No worries! Status is in a way “deepening” the state (WIP, Shared, etc.). A document can be in a shared state but have different statuses: first only for coordination, and afterwards for approval.

In a 2D world, statuses were used on drawings (in the table). In the BIM world, statuses are often assigned to each object within the model, to help with filtering objects for coordination, etc.

Hope I clarified a little bit 🙂

Hey Stefan!

I’m very sorry for the lack of response – I must have overlooked a notification. To your question. Option 1 is a correct workflow – the status codes are set on elements. But all the IFC files are moved to the “shared” state so that BIM Coordinator can perform a check.

In practice, there are usually two models in use – one with WIP status (editable file, eg Revit) that is each week exported to IFC and moved to a “shared” state for coordination.

WIP, Shared, Published and Archive are more for files and documents whereas metadata, status codes and revisions are for objects within a model. More about status codes you can read here: http://bimcorner.com/how-status-codes-help-in-coordination-process/

Suppose you get an information container in WIP and want to pass through the Check/Review/Approve gateway. If you change the status code (via metadata, I guess) that applies to the information container as a whole. But I have never seen an information container in my life which I can accept wholly. There are always limitations and remarks.

So I see two options now.

1 – You accept and it gets a SHARED status. That applies to the whole information container? Or could you rather use subsets in a model (which according to the definition are also information containers) and assign the status to those? E.g. the columns on level 2 are now SHARED, but the columns on level 3 are still WIP? Is that how it is intended?

2 – Or you don’t accept the whole information container until every single piece of information can be approved? So you confirm its WIP status and you (or your colleague from the same task team) continues working on it? Nobody else can see that information container in WIP.

Once you have an information container approved it becomes SHARED or later PUBLISHED. Then you start additional work or make a modification. That would be a revision, the status becomes WIP again until approval and the previous revision needs to be assigned an ARCHIVED status. Would that technically be a new container? So do you make copies of an information container when you encounter metadata changes? Seems strange if you use metadata to indicate status.

P.S. Could by misunderstanding from my side… Maybe I’m still not getting the workflow…