by Dennis Collin
A common question when training Revit is; is there an easy way to not only export data out to Excel, but also read modified data back into the project again? Typically, data such as manufacturer, materials, fire rating and door renumbering information needs to be quickly added or modified. Whilst this can be done with the Dynamo scripting environment, there are several free add-ins available that are easy to use and require no scripting or coding knowledge.
Fig. Typical Door schedule that requires a D prefix for the Mark parameter and specification of the manufacturer name.
One that seems to be particularly good is the Export-Import Excel from the developer BIMOne. Their add-in is available for all recent versions of Revit and allows the extraction of data from schedules, family and projection information out to an Excel file. The various categories are separated out to sheets. This data can then be modified and read back into the Revit project thereby updating any tags and schedule views.
This data can be exported with a Uni or bi-directional relationship. Uni-directional enables greater options on final formatting. Bi-directional allows data to be re-read back into the project.
Fig. Simply decide to import or export to or from the project
Once export is selected choose the location and name of the Excel file. This information can be then either formatted further or modified and re-imported back into the project as required.
Fig. Editing schedule data in MS Excel
To update the Revit project simply use the Import function, browse to the modified Excel file and choose ‘Import’. The Add-in will do the rest!
Fig. The Updated schedule
The Export Import Excel Add-in is available for full Revit versions 2018-2021 and can be installed from the App store link below (login required) :
https://apps.autodesk.com/RVT/en/Detail/Index?id=6290726048826015851&appLang=en&os=Win64