What is the best work flow for designing a connection that will be repeated for multiple members?
Here is what I have done:
Let's say I have to design a bunch of floor beams that connect to a girder. I could probably just design one and call it "good" for the entire group, but let's say they have different loadings or spacing and different size beams. I will select all the beams/nodes and assign a double angle all bolted connection (or whatever connection you want). Since some of the beams and girders are different sizes, I can't "edit connections" for all of these connections. Therefore I select one then go to Home tab - Selection group - Elements drop down - connections - connections with same template and sections. I can then "Edit Connections" for all these members. I typically will add a Tag at this point so that I can easily select them. There are a few issues I face with this workflow:
1. I don't know which connections I have already modified. It would be nice to see which connections have a "saved design".
2. If for some reason I don't grab all the connections that should be in the same "group" I'm not sure how to assign the same template to that connection. I can't edit "template" so I'm not sure how to get that to match.
3. Using TAG to group the connections seems wrong. Maybe I should use Description instead, However, sometimes the automatically generated description is good to keep.
EDIT: I realize that in order to change the "Template" in the spreadsheet that I need to select the template from the "Available connections" which is directly below the template. I'm not exactly sure if that will wipe all "edits" that have been previously made though.
Adding a TAG, or editing the Description, is probably the best way to keep track of cases where the original connection was assigned to a group of joints and then individual instances were modified. I suggest editing the Description, because then you can use Ctrl+D to reselect that group quickly. There is no way at this time to edit the assigned connections en masse, only to replace a set of connections by assigning a new connection or template. If you reassign the connection from the templates under Available Connections at the bottom of the spreadsheet, that will revise the template listed in the spreadsheet, so you could also reselect a set of connections with a common template by right clicking on the template text, and choosing "Filter according to data in cursor position" tool (Ram Elements image below).
There are several aspects of connection groups that could be improved.
Answer Verified By: RFreund
I think I've decided that making templates is the better work flow here. In this case I can apply the template to multiple beams even if they are slightly different sizes. I can always edit the template if something needs to change. Then as you said, I can filter by template.
The workflow as I describe above could be doable if there was a way to save edits to the connection and somehow have these connections with edits be grouped or identified. This was my first instinct, but the template method also makes a lot of sense. It just wasn't as obvious.