Export (multiple) Revit schedules to Excel using Dynamo!

[@mohamedfaisal5059]

Hey there Gavin, as always another great topic and a practical one recently saw your video on Autodesk tandem, where you were talking about developing a new course, give us some insight on the topic and make a video explaining what are the future topics on the chanel (like a roadmap), your learning process and strategy. What should be an individual approach to learning Bim application so he can become as good as you. And finally moving forward what is future of the industry based on your experience. Much appreciated as always.

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Hi Mohamed, Yes I'm working through two courses currently and also updating some of my content collections with improvements to help my customers. I am aiming to release a roadmap at the beginning of next month or thereabouts with the course order and target dates, but juggling with consulting work makes the actual dates hard to formally lock in. Much of my skill comes from experience and trial/error - I spent the better of part of the last 10 years applying Revit to projects and focusing on developing my own standards and systems, as well as continually researching the market trends. Over the past 4 years I've learnt Dynamo and branched out to non-Autodesk platforms in my own spare time. I focused on learning about architectural design and coordination for the first 8 years also before moving on to 100% BIM/computation focus. Hopefully that gives an idea of the level of time/experience that may be required. The industries future is unclear to me right now. I think traditional roles are high risk (drafter, QMS, design architect), and technology enabled firms/roles will continue to increase in relevance (BIM/DE managers, BIM coordinators, computational designers and program developers). I think tough times are ahead for many people unfortunately, and firms will likely get smaller - so upskilling is essential. Simply knowing technical skills wont be enough anymore either, knowing how to apply them is the key to making yourself valuable to an employer or client.

[@mohamedfaisal5059]

@@AussieBIMGuru thanks for your reply, you're my inspiration. I tend to learn from the best to be the best.

[@brendonlay8382]

So cool I made this a few weeks ago but didn’t use data shapes. So helpful thanks Gavin

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Glad it helped!

[@conormac5658]

That is a great video, Combine this with Power Quey in excel I was able to match all my keynote value with the Keynote Text without needing to actual tags anything.

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Great thinking - sounds like a potent combination!

[@danielmontes8842]

Hi Mate, Thank you for providing light in this important Revit topic. I am wondering if you can do a video in which a main schedule (room or space) is connected to other schedules through a key schedule (could be an ID name )in such a way that there are interconnected and exported to excel and imported again when changes are made in excel.

[@AussieBIMGuru]

The key here is including the Id in your exported data so you can realign the rows later on import. This workflow is roughly covered in this tutorial: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pne3Zqmbn7Otp7c

[@PetarPejic-u1w]

Hey, great tutorial, hthanks a lot for sharing that info. I was wondering, how would you approach exporting all of those schedule one after another in single worksheet?

[@AussieBIMGuru]

This would require the use of list.join to combine the schedule data. I'd also use python to fill all rows to the longest row in all the tables as well so the rows end up at equal length.

[@issamelbouche2896]

really you are the best in world, thank you

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Glad to help, but many others out there like me and better than me - just without the time to share it I guess!

[@JorgeRodriguez-wt4gu]

Thanks a lot ! 👐. Do u think that would be possible to hand out journal files to show the time spent in modelling,, or create a clock timer for the daily work using dynamo ? Since a lot of enterprises that doesnt have any bim experience thinks that the models and information setting is made in the blink of an eye 😓

[@AussieBIMGuru]

This would be quite difficult with dynamo as it doesn't run off events. You could try to deconstruct journals but they are very complex. My suggestion would be to either explore application development to detect and log events, or generate a script which can write a 'line' in a csv journal file on the user's machine that they run when they start or stop a task. They can provide inputs to dynamo player for task name, start/stop (true/false) and dynamo can log the datetime using the now node. You'd be relying on users actually running the script though, so its not likely to work versus an app.

[@JorgeRodriguez-wt4gu]

@@AussieBIMGuru seems difficult to justify the hours of work haha, i'll make you know if i can made up something. Thanks !

[@AussieBIMGuru]

@@JorgeRodriguez-wt4gu have a look into 'Project Tracker' on the app store.

[@Bryan-yb2qo]

Hey Gavin, thanks a lot for the video. In the company i work for we use DiRoots to export and import revit shedules to excel and from excel. Can you tell me in what way your script extends this functionality?

[@AussieBIMGuru]

The main difference is that you can customize default approaches I guess. Not all my videos are made to beat plugins but show how it is possible to develop tools that can be further adjusted to suit other needs.

[@CooZah]

Kicking back an error on BB Data & Write Excel from bumblebee. Anyway to troubleshoot that? Says: custom node def is not loaded. But, Bumblebee package is installed.

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Yes unfortunately Bumblebee is quite old/unsupported these days. I believe it has difficulty running in any builds above Revit 2023 due to it being written in IronPython and the Microsoft API it depends on isn't supported anymore either. My current approaches I use for Excel read write in pyRevit and C# are xlswriter and ClosedXML library respectively, but they aren't available to Dynamo specifically.

[@nodisturbX]

Aussie thank for your videos, I have a little question, how can I related ms project with revit model? There are a way only using dynamo?

[@AussieBIMGuru]

It depends on what part you want to relate. No matter what you use you will need some way to 'match' tasks to objects, whether it is by level, category or manually assigned dates for installation/codes. If you can get your msproject file into a tabular format like csv or excel dynamo can read that output - the rest will be up to the coder to design.

[@nodisturbX]

​@@AussieBIMGuru Thanks, you clarified the whole idea for me.

[@hoangbao6714]

Hi Gavin, is there any way to get colour from coloured-cell in an Excel file by Dynamo? Thanks a lot.

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Yes but you'll need Python/Excel library. There is a sample script at the forums here: forum.dynamobim.com/t/read-excel-cell-fill-color/39517

[@prabhanshusharma6314]

can you please let me know from which point i have to start i really not getting that will it be started from schedule by type or some other node ? please reply me as soon as possible i have to fix this let me know the nodes of starting

[@AussieBIMGuru]

I cover the base script in this video, and both are on my github; kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4bXamZjadJ2h8kfeature=shared

[@mkabmf0117]

Hi! I was wondering, is there a way to automate the sizing and colors of the excel cells through this method/ through dynamo in general?

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Yes look into the bumblebee package and its bbstyle nodes. They will allow you to format cells when written into excel by address.

[@mkabmf0117]

@@AussieBIMGuru Thanks for the information! Highly appreciate it

[@ahmedabdelsalam7947]

i got this message (fix problem this graph contains nodes that refrence an outdated python engine dynamo) and the script crashed and all nodes become above each other when i open the script i use revit 2021 and dynamo 2.12 the eror from crumple package which package version should i download ?

[@AussieBIMGuru]

This is usually due to a conflict with addins, packages or revit updates. Try the steps on the last post of this thread: forum.dynamobim.com/t/all-nodes-on-top-of-each-other/50277/69 Common culprits seem to be pyrevit, data shapes and the generative design tool.

[@ahmedabdelsalam7947]

@@AussieBIMGuru when i removed Crumple Package the dynamo Work what should i do ?

[@ahmedabdelsalam7947]

@@AussieBIMGuru when i uninstalled Crumple it worked i think there is conflict with data shapes

[@AussieBIMGuru]

@@ahmedabdelsalam7947 hrm possibly. Maybe test the same packages in Revit 2022 and see if the same happens. I have used both packages in each version without issue so far.

[@simonjerabek3020]

Hi Gavin, I am trying to specify the origin of the sheet at A15, but it writes the data in A1 no matter what value I insert. When I select ''use levels'' in the BB Data node and insert @L2, then I can see the data origin correctly at the specified value, however, it no longer exports multiple schedules but only the first one on the list. Any ideas how to come around this?

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Assuming your data tables are all sitting @L3, maybe try setting the data to @L3 instead if you aren't getting 1BB object per table. If so nevermind that. Try setting the destination to @L1 and the write node to longest lacing. Beyond that I'm not 100% sure of the required lacing but it will be something along those lines hopefully...

[@simonjerabek3020]

​@@AussieBIMGuru Frankly speaking, I don't fully understand what I did but I have set the BB Data node to longest lacing, set the level @L3 instead of @L4 and the destination to @L1 and IT WORKS! Only annoying thing is that the success message pops up as many times as the number of schedules exported, but that I can live with. Thank you so much!

[@AussieBIMGuru]

@@simonjerabek3020 you're welcome. Usually levels inform a custom node which list to work across, so @l3 is each table/bb object. @L1 and longest lacing says for each table object (@L3), use the object @L1 as many times as needed (longest lacing).

[@matthill18]

@@simonjerabek3020 Yes!! Thank you! Both of you

[@Educacionfinacierabasico]

I suggest you update the video because I only find the Schedule.GetData with string

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Not feasible for me unfortunately given that packages update often. I usually advise looking through the same packages as typically authors dont remove nodes but might rename or adjust them slightly. The videos aim to show use cases versus just be a 'copy exactly what i do' also, teaching a concept as well as a script.

[@Educacionfinacierabasico]

@@AussieBIMGuru Could you provide us with the node that is in this video? could you post a link here?

[@AussieBIMGuru]

@@Educacionfinacierabasico the node should be in bimorph from the package manager.

[@weiguan2228]

Hi! Thank you for your work! It helps lot. I met problem. When I run this script, I will get fail message at Write Excel which is shown under. Do you know how I can fix it? Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 179, in File "", line 97, in ExitExcel EnvironmentError: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x800A03EC): Har ikke tilgang til Test.xlsx. at Microsoft.Scripting.ComInterop.ComRuntimeHelpers.CheckThrowException(Int32 hresult, ExcepInfo& excepInfo, UInt32 argErr, String message) at CallSite.Target(Closure , CallSite , Object , Object ) at System.Dynamic.UpdateDelegates.UpdateAndExecute2[T0,T1,TRet](CallSite site, T0 arg0, T1 arg1) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.DynamicInstruction`3.Run(InterpretedFrame frame) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.Interpreter.Run(InterpretedFrame frame) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.LightLambda.Run4[T0,T1,T2,T3,TRet](T0 arg0, T1 arg1, T2 arg2, T3 arg3) at System.Dynamic.UpdateDelegates.UpdateAndExecute3[T0,T1,T2,TRet](CallSite site, T0 arg0, T1 arg1, T2 arg2) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.DynamicInstruction`4.Run(InterpretedFrame frame) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.Interpreter.Run(InterpretedFrame frame) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.LightLambda.Run5[T0,T1,T2,T3,T4,TRet](T0 arg0, T1 arg1, T2 arg2, T3 arg3, T4 arg4) at IronPython.Compiler.PythonCallTargets.OriginalCallTarget4(PythonFunction function, Object arg0, Object arg1, Object arg2, Object arg3) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.FuncCallInstruction`7.Run(InterpretedFrame frame) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.Interpreter.Run(InterpretedFrame frame) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.LightLambda.Run7[T0,T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,T6,TRet](T0 arg0, T1 arg1, T2 arg2, T3 arg3, T4 arg4, T5 arg5, T6 arg6) at System.Dynamic.UpdateDelegates.UpdateAndExecute6[T0,T1,T2,T3,T4,T5,TRet](CallSite site, T0 arg0, T1 arg1, T2 arg2, T3 arg3, T4 arg4, T5 arg5) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.DynamicInstruction`7.Run(InterpretedFrame frame) at Microsoft.Scripting.Interpreter.Interpreter.Run(InterpretedFrame frame)

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Hrm difficult to say - I don't speak Windows error unfortunately so most of the error appears to be related to the intrepreter and data structure. Try an online repair for windows to make sure Excel has the needed code to access, and also that your data is a list of 2d matrices with no null values.

[@davorotstein3522]

Did you find a way to solve that problem? I also have that result when I run the script

[@davidg939]

@@AussieBIMGuru I have similar error.. Maybe it's about Excel version cause I'm using 2010. What version did you used here? On the other hand, version with exporting just one schedule is working fine after changing data.exportexcel to data.exporttoexcel. I have found solution for me - schedules names were just too long for Excel ;)

[@AussieBIMGuru]

@davidg939 im generally using excel for windows 11 these days, outputting the 7-13 file type. Id suggest dynamo forums is best place to resolve excel bugs as it could be many different causes.