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One set of sheets for every discipline
Author the tiling once in a control drawing, assign each discipline its prefix and numbering, and press Build Set or Update. Every discipline's drawings, sheets, key maps and sheet set are created from that one definition, and when the tiling changes, they follow. This page is the workflow in order, with the questions it answers as its headings; each section links to the page that documents the buttons.
Can I generate layouts for several disciplines from one drawing?
Yes. Project Control works at project scale instead of one drawing at a time. You author the tiling once in a control drawing, and the output drawings are created and maintained from it. It has three uses, and they combine: several disciplines, such as existing conditions, demolition, layout or grading, inheriting the same sheets, each with its own prefix and numbering; one discipline split across several drawings so no single file carries more layouts than you want; or both at once.
The control drawing is preview only. Save it first, press Project Control on the Welcome tab, choose Single VP or Multi VP for the whole project, then author the tiling as in any drawing: Set TB, Primary VP, Create Preview, and Add Tile for extras. Tile labels stay blank until numbering is assigned, and sheets are never built here.
Then press Assign Disciplines: set how many sheets go in each file (blank keeps each discipline in one file), the suffix start for the whole project, and a row per discipline with its name, a sheet title, a unique prefix such as C1, C2 or C3, and a separator. The Will number column previews C1-01, C1-02, C1-03 as you type. A reused prefix is flagged and the build stays disabled until you fix it.
Finally, Build Set or Update: tick the disciplines, point at a sheet set or create one, choose the file naming and whether each discipline gets its own index drawing, set the backup location, and press Build. Each drawing arrives complete, viewports located and sized, match lines, key maps, scale bar, north arrow, title block attributes and its sheet set, generated in one offline pass without opening and closing each drawing. Building one discipline first and reviewing it is worth the extra minute.
How the tiles are shared between disciplines
The control drawing is the authority. Every discipline drawing inherits its tiles from it, so demolition, grading and layout all sit on the same sheet boundaries, and when a boundary moves it moves everywhere, because the tiling lives in one place rather than as a copy in each file.
In a discipline drawing, Set TB, Primary VP, Retile, Renumber and sheet names report that they are managed by Project Control and point you back to the control drawing. That is one source of truth, not a lock-out. Everything else on those sheets is yours: add your own viewports, annotations, support viewports and secondary viewports freely. Project updates never touch what you added; only what SheetAgent for Civil 3D created is maintained.
A project can have as many control drawings as you want. A control drawing is Single VP or Multi VP, so a project with plan sheets and plan and profile sheets uses one of each. The one rule is the sheet set: point every control drawing at the same one and the whole project stays connected in Sheet Set Manager.
Layer control follows the discipline rather than the file. Set the layers inside one viewport in any drawing of the discipline, press Apply Layers Viewport, Keymaps or Profile, and choose across the discipline: every drawing in that family is updated offline, without being opened. Apply Layer Model Space does the same for model space layers.
How can I generate key maps for each drawing automatically?
A key map is the small overview viewport placed on every built sheet, showing the whole plan with the current sheet's tile highlighted by hatch. It is created at Build Sheets and maintained at Update Sheets; after tiles change, Update Sheets rebuilds the key maps.
On a Project Control project, set it up once in the control drawing: press Set Key Map Area and define the area on the title block layout, then choose what it shows. Zones, where each discipline drawing highlights its own zone automatically, or Key Plan, showing the whole project layout. That choice applies to every discipline, including disciplines added later, with no per-discipline picking.
In a single drawing the setup is three buttons on the template: Set Key Map Area for where it sits, Key Map Hatch for the pattern that highlights the current tile, Key Map Label for the KEY MAP title and scale labels beneath it. Key Map North Arrow is optional. On sheets that already exist, press Update Sheets to apply the key map settings. Run Set Key Map Area again and choose Add for a second, independent key map. Apply Layers Keymaps copies the layer state of one key map viewport to all the others.
On a large project you define the sectors, and Project Control can generate a key map for each sector alongside a key map for the whole project.
What happens when tiles, sheet order or sheet count change
Every project change starts in the control drawing. Change the tiling there: retile, move or delete tiles, or retype a sheet number on a tile. Run Assign Disciplines if the numbering needs re-approving, then Build Set or Update. Every discipline follows the new state, and the table reports where every file stands.
Two rules keep a project stable through this. Sheets renumber but files never rename, so file names and the links into them stay put. A deleted sheet is removed rather than held open as a numbered gap. If every sheet in a file is removed, that drawing retires to the backup folder you nominated; nothing is deleted. Drawings are copied before updating, and an existing backup is suffixed rather than overwritten.
Renumbering cascades to what depends on it: key maps, labels and sheet set entries. To renumber from a given point, retype a number on a tile and run Assign Disciplines again.
A tiling change on a plan and profile project also raises Profile Split Sync Required, because the split profile views in the source drawing no longer line up with the sheets. Assign to SheetAgent for Civil 3D saves your drawing, opens the source, re-cuts the splits and returns to finish the sync; Do it manually leaves the same steps to you.
How Sheet Set Manager fits in
One sheet set for the project. At Build Set or Update you point at a sheet set or create one, and every discipline enrols in it. Only the sheets belonging to each drawing are touched, so several drawings feed one sheet set.
Numbering runs project-wide rather than per file. A discipline split across several drawings numbers straight through instead of restarting at one in each; the same holds across sectors, so three sectors of six sheets number 101 to 106, 107 to 112, 113 to 118. Page count fields such as 1 of 30 stay correct as sheets are added or removed.
Match lines carry across files. When a discipline is split, the sheet at a file boundary still references the sheet on the other side, so an edge sheet can read SEE C2-109 even though that sheet lives in the next drawing.
After changes, Sync SSM keeps the drawing and the sheet set matched: layouts added, deleted or reordered, across every file Project Control creates. Review the analysis of what will be added, updated or removed, then confirm.
Sectors and files: how the project breaks up
Files break by region first and by sheets per file second. Define Regions adds each region by selecting a closed polyline, drawing a rectangle, or choosing Alignment for one region per alignment, where the alignment itself is the boundary and sheets never mix across alignments. If a sheet sits between two regions, Assign Disciplines asks which one it belongs to.
Sheets per file is your choice, set in Assign Disciplines. Project Control sets no minimum and no maximum of its own; the right number is whatever your design files and machines carry comfortably. Thirty layouts with the maximum set to eight becomes four files, numbered continuously. A sector large enough on its own can still be split across several drawings.
There is no limit on how many sectors, files or sheets a project can hold, and however many it ends up with, it stays one numbering sequence and one sheet set.
When the drawings already exist: Key Plans
Key Plans is the manual route for drawings you already have. It reads a set of subset drawings and produces a single index or cover layout covering all of them, plus key map coordination across the project. It does not author tiles and does not create drawings; that is Project Control.
It is the right tool in two cases: you would rather not use Project Control, or the sheets genuinely do not need coordinating, because the sectors do not adjoin and share no edges, so no match lines run between them. Where the sheets do meet, Project Control is the better tool. The test is one you can answer by looking at your own project: do the sectors touch?
Setup: press Key Plans on the Welcome tab, New Control Drawing to select the subset .dwg files, Scan Subsets to read the tile data (read-only, no file locks), Set TB and Set VP Size if you skipped the prompt, then Build Overview. When the subset drawings change later, press Update Overview; in a layout drawing whose key map is out of date, Health offers Resync Keyplan. Control drawings scan their subsets automatically when opened.
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