A good Revit template can save a significant amount of time not recreating everything when starting a new project, so it’s worth spending some time to get it right.
An effective template should include the following:
These are common views that are used in every project such as floor plans, sections, and elevations. It is of course necessary to adapt them to the needs of the project.
Using view templates that match the office's graphical needs saves time by avoiding the need to redo graphics for each project. They also make adjusting view properties quicker, which is important if you use them for view grouping in the project Browser.
Pre-defined typical levels and grids with default naming, and remember to customize their visual presentation.
These are pre-made sheets where the typical views are already placed and that can be quickly populated with new views and details.
Loadable families
These are the families that are used in most projects, such as doors, windows, furniture, structural framing and more.
Think about loading most of the things you could be using. In my experience having the elements in the template and purging what is not needed after is more effective than having to find each family that wasn’t there.
System families
These are the non-loadable families that are ready to be used.
We have layer based families: walls, floors, roofs and ceilings. For this kind of family it is important to correctly set up a material library.
As well as the rest of system families, each of them requiring different methods of set-up: stairs, railings, curtain walls and possibly plumbing, HVAC and Electrical families**.**