ARCHICAD23 - How to Exchange Property Data with Excel

[@3000potatoes]

Thanks for the Video. Surface Schedule Video would be good. particularly with best practices with getting around a schedule populating "--" which is often a conflicting surface already scheduled also the surface "General" being scheduled.

[@CONTRABIM]

Great suggestion. I'll do a Surface Schedule, as well as Composite Schedule video... The "---" often is displayed when the data type does not match available properties/parameters for the element. To check the settings of the elements containing "General", i'd suggest using the "select in 3D" option and verify the surface settings of the associated elements. Thanks for the comment!

[@3000potatoes]

@@CONTRABIM Thanks! makes more sense now. Looking foward to it.

[@jakdutra]

Perfect! Can we add an header in Excel, without damaging the data? Thank you so much for the video :)

[@CONTRABIM]

Hi Jakeline. Adding a header in Excel can create a gap in the data, so when reading it into Archicad it may cut off the data beyond that. That was certainly the case in v23. v24 I believe it can still cause an issue. Best to remove gaps in the data before importing back in

[@jakdutra]

Hello :) Can you export a checking box from AC to Excel? I have a "true x false" box in AC and in Excel it shows as 0 (for false) or 1 (for true).

[@CONTRABIM]

Yes, the true/false will come through as 0/1. It's not so straight forward to convert to a checkbox unfortunately in Excel, and if importing back into Archicad then it will only recognize the 0 and 1's.

[@qingluo8676]

Thanks very much for your advice. I'll give it another crack and let you know.

[@CONTRABIM]

No problem! I'll have to do a quick video on this type of analysis you're looking to do. Sometimes these calculations are simpler to perform with a quick expression in Archicad. 1 measured value (site area) and 1 inputted sum (from total gross area) = % or ratio

[@PVTDHXD]

How to change the "Full Element id" of all objects taken from excell?

[@CONTRABIM]

Hi Tuyen. Unfortunately Element ID's are not modifiable as part of the property exchange, because they are not properties. If you have several ID's to modify, might I suggest the Element ID Manager? kzbin.info/www/bejne/enKaeWCGdtWKsNE Here's a short video on it, may help! Thanks for the question!

[@matsknutsson114]

Hi John. What is your first column good for? Normally one would want the Element ID in the first column. If I do this and put Element ID in the first column the ID propagates to all properties... so I have to make the first column a "dummy". Thoughts?

[@CONTRABIM]

First column here was just grouping by CSI division (as a headline). You could always just put the element ID first, no problem. Main thing is to have clean data coming back into Archicad from excel, with no gaps. This has been improved over the versions from GS

[@qingluo8676]

John, as you suggested, I tried to export and import, but always get 'nothing to import, no value selected or none are valid to import' message. I had no empty row or column to delete. I only tried to use excel to work out a percentage for the coverage of the site, nothing complex, but it won't allow me to import it back to ArchiCAD. Very frustrated as I cannot get through the first hurdle. Please help me out? Thanks.

[@CONTRABIM]

Hi Qing. When your exporting, are you including "property values". Properties are the only parameters that can be exchanged in this workflow. Check out at minute 1:45, when I unhide the rows for the GUIDS, this exposes which ones are properties. Do this for your file, and make sure you have them and not just general parameters, which will not have GUIDS. The next thing to consider is this.. what model element will contain the "percentage of site" property parameter? Is it going to be your site zone? or building gross area zone? remember properties work so that it's going to be associated with a single element, not not a summary of multiple elements. So if you're working out a percentage of site, i'd recommend to associate that value with either the site itself, or a gross area zone on the ground level. You'll need to have a property setup (possible just a blank number) that is ready to receive the percentage you calculate from Excel, and it'll have to be listed on your schedule. Hope this makes, that you can't create new properties or summary values in Excel, and expect Archicad to receive it. The property value must first be created in Archicad, and exported as part of the process. Let me know how this goes!

[@jakdutra]

When I import, Archicad has an error and closes. Does this also work for Teamwork AC files? Thanks

[@CONTRABIM]

What is there error you're receiving? The entire program closes, is it crashing? Teamwork AC files should be ok to import, as long as you have all the elements and schedule settings reserved prior to importing. If you don't have items reserved, the import won't work.

[@jakdutra]

@@CONTRABIM Aaaahm ok. Thank you very much. One of the team members had a pair of Zones reserved and as I was working on it. So I'll try again today.

[@ttarchitect6887]

Is it possible renumbering zone and import to zone list?

[@CONTRABIM]

Zones numbers are not properties, so unfortunately they will not be exchanged through this workflow. There is a Python script from Graphisoft you can load to do renumbering with zones though!

[@ttarchitect6887]

@@CONTRABIM Thx. Phyton has no options for us because we use 23. But I was able to solve it with Grasshopper.