Do you ever want to easily visualize what objects are on different worksets in a view in Revit®? Autodesk incorporated this ability into Revit® with their 2012 versions, but it seems to have gone unnoticed by many users. Worksets are a highly utilized function used within Revit® by any organization where multiple people need to work on a Revit® project at one time. There is a tremendous amout of information available on what worksets are and how to use them to manage your project, so this article is to just address the ability to control how you see worksets in a particular view. This is a helpful feature for troubleshooting projects to ensure that users are placing information in the proper workset.
Controlling the color display of worksets is done through Worksharing Display Settings.
Setting up the workset colors
The Worksharing Display Mode settings are available from the View Control Bar at the bottom of the Revit® graphic window. Selecting the button at the far right end of the icons will bring up a menu with display options.
The Worksharing Display Settings option at the top of the menu allows you to specify the colors that you want to see for each of the various options available to you. Revit® will automatically add a different color for each option so that they are not all the same color by default. While I may not like each color and want to change them, it is nice that Revit automatically assigns something different. The following image shows various colors assigned to each of the worksets in a Revit® MEP project.
Showing the workset colors in a view
To get a view to show what information is on each workset, simply pick the Worksharing Display button on the View Control Bar then select the Worksets options. Each workset that is specified as “Opened” will display in a different color. (This also overrides any filters that may be applied to the view.)
The Worksharing Display also allows you to see:
- Checkout Status
- Owners
- Model Updates
To exit this special workset display and go back to the normal view display settings, simply pick the Worksharing Display button again and choose the Worksharing Display Off option.
Keeping the colors consistent
Note that it is possible for the company BIM Manager or project’s Model Manager to “lock down” the colors for Revit’s Worksharing Display Settings so individual users cannot change the assigned colors. The process for that person to do is:
- Go to the Collaborate tab and click on the Worksets button.
- In the Workset dialog box, go to the Show area at the bottom and place a checkmark next to the Project Standards option.
- Highlight the Worksharing Display Setting workset and change the Editable setting to Yes.
The workset will remain checked out to that person as long as the following parameters are maintained:
- Keep the “Project Standards Worksets” unchecked when you Synchronize with Central.
- Do not choose the “Relinquish All Mine” option.
Applying Technology to Architecture 