Door and Window Schedules

[gavin2604]

Hi,

I am trying to implement a 'plug and play' approach to scheduling in our office to improve efficiency in the office and avoid everyone always making a new schedule etc.

When creating a schedule I am trying to get the worksheet 'database' to find windows / or doors on particular layers which all start with 'P_'... 00,01,02,04 etc. As we all know we can choose to find from a particular layer but I want to input an IF formula, where it tells the database to find windows and doors on all layers starting with 'P_'. Any ideas how this can be achieved, at the moment it appears that you can only select particular layers.

Thanks

Gavin

[Pat Stanford]

Here is a way to do it. I have not figured out exactly why this works, but it seems to if you follow it exactly.

You can use an IF statement in a database criteria. You can also use a SubString Function in the "False" part of the IF statement. I have not been able to make SubString work in the "True" part of the If statement.

So, you should be able to manually type in a criteria similar to :

=DATABASE((IF(FALSE, L='', SUBSTRING(L, '_', 1)='P')))

That will give you all the objects that are on layers that start with a single P followed by an underscore.

You can't do this using the standard criteria builder. You will have to put in some standard criteria using the criteria builder and then Edit the criteria. Click the Cancel button on the dialog builder and the criteria will still display in the Formula bar. You can then click into the formula and edit it manually. After that every time you try to edit the criteria you will get a dialog message telling you that you can't edit it with the criteria builder and will have to edit it manually.

I recommend that you develop your criteria using a single layer and then just go through and edit it for the multiple layers at the end of the development process.

[gavin2604]

Hi Pat,

Many thanks for the advice, this is perfect for what we are trying to achieve. It basically prevents the user from tampering with the edit criteria which will allow us to create standard schedules.

Another one, I have also created a Wall Type schedule to list key information however as we make our walls with components we are trying to list these out in the spreadsheet. So that the schedule picks up the name, thickness and then what it is made up of for example 75mm metsec, 12.5mm plasterboard etc. I have tried the COMPONENTNAME tool but nothing as yet.

Thanks for all your help.