Schedule Excel Link

Schedule Excel Link

Links a Revit schedule to an Excel workbook. Export the schedule once, edit the values in Excel, save — and the changes flow back into the schedule on their own. Two-way: Revit can also refresh the workbook whenever the model moves on.

How to use

1. Open your project and launch Schedule Excel Link from BimCode.
2. Click Export a schedule, pick the schedule, choose where to save the workbook. It opens in Excel straight away.
3. Edit the white cells. Grey columns are read-only in Revit (formulas, counts, locked values); pale yellow columns are type values — changing one changes every element of that type.
4. Save the workbook (Ctrl+S). A moment later Revit has the new values — one Undo step per save, named after the schedule.
5. Keep the plugin window open to watch the link, or close it: links stay live for as long as the project is open. Every card shows what happened last ("12 values updated, 1 skipped") and why.

To bring the workbook up to date after the model changed, close it in Excel and click Refresh Excel. Your extra sheets, column widths and formatting are kept; only the values move.

What syncs

• Text, numbers, whole numbers, Yes/No values, and values that are chosen by name — level, phase, material, workset, family and type, view template. Type a name exactly as Revit shows it, or pick it from the dropdown the workbook offers.
• Lengths, areas, volumes, angles and other measured numbers are shown in the unit the schedule uses (the unit is in the column header). You can type a plain number in that unit or add a symbol — 2.5 m and 8' 6" both work.
• Each row is one element. Rows can be sorted, filtered or moved in Excel; the hidden key column keeps them tied to their elements. Rows added in Excel are ignored — the link never creates or deletes elements. Rows deleted in Excel never delete anything in Revit.

What stays read-only

• Values Revit calculates: formulas, percentages, counts, material quantities, room look-ups. They are listed when you export instead of filling the sheet with dead columns.
• Values Revit locks, values chosen from a fixed list this tool cannot offer, and elements borrowed by someone else in a workshared model. Every skipped value is reported with its reason.

Good to know

• Conflicts. If a value changed in Revit and in Excel since the last sync, nothing is overwritten: the card shows the conflict with both values and you decide, per cell or for all at once. You can also set a link to always take the Excel value.
• Excel open or closed. Reading the workbook works while Excel has it open — that is how a save reaches Revit. Writing to it (Refresh Excel) needs the file closed, and the plugin says so rather than guessing.
• Autosave on OneDrive or SharePoint saves after every edit; each save becomes one small sync. Raise the quiet time in the settings if that is too chatty.
• Busy Revit. If Revit is inside a command or an edit mode when a save lands, the change waits and retries for a couple of minutes, then asks you to use Sync now once you are done.
• Moving the file. If the workbook is moved or renamed, the card says so; Locate workbook re-attaches it. A workbook exported on another machine can be attached with Link a workbook — rows line up by Revit's own element keys.
• Read-only cells show a message in Excel when you type into them. Pasting over them still works in Excel; those cells are reported as ignored and left alone in Revit.
• Microsoft Excel does not have to be installed to export or to sync; any program that saves a .xlsx file works.

Troubleshooting

• "Saved in Excel — not synced yet" stays on: automatic sync is off or paused for that link. Use Sync now or switch it back on.
• A value shows as skipped with "Borrowed by …": another user owns the element; synchronize with central and try again.
• The whole workbook was rewritten after Refresh Excel: the header row had been changed. Keep the header cells as exported and the refresh stays in place.