What's New?

Relationship and Formula Support

Relationship and Formula fields are now supported in the API and in non-document view reports.

New Manual Automation Trigger

A Manual Automation Trigger has been added to support the running of automations for specified elements manually. This supports all automation action types with the exception of update an element. This means that formula values can now be written to Revit parameters.

Bug Fixes

• Lookup filters are now properly filtered out of relationship fields in the element pane.

• Relative date filtering was fixed for some cases in auto relationship fields.

• Relationship and formula fields were fixed to restore auto updating when criteria change in the element pane.

• A bug with auto lookup value calculations in document view reports with a single element was fixed.

We’re excited to bring some great new features and improvements to Layer with our October release, including Multi-photo capture on iOS, the ability to summarize formula columns in Tables, and new formula support for bulk-editing elements.

Element Bulk Edit Improvements

Bulk editing just got more powerful. You can now edit metadata fields like Name, Starred, and Completed directly from the bulk edit menu.

Even better, the visual formula editor is now part of bulk editing. Calculate values for a specific point in time and instantly write them back to all selected elements.

Aggregations

You can now summarize a formula column in a Table View! For example, let's say you have a list of products with a formula column that takes the quantity multiplied by the unit cost to form a total cost. You can now sum that column to get a total cost across the project. This is just one example of how you can use this incredibly powerful improvement!

Multi-Photo Capture on iOS

Capturing site photos just got smoother. Use the new “Take Multiple Photos” option in the iOS app to stay in capture mode until you’re done—no more tapping in and out between shots.

Fewer clicks. Faster uploads. Better documentation.

Other Improvements

• Faster loading for related element values in the new Relationships field

• Recovered select field options are now more reliable

• “Send Email” automations no longer fail when no recipients are found

• Improved support for formula functions with flexible input counts (see concatenate() example)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed visual formula editor dialog overlap on iOS

• Fixed crash in the Activity pane when referencing removed users

• Fixed errors when applying templates with many files

• Fixed search bar not clearing input when switching views

• Fixed missing formula functions reference page

We’re thrilled to introduce you to something we’ve been building toward for the last two years: Layer 4.

Layer 4 is the culmination of countless hours reimagining how you connect, relate, and summarize data in Layer—and it’s all been driven by you, our users, pushing the platform in incredible ways.

Watch the Announcement →

New Relationships in Layer

We’ve unified what used to be separate—related element, auto-lookup, and spatial relationships—into one powerful field. Now, no matter how relationships are created (manual, automatic, or spatial), they work the same way.

Relationships aren’t just links anymore—they’re live data sources. You can reference any related field directly, customize how it appears, and combine it with the brand-new Visual Formula Editor.

Relationship Types

• Manual - Manually relate elements between two categories by selecting elements in the project, just like the original Related Element field.

• Automatic - Build a set of filter criteria (think automatic lookups) referencing element data to return all matching elements. Automatic relationships compute based on live project data and instantly refresh when updated data is available.

• Spatial (Revit Categories only) - View the elements that are geometrically related to the given element, such as furniture in a room. Related elements can optionally be further filtered down with the same criteria available to automatic relationships.

Learn more about relationships →

Meet the Visual Formula Editor

This is one of the biggest upgrades ever to Layer.

The Visual Formula Editor gives you an intuitive, no-code way to build logic inside:

• Relationship lookups

• The new Formula Field

• Automation actions

You can now dig deep into relationships and perform complex calculations that were once impossible—like estimating total furniture costs by rolling up data through multiple layers of relationships.

Learn more →

Smarter Automations

Formulas now work inside Automations. Use calculated values in the Update Element action to create dynamic workflows that respond intelligently to your data.

A Faster, Smoother Revit Experience

For our Revit users, Data-Only Publish is here. Send model data to Layer in seconds, with automatic versioning every time you publish. No more waiting minutes for a model to publish. Get Revit data to Layer in seconds.

A Fresh Look

Layer 4 also comes with a refreshed interface—streamlined sidebars, modern visuals, and a more flexible color system designed to make your workspace feel faster and more expressive.

Layer 4 isn’t just an update—it’s a reset.

It’s our biggest leap forward since founding Layer, and it’s built to help you build faster, connect deeper, and summarize data like never before.

Minor Improvements

• Added the ability to recover deleted elements from the Activity log.

• Added support for viewing panoramic images in publicly shared views.

• Added support for searching your projects list.

• Improved performance of the project management dialog, particularly for larger projects.

• Improved performance of document view report exporting for single elements.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug with data cleanup.

Improvements

• Added support for FormulaV2 fields in public views.

• Added support for Revit Parameter fields in FormulaV2 field formulas.

• Updated the underlying structure of automations to support the use of formulas when setting element field values in the future.

• Various optimizations were made to improve app performance, especially in project with many users.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed several bugs causing issues with drawing view annotation thumbnail generation.

• Fixed a bug causing element version history to not be set correctly when a model had previously failed or cancelled versions.

Formula V2 (Beta)

The new FormulaV2 field has continued beta development, with this release adding support for an all new visual scripting editor for use in building formulas. Support has also been added for using FormulaV2 fields in document views, both in regular documents and summary document views.

The visual scripting editor also provides a more comprehensive view of your formula, including errors for individual nodes, information on the expected types for node inputs and output, as well as the output value of each node.

Related V2 (Beta)

The RelatedV2 field also saw improvements in beta development, with support being added for relative date filters in fields with automatic relationships and greater specificity provided when matching on Revit Models and Phases. Testing has also begun on inter-category relationships for manually related fields. Reach out to support at help@layer.team if you’re interested in testing same category manual relationships.

Improvements

• Related (V1 and V2) fields now support the ability to disable element creation from the field input.

• Related (V1 and V2) fields now support the ability to disable navigation upon clicking related element entries in the input.

Bug Fixes

• A bug was fixed that allowed restricted users to remove filters in the element select dialog for related fields.

FormulaV2

A new field type, FormulaV2 was added to public beta.

Improvements

• RelatedV2 field handling of multiple selections was improved and the option to sync selected quantities was added.

Bug Fixes

• A bug with restricted users and view management was fixed.

• A bug with auto related elements not appearing in table view was fixed.

• A bug with document views not accepting new blocks was fixed.

Improvements

• Updates to the app that power upcoming features.

Bulk Edit Improvements

Bulk editing element field data has been updated to allow for clearing field data for the select elements and given field. Bulk editing also support four new fields types:

• Related

• RelatedV2

• Person

• Toggle

Minor Improvements

• The update element field value automation can now clear field values out instead of just setting them.

• Single page report exporting was optimized to be much quicker.

• The character limit for field names was updated from 50 to 255 characters.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug causing bulk edit checkboxes to be shown to users without element update permissions.

• Fixed a bug with exporting a PDF reports from the view context menu.

• Fixed a bug causing no projects to show up upon page load.

Element Sync Engine Improvements

• Improved element sync engine performance, particularly for larger projects.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a few issues with the new document view report generation styling.

Revit Add-In

Version v3.7.2 of the Revit Add-In is now available to download

• Removed dependency on log4net library, thus eliminating version conflicts with other Add-Ins such as Chaos Enscape

Improved PDF Generation

This release replaces the underlying PDF rendering engine for Document View reports, improving the following aspects of PDF generation:

• Better support for large PDF reports that previously failed

• Better handling for automatic page breaks within tables that span multiple pages

• Better handling for multi-column layouts that span multiple pages

• Resolves issues where images may be dropped during PDF generation

Note that these improvements are being released to all users on a rolling basis in the coming weeks!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where some users were unable to edit a Document View within a Revit model category

Revit Add-In

Version v3.7.1 of the Revit Add-In is now available to download

• Support for Revit 2025

• Ability to write to Revit “type” parameters when writing data from Layer to the Revit model

• Stability improvements

Improvements

• New Related V2 Field in beta. See Layer User Community for more information.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with creating templates timing out

Features and Improvements

• Added the ability to set a Select Field via an automation based on the text from a Lookup or Text Field

• Improved the way fields are loaded throughout the app to improve app performance

• Added the ability for Restricted users to create reports

• Added the ability to set up Related fields in Form Views that have a filter pre-applied to them so that public form viewers can only select from a subset of the elements in the related category

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue navigating directly to a field within a field group where the field group would not automatically expand

• This release includes many behind the scenes changes that set the groundwork for a faster app experience and for an improved Related field. Stay tuned for more in future updates!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with incomplete lookup fields crashing document views.

• Fixed a few issues with exporting large reports.

• Fixed an issue with automations running redundantly.

• Fixed an issue with superscript formatting crashing model imports.

• Fixed an issue with select field values not showing in certain contexts after navigating.

• Fixed an issue with element names not being properly updated during data imports.

• Fixed an issue with creating drawing view annotations while in offline mode.

Other Features and Improvements

• Updated notification handling to no longer notify users of person field mentions due to template creation or application.

• Updated table view to always keep element multi-selection check-boxes in view.

Layer API

We've optimized the Layer API to return results faster, especially when querying large sets of element data. Learn more about getting started with the Layer API at docs.layer.team.

Public Views

• Added a banner to indicate that the current device is offline when viewing a Public Form View

• Changed the behavior of Public Form Views so that new versions of the web app are loaded onto the device after submitting a form rather then immediately

Bug Fixes

• Fixes issue where field groups were not included in templates

• Fixed an issue some users were experiencing duplicating fields

• Fixed an issue where clearing site data/cache would cause a user to be unable to log in temporarily

• Fixed an issue where placing annotations on a Drawing View while when accessing Layer on an iOS device could cause the browser or mobile app to crash

• Fixed an issue where reports generated more than one week ago were not able to be accessed using the provided download link

• Fixed an issue where processing Revit models with large amounts of Revit object data could cause the applying stage to fail

• Fixed an issue where stacked fields could not be added to Summary Document Views

Other Features and Improvements

• Performance improvements to Document View report generation, especially when generating reports a large number of elements

• Updated the interface of online users in the project sidenav to better accomodate large sets of online users

• Improved element imports to better handle large imports

• Added support for Sign in with Apple on mobile and desktop

• Improved the stability of Sign in with Microsoft, especially when using the native iOS app

Field Groups

Field Groups give you a new way to organize fields within a category, enabling you to create collapsable groups of fields.

To create a new Field Group, click on the ••• menu to the right of a category's name, then select Edit Category Fields. This will open the new Manage Fields interface, allowing you to create Fields and Field Groups and organize the them using drag and drop.

Other Features and Improvements

• Updated color options for fields, field groups, and dividers that better match other colors used throughout the app

• Redesigned full-screen Manage Fields interface

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where ampersands caused unexpected behavior in document views

Improvements and Features

• Added the Element Number to the values that can be found with an all-text search.

• Improved the speed of duplicating an element.

• Improved the resultant ordering when duplicating fields.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with columns in excel reports not being sorted according to the associated view.

• Fixed an issue with some options not appearing for stacked fields in document view related elements tables.

• Fixed an issue with element numbers not appearing on Model View dots.

• Fixed a bug not allowing contrubutors to delete their own elements.

Conditional Formatting in Document View

Conditional Formatting allows you to create custom rules in a Document View that dictate how field values are formatted based on when the field was last updated. Rules can define the text formatting of field values (such as adding a highlight to recently updated fields) and the file formatting (such as adding a border around recently changed photos).

To set up conditional formatting, click on the ••• menu in the top right of a Document View, and select Conditional Formatting (availiable to all project Editors, Owners, and Admins).

Stay tuned for more conditional formatting rule options in coming releases!

Other Improvements and Features

• Improved handling and reliability for large sets of data imported into Layer using Excel import and Revit import

• Added the ability for contributors to add new select field options for select fields that have the "Allow options to be created at selection by typing" option enabled

• Added Plumbing Equipment as a category that we calculate spatial relationships for

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where individual element document views could not be exported unless the view was a Default view

• Fixes issue where the field dropdown menu would use outdated data, such as when duplicating a field

• Fixed an issue where the incorrect set of users was displayed in the User Access section Edit View page when switching between views

• Fixed an issue using SSO to sign in on an iOS device web browser, which would cause the Layer mobile app to open with an error

• Fixed an issue with quantities now showing up in Excel exports for Lookup fields

• Fixed an issue with Drawing View references not appearing in shared Gallery Views

• Fixed an issue with not being able to use a mouse click to select users or element mentions in text area fields

• Fixed an issue duplicating Form Views, which would result in a blank view

Public Form View Data Handling

Several behind-the-scenes improvments have been made to the storage and processing of publicly submitted forms, ensuring that user-entered form data is never lost. The public app will also reload whenever an update is available and the app version is now visible in a menu accessible from the button in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen.

Upgraded Revit Model Iteration Handling

Revit Model iterations can now have a status of "Canceled", which is assigned whenever a new iteration is updated before the previous one can complete. Revit Models that are currently processing are now checked more frequently for completion, lowering the overal time to get model elements into Layer and reducing the number of issues resulting from long running model processing.

Other Improvements and Features

• Dates from formula fields are now formatted in the same way as Created At and Updated At fields

• You can now use Created At and Updated At Fields inside of Formula Fields

• Element Numbers are now usable when building and setting the Element Name in automations

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where multiple update element actions in a single automation would cause element field data to be overwritten.

• Fixed an issue where deleted fields could be selected in the import elements workflow.

• Fixed an issue with recently updated related element field data causing report generation to fail.