Get the value of description parameter of a construction phase

Revit
1

I’ve been trying to extract the value of Description parameter of a construction phase, so far with no success. I tried simply to use the node GetParameterValueByName, but that returns no result. Turns out that the node Element.Parameters doesn’t actually list the Description parameter.

Here is what I tried in Dynamo:

get_phases_description
get_phases_description1109×860 80 KB

This is what my Phases dialog in Revit looks like:

phases_dialog
phases_dialog718×473 14.1 KB

It follows that for Phase 3 I want to return the text value ‘Neubau SPW - Bohren’ in Dynamo. Can anyone tell me how that can be done?

2

  1. Isn’t this just a matter of using a more descriptive naming convention in your Phases?

  2. I would start by exploring if the Phase element has access to a few more BuiltIn properties?
    Phase Members

I don’t think this would be the field, since this PROPERTY_SET_DESCRIPTION will probably be the filed in the Instance Properties panel.

3

Hello
currently, there is no access to this property with Revit API

4

Hi, thanks for the reply. Can you be certain of that? I didn’t find the parameter in apidocs among neither the properties of the Phase class, nor it’s parent Element class. Does that always mean I can’t acces the parameter or is the reason more complicated?

5

The property is not implemented in Revit API

1 Like
6

Hi, thanks for the reply.

  1. Yeah, it’s an option, but it’s not just up to me. I was asked to investigate the possibility of having multiple sets of phases within one file representing different workflows that can partially overlap. One approach I came up with requires the name to get more complex and I would prefer to separate some of the information. I wanted to store a time identifier in the description, because as opposed to the name it doesn’t have to be unique.
  2. I’m pretty ignorant of the apidocs, but I do have some rudimentary programming knowledge. Are you implying that I can access more builtin parameters than listed under Properties of the Phase class?
7

Thanks, I believe that, but I’d like to understand a bit better. Incase I want to access a different parameter of a different class in the future, how can I tell if it’s been implemented in the API? Is there a straightforward way to tell for sure just from looking in the apidocs or is the only option to have a guy from a forum tell me?

8

For starters, check the API documentation site hosted by Gui Talarico, https://www.revitapidocs.com/.

In this case you should start by looking into the phase class and see what options are available there. Check for any other classes which contain phase in them as well - some times stuff gets buried in the larger application.

After that, create a Revit API forum post asking the larger ADN and/or a post here, and if those come up empty then finally make a Revit Ideas Station posting to flag the need for this to be exposed.

2 Likes
9

Thanks, that helps a lot with the general understanding of the ecosystem!