OBD U7 - Structural spreadsheet

Question

Hi, 
 Is it safe to assume that with the new type structural members in OBD, the old vba structural spreadsheet no longer work? I tried to the 4 options and so far only "Schedules" works. 
 
 Best regards, 
 Tuan Le

Marc Thomas · Answer

The Structural Spreadsheets is a legacy feature that we are continuing to maintain. 
 DataGroup scheduling came along later. DataGroup scheduling reports only the values of properties stored in the Catalog with some ability to pick up basic dimensional values from other elements that have Instance Data attached to them. As the properties are all stored in the DataGroup schema schedules can easily be created and shared in advance of use using the formatting functionality provided. We provide a number of example schedules. 
 MicroStation Reports are a more generic feature developed at platform level that will report on DGN files and their contents without a pre-existing schema. This offers great flexibility but is a blank canvas. Reports offer properties for elements or attributes that are present in the active file, including all building elements when used in OpenBuildings. Reports can be prepared in advance and shared in DGNLIBs, to do this sample elements of the type to be reported upon must be present in the file. The simplest way to do this is to create and test a report in a DGN, then import the results into an appropriate DGNLIB. Jon Summers has some really good examples of reports on his website . (Note when creating reports, use the search facility when adding elements and columns to reports.)

Marc Thomas · Answer

In Update 7 we have much better base plate tools driven by the underlying ProStructures technology. Plates can easily be attached to columns or beams or place as discrete objects. In this screenshot I have two base plates hosted by columns and one floating, at the top right is an extruded slab with base plate instance data attached, no empty rows are present in the MicroStation Report. 
 In the Catalog Schedule the two types, Base Plate and PlateSteel (the display name needs to be amended in the dataset I'm using) could be combined into a single list using a multi category schedule.