Updating record fields

[Davide]

I have many doors/windows inserted in walls; most of them are instances of the same symbol.

The automatic schedule reads their door/window records reporting sizes and IDs after I've used the ID tool.

Now in the DD stage of the project I'm ready to add more info, frame materials, ratings etc.

How do I do that for every instance without having to select them one at a time and type always the same fields info again and again?

What's the point of using an auto scheduling feature if it becomes slower then using an Excel spreadsheet where I can easily repeat cells info from row to row? At least I manually type the same info just once, instead of 100 times if I have 100 doors. The change record fields tool only updates symbols in a folder yet to be inserted, not the existing ones. The replace text will look into record fields but only if you already have some text in them.

Using symbols ( so that maybe you can edit one and change all) won't help because the record fields are independent from the editing unless you create a report/schedule that reads inside symbols info, but then you won't get the ID # info which is different from instance to instance.

So what do you guys do? Why use the auto scheduling instead of importing an Excel sheet which at least won't show ghost info that you cannot manually edit ( a subject I wrote a lot about it with no feedback from NNA or users)?

If you have any suggestion, please help! Pretty soon my bosses will want an updated schedule and I don't know how to quickly proceed! :-(

Thanks.

[Robert Anderson]

Here's a quick work-around when you want to change the contents of a record field for all instances of that record:

1. Let's say your record is 'Door Record' and the field you want to update is 'Fire Rating'.

2. Open the Resource palette, browse to the current document.

3. Highlight the Door Record and click the Edit button.

4. In the dialog that appears, scroll the field list until you find 'Fire Rating'. Highlight it and (gasp!) delete it.

5. Create a new field, 'Fire Rating', with the information for the default field value being the value you want to insert.

6. Click OK, exit back to drawing. Now all your records have the desired value for 'Fire Rating'.

[Davide]

Thanks for your reply. It's a solution but has the limitation that different groups of doors symbols share the door record and they may need different fields at times.

I remember seeing a script to attach record to symbolsin the learning exercises on the NNA web site. Wouldn't that work for my case and how does it work? Would it leave the ID info intact and change just the fields I want?

Thank you