Let me tell you a little secret about working in BIM: the more data you cram into your model, the more of a nightmare it becomes to manage. Early in my career as a BIM Manager, I thought it was smart to add as much data as possible to Revit Families for owner-furnished items (OFI). Data such as vendor information, costs, operational information, warranty information, and more. After all, isn’t BIM supposed to be the ultimate single source of truth?
Spoiler alert: It’s not.
Every time the program changed or someone wanted a new parameter added, it turned into a full-blown maintenance circus. I’m talking about fees piling up, project teams grumbling, and everyone questioning my life choices. Even the tiniest tweaks—like adding a shared parameter—would snowball into extra work. Trust me, I’ve been there, and it’s not pretty.
That’s when I started embracing what I like to call the “Minimum Viable Data” approach. Here’s the gist: keep the BIM model lean and mean. Only put in the essentials—stuff that directly impacts construction documents—and dump everything else into an external database. Think of it like Marie Kondo-ing your BIM. If it doesn’t spark joy (or directly affect your design/construction processes and drawing set), it doesn’t belong there.
Now, some people try to manage all that extra data in spreadsheets. And while spreadsheets are great for a lot of things (like pretending you know Excel shortcuts), they’re not exactly built for asset data. Version control is a mess, data integrity is basically a pipe dream, and don’t even get me started on how fun it is to scale. Spoiler: it’s not fun.
That’s where a tool like Ephany comes in. It’s basically a spreadsheet’s cooler, more reliable cousin who doesn’t flake on you at the worst possible moment. Ephany lets you manage all your asset data in one place, keeps everything organized, and plays nice with your BIM tools. No more “who updated this spreadsheet last?” arguments. No more outdated info. Just smooth, efficient data management that actually works.
So yeah, ditch the data hoarding. Your BIM deserves better. And frankly, so do you.