have worksets for Architectural, Structural, MEP, etc., and sub-worksets for Walls, Floors, Ceilings, etc.

This allows you to easily isolate and coordinate the work of each team to avoid conflicts or errors.

Want to try it out?

3. Create worksets

Details: Organize your model into logical groups and enable simultaneous editing by multiple team members.

Steps

  1. Go to the Collaborate tab > Manage Collaboration panel > click Worksets.
  2. In the Worksets dialog, click New.
  3. Name the workset.
  4. Click OK.
Revit worksets
Worksets Settings window

To assign an element to a workset:

  1. Select the element in the viewport.
  2. In the Properties palette, drop-down the Workset menu.
  3. Select a workset from the list.
  4. Click Apply.
Assign worksets to views

4. Manage worksets

Use the Worksharing Display tool to see which elements are checked out by whom and which worksets are open or closed.

You can also use this tool to isolate objects by workset and change their workset in the Properties palette.

To use the Worksharing Display tool:

  1. On the View Control bar, click the Worksharing Display Off icon.
  2. Click Worksharing Display Settings.
  3. Check the “Show Color” box for the items you prefer in each tab.
  4. Click OK.
Worksharing display tools

Note that it is important to close unused worksets and check out worksets when working in a local model. This improves performance and avoids conflicts with other users.

To close a workset:

  1. Go to the Collaborate tab > Manage Collaboration panel > click Worksets.
  2. In the Worksets window, select the workset you want to close.
  3. Click Close.

To check out a workset:

  1. Go to the Collaborate tab > Manage Collaboration panel > click Worksets.
  2. In the Worksets window, select the workset you want to check out.
  3. Click Non Editable.

5. Move objects between worksets

To move objects from one workset to another, you have several options:

  1. Use the Isolate Object feature in the Worksharing Display tool and change the workset in the Properties palette.
  2. Delete the workset, and you will be prompted to move all items to another workset, then recreate the original workset with the same name.
  3. Go to a 3D view, turn on all worksets except the one you want to move things to, and manually select/filter and change the workset for each object.

Note that a detail item’s workset is always its view and cannot be changed.

6. Use worksharing monitor for tracking

Worksharing Monitor is a tool that allows you to track the workset activity of other users on a shared model.

You can see who is working on which workset, who has checked out elements, who has saved or synced changes, and who has errors or warnings.

You can also use this tool to communicate with other users and resolve conflicts or issues.

To use Worksharing Monitor:

  1. Open your local model.
  2. Click Collaborate tab > Synchronize panel > click Worksharing Monitor.
Worksharing monitor worksets

In the Worksharing Monitor window, click Refresh to update the information.

To communicate with another user, right-click their name and select “Send Message”.

7. Use filters and view templates

While worksets can be used to control visibility, they can also cause problems for others in the project. Read more about the hierarchy of visibility control

If you turn off a workset in a view, it affects all other users who open that view. Also, worksets cannot be defined in a template file (.rte), and end users may not create workset names consistently.

So you can create view templates for each discipline and save them in the template file to properly control the visibility of worksets in each view.

View templates for worksets

To create a view template:

  1. Open a view that has the settings you want to save as a template.
  2. Go to the View tab > Graphics panel > drop-down View Template menu.
  3. Click “Create Template from Current View”.
  4. Name the template.
  5. Click OK.

To apply a view template to a view:

  1. Right-click the view name in the Project Browser.
  2. Select Apply View Template.
  3. Select the template from the list
  4. Click OK.

To control the visibility of worksets in a view template:

  1. Go to the View tab > Graphics panel > Visibility/Graphics.
  2. In the Visibility/Graphics dialog, click the Worksets tab.
  3. Check or uncheck the Visibility box for each workset as desired.
  4. Click OK.

Learn more about view templates

We hope this post has given you some useful tips on how to master worksets in Revit 2024. If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below.