Clean Your Content with Guardian's Content Car Wash

Guardian’s Content Car Wash is a repeatable process for cleaning and standardizing Revit content using Guardian’s Model Properties. This is a great process to follow when you:

• Are cleaning an existing content library
• Are standardizing families from multiple sources
• Are preparing content for a shared library or content management system
• Want to reduce inconsistencies in project graphics and data

This process uses your Revit template as the source of truth, allowing Guardian to map incoming content to approved standards and reuse those mappings in future projects.

Download our Content Cleanup Template to use as a guide as you build your own.

By following this workflow, you can:

• Align incoming families with firm standards
• Eliminate duplicate or unused properties
• Improve graphic consistency across projects
• Reduce manual cleanup during project work

Watch the on-demand session where we walk through this process step-by-step.

Step 1: Define Your Standards

Start by defining the standards you want to enforce across your content.

How to do this:

1. Open your project template
2. Create a “standards dashboard” using a Legend view
   
   • This allows you to visualize and document all standards in one place
     
   • Revit properties placed within Legends are less likely to be purged, making them ideal for this purpose
3. Add and organize your standards within the template

What to include first:

Focus on high-impact standards such as:

• Line patterns
• Line styles
• Text styles
• Dimension styles
• Object styles (subcategories)

If you don’t already have defined standards, start with a baseline such as the National CAD Standards and adapt from there.

Tips:

• If you’re unsure whether something should be a standard, prefix it with “TBD”
• You can revisit and finalize these later once you’ve reviewed your content more holistically

Step 2: Clean Your Revit Template

Before processing any families, ensure the correct mapping and project configuration files are assigned.

How to do this:

1. Create a new model from your project template (with standards from Step 1)
2. In Revit, go to the Guardian ribbon under Add-Ins
3. Click Model > All Model Properties
4. Review each tab and compare existing properties against your standards
5. Map any non-standard or duplicate properties to approved ones. Learn more about mappings here.
6. Click Review Changes to process and apply the mappings

Tips:

• Use the assigned mapping configuration as your master cleaning configuration
• Do not use this same mapping configuration for live projects
  
  • After cleanup, duplicate it and assign the new version to projects

Step 3: Create a Family Cleanup Model

Create a dedicated Revit model used specifically for cleaning content. This acts as your “car wash environment” where families are cleaned before being added to your library.

How to do this:

1. Create a new .RTE file from your cleaned project template
2. Remove project-specific elements such as views and sheets
3. Create three versions of a plan view, reflected ceiling plan view, front elevation and right (or left if you prefer) elevation, with each of the three versions set to fine, medium or coarse detail level. Also create a 3D view. This is to ensure your families are being graphically represented across all views found within Revit.
4. Save this as your Family Cleanup Model

Step 4: Clean Your Content

This is the core step where content is cleaned and standardized using Guardian.

How to do this:

1. Open your Family Cleanup Model (from step 3)
2. Load or insert families into the model
   
   • Start with a couple “base” families for each category/type
3. Allow Guardian to process the content
4. When prompted, review the Incoming Properties dialog
5. Compare incoming properties against your standards
6. Map non-standard properties to approved ones
7. Rename or consolidate families and types as needed
8. Remove unused properties through Guardian

Tips:

• Start with small batches of families, 50-100 at a time
• Complex families (ex: doors, casework) may require additional review
• Guardian will learn mappings as you go, speeding up future processing
• Check the Export button to save cleaned content back to its original source location

Step 5: Create a Content Container

Create a centralized model that contains your cleaned content. This allows you to view all content in one place, identify duplicates and inconsistencies, and review standards at scale.

This model will be your ongoing source of truth for content and standards moving forward.

Over time as you become more confident with Guardian, you can skip the Content Car Wash Template and load families directly into the container, as Guardian will ensure your standards are safeguarded.

How to use it:

• Load multiple cleaned families into a single Revit model
• Review incoming properties across all content
• Identify patterns, duplicates, and inconsistencies
• Resolve standards globally instead of family-by-family

Step 6: Export and Publish Clean Content

1. Once content is cleaned and standardized, export to your content management solution
2. Use Guardian Sync Properties to push your finalized standards to the cloud, ensuring consistency across future projects

Tip: Saving families directly from Revit (instead of the family editor) can reduce file size.