direction of the decking

[Elovia]

You want to connect your two decks, but have an elevation distance between them. In your image, you could just extend the platform of the upper (right-hand) deck over to the lower deck.

I just tried it two ways in Pro 9 trial.

First, I used an invisible wall to create a room between the two decks. I set the elevation of the room between the decks to be the same elevation as the upper deck. I then created a stair between the lower deck and the "gap room" by clicking on the railing between the two. Now that the stair is made, I then deleted the invisible wall (thus deleting the room) and slid the stairs over to connect to the upper deck, thus bridging the gap.

The second, and probably more direct method, was to extend the short stub on the upper deck (as shown in your image) over to the lower deck and connect them. I then made the stairs using the click-stair tool on the railing between them. Next, I drew a new railing where the actual one should be, thus creating a new deck room between the two decks. Using the break wall tool, I cut the railing and deleted the "gap room" rail, thus deleting the "gap room". And then, I slid the stairs over.

Only after I had finished forming the decks and stairs ... the last step is to use the Advanced Framing Tool to create deck framing (provided, of course, that the proper settings were made on the Deck tab of each Deck Room's Specification dialog).

Hope this helps.

Edit to add the following:

Also, by practice, we actually mount our railing posts outside of the fascia. Is there a setting that allows this. I tried offsetting the posts, but the rest of the railing did not move with the posts.

The deck on my house has its railing attached to the outer fascia, and doesn't have newel posts. The short answer is no, there is not a setting to do this quickly. However, it can be done depending on how detailed you want your decks to look. Attached below is an image I made in Pro 9 trial. One railing on a sample deck was made using soffits for balusters, a wedge for the tapered bit, and a sphere for the bolt head; the handrail is another soffit sized to model a 2x4 dimensioned lumber. It took a little time making the first baluster, but afterward the Transform/Replicate tool took care of copying and distributing the group along the edge of the deck. If you want fast, the automatic tools will work; however, if you want custom details like shown below, you need to be prepared to give your model the time required to make the details.