By Garry Stockton
Recently, I came across a really useful, free tool on the Autodesk App Store (https://apps.autodesk.com/en) to ease the workflow between Revit and Microsoft Excel. Whilst you have been able to export from Revit for many years, it is not straightforward and it’s been almost impossible to insert a legible schedule back into Revit.
Import/Export Utility sits on a Tab within Revit called BIM One, it’s very intuitive. Just tick the options to get the desired results. It runs on the 2016-2019 platform.
The Import/Export Excel allows you to synchronise data back and forth between Revit and Excel. It also means you can alleviate the data management process by delegating tasks related to the model to team members that don’t use the model. You can export schedules as well as Revit standards to manage them in Excel. Once modified, you import the data back to Revit and your schedules or standards are going to be updated.
Once saved to a file in Windows Explorer, open and modify to your standards.
There are limitations…
Read only and type parameters:
Some parameters in Revit are considered as “read-only” when their value is controlled by the Revit engine. You won’t be able to modify this kind of parameter, even if you change it in the Excel file, because you aren’t allowed to write in those parameters. Type parameters are one in a kind, if we modify them, we modify all the instances of that type. For that matter, type parameter modifications are not supported by our application. Read only parameters and type parameters are coloured in light grey when exporting to Excel so you can distinguish them from the rest.
Importing Issue:
It is mandatory to use the Export feature at first and let the add-in generate its own fields. Importing a man-made Excel file will not work as Revit will only answer to a specific structure of data. Once the file has been exported, you can only modify existing data in the fields generated during the export. Adding lines/columns will not work as they won't be recognised by Revit. However, you can fill-in empty fields if they belong to a line/column that was generated by the export tool.
This will save you hours on a project, so get using it.