Schedules and Data Base

[Anonymous]

Is there a way to create a Schedule that show values reading from an external file (excel, numbers, dynamics, etc) or data base?

In my case, i´m creating a whole restaurant equipment library and it would be very helpful to create previous budget right from the design linking the objects on Archicad to a constantly changing price list data base

[Karl Ottenstein]

It is possible, but it is technically challenging / time consuming.

It is much easier to accomplish what you want by doing the work in the external database program itself. Publish your schedule data from ArchiCAD and link those CSV/Excel tables into your database... which has much greater capabilities for joining data and presenting it in an attractive way. Save your report from the database program as a PDF and place the PDF on your layout.

The result is half live (or is that half dead?) - just re-publish the schedule data, open your database, re-save your report as PDF with the same name/location... and refresh your layout and the updated schedule appears.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Karl, had this conversation with the Microsoft´s Dynamics crew in my company and worked this out the way you suggested.
Hope to see you again around this incredible tool.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Glad you have things working. It's important to list your version and OS to get the best advice. Now that I know you are using Windows, another option you have there over the platform-independent solution I suggested before is to use the Graphisoft ODBC driver:
http://www.graphisoft.com/support/developer/tools/

This lets a Microsoft Access (e.g.) database link directly to the ArchiCAD PLN file, eliminating the need to publish CSV/Excel files. You can query a variety of information from the PLN and join that to your, pricing, budget, etc tables for reporting. This assures that your database report is always as up-to-date as your model/PLN file.

[Anonymous]

I work in Archicad 17 on OS X 10.8.5 and that is why we decided to export an excel file from the Schedule Tool and let Dynamics do the math with the price list data base and generate a budget from there.
We really don´t need the result on my blue prints or plans, all we need is getting a budget right from drawing.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Got it. You might want to click the text "Profile" link near the top right of the screen ... to the left of "Lout out" to put your specs in your signature, as you can see with min, for future questions.

Having Microsoft Dynamics help out spun me around... just assumed you were on a Microsoft platform if using their services. Anyway, glad you've got what you need. 😉