Schedules with Excel-like features

[Janelle_B]

Hi, first time posting and not sure if this is the right category or if there is currently an easy solution for this in ArchiCAD. In our office we've been using Excel files to create "dumb" schedules for finishes, code analysis, and plumbing fixture count calculations. Our finishes aren't always connected to surfaces or materials: though we do have a custom tag that could be scheduled with all the finish codes and could modify our workflow to accommodate.  Our plumbing fixture counts include existing buildings on school campuses that we haven't modeled and require some re-formatting / merging of cells to reflect unique campus use situations. Code analysis tables are similar, and are even more divorced from the model.

Excel files have to be saved somewhere, updated, saved to pdf, then pasted on the sheet, so we would prefer to have the schedules inside ArchiCAD. Our other strategy is to create tables in 2D with lines and polylines within ArchiCAD, but this becomes tedious to add cells or rearrange things. Does ArchiCAD have a way to make a dumber spreadsheet (like Excel) or schedule with the cell sizing, merging, and adding functions similar to Excel? Examples of our schedules pasted below. I've explored the Surface Legend object in the native ArchiCAD library, and it does some of what we're looking for, but not all. Any ideas? Thank you!

[Lee Hankins]

Archicad doesn’t have an Excel like scheduling feature but you can save schedule out to Excel for further editing and the data remains ‘attached’ so you can import it back to Archicad and update the model. 

[poco2013]

AFAIK -- Not all data from a schedule(s) ( particularly with the three schedule type format in Archicad and Expressions ) can be exported and imported back into a schedule? This feature mostly affects properties ,particularly custom properties. Of course, one can set up the necessary properties before hand to make "things" work, but is a great PITA. I believe the intent of the OP is to avoid this. And to add user calculations ( avoiding expressions) and allow custom formatting.. This should not be a great problem as there are a number of third party excel add ins for C++ and, i believe, the present schedules are just a add in? In comparison to most other Cad programs, Archicad schedules are  in the "stone age".

[Karl Ottenstein · Accepted solution]

As Lee and Gerry noted, it is an old wish (nearing 20 years) on the Wish List for Schedules to have some Excel-like calculation abilities.  Yet, there is nothing that would format schedules as your plumbing and code schedules - so even if calcs were added, I don't see the possibility of matching your layout/formatting shown.

Typically, in your situation, I'd recommend placing a PDF of your Excel on your layouts... which you would then have to remember to update the PDF every time that you update the Excel.  The Excel itself can contain links to other Excel workbooks/worksheets.  So, as Lee and Gerry note, you can create a schedule in Archicad with the raw data and export that (via Publisher for all of the required schedules) and in Excel, reference those Excel sheets as the source data for your formatted sheets and calcs.  Every time you re-publish the schedules from Archicad, when you open Excel, all of your links will update with the refreshed data.  And finally, save the PDFs.

Note that you don't have to model everything to get a full schedule of existing plumbing fixtures within Archicad, for example.  Just create another story - for example below your lowest story - and place all of the plumbing fixtures for the unmodeled existing structure in a grid or some easily visually countable (to verify) pattern, multiplying them out.  Then, they'll show up in a schedule even though not located in any meaningful location.  If they need rooms associated with them, then just create zones as needed (with no regard to the actual building shape) and place the fixtures in the proper zones.  Etc.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Have a look at this add-on from Contrabim:  https://www.contrabim.com/cxl