Revit's Warning System

If you have used Revit for any length of time, no doubt you have experienced its "Error Handling" features.  Revit has several built-in tools built that help ensure quality models. These tools are becoming increasingly important as we are seeing more and more BIM deliverable requirements that include "written reports" from the model.  One of those tools is the ever present Warning System in Revit’s Error Handling. If your modeling procedures break Revit’s basic rules, you will receive errors or warnings.

Revit Yeilds two types of errors: Those that can be ignored (doesn’t mean they should) and those that cannot.

Revit also issues warning for things that can cause coordination problems in the model (i.e. placing a wall that intersects a door or room numbers with duplicate values). The warning message displays instantly in the bottom right hand corner of the application.

In the Warning dialog box, you can select the “expand warning dialog” button for more information about the warning. You can just keep on working (typically not recommended) and the warning disappears from screen (although it is still in the project). It is important that as you are modeling you understand what is happening in the model to avoid frustration later. Also long lists of warnings in the project are only going to slow down performance of the model.

When expanding the warning, from the warning popup, the dialog box will only display the associated elements. From this dialog box, you can select one of the offending elements to highlight it in the model.

You can also review the warning later by selecting the element and choosing “Show Related Warnings”. This displays the same dialog box as choosing “expand warning dialog” from above.

You can also View any warnings in the project at any time by selecting “warnings” in the “Inquiry” section from the Modify tab.

Once again it produces a very familiar dialog box but this time includes all warnings in the model.

Clicking “show” helps you locate and view the element in the model. Clicking the show button will yield the following message (until you select “Do not show me this message again”):

Continuing to click “show” will cause in Revit to cycle through open views and attempt to display the element. When all open views have been displayed, Revit will offer to open additional views.

Occasionally you may have a warning that doesn’t display in any view. You may even receive a message stating “No good view can be found”.

If the “more info” button is enabled it is always a good idea to review the information. Note that the “Delete Checked” button will delete the actual element from the model (not just the warning). But this is an handy tool for the error that you have sought to resolve only to receive the “no good view can be found” message.

And finally the export button can be used to create and HTML report as part of the Quality Control measures for each project.