Linking data between AutoCAD and Excel?

[Peac3]

Hello the folks here at the job, they want to have a new AutoCAD tool. They want to be able to open a regular Autocad floor plan and to have a block including: Local, Area, direction, service, fonction etc, for each room of the floor. BUT thy want to be able to change the data of each rooms from a Excel file (All the data in Excel)

The purpose is to facilitate office rearrangements, moving people between offices, they want to use the data in Excel to see for instance how many m² is assigned by direction. They want the information to synchronize easily from Excel to the AutoCAD block.

My job is to update the floor plan if required and obviously, rearrange the data blocks according to the changes, her job is to use the plan to simulate offices swaps. Then the flood plan can be used visually as well, along with the excel data.

My question: Is it possible to create a AutoCAD bloc or some kind of tag linked to Excel and that is possible to easily synchronize from Excel? We are looking for a low cost solution using the tools we already have, AutoCAD full and Excel.

Thanks,

[Ed__Jobe]

You need to do a search for 'facilities management software'. There is already an industry for that purpose. I wouldn't try to reinvent the wheel. 🙂

[pendean]

Like this for free perhaps https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/class/AutoCAD-Developing-Drawing-Facilities-Management-...

Like this for purchase if you want the ease of use
https://fmsystems.com/products/workplace-management-solutions/?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_...
https://www.tabsfm.com/about/

Somewhere in between https://www.capterra.com/sem-compare/facility-management-software/?utm_source=ps-google&utm_medium=p...

HTH

[Peac3]

Thank you for the solutions, I will check out your links right now and study that.

[3wood]

I think ATTOUT and ATTIN in Express Tools is good enough to export and import the block attributes. 

You may need set up some automatic synchronization procedures in both AutoCAD and Excel to speed it up.

In AutoCAD end, you can add a lisp function at the Startup (acad.lsp or acaddoc.lsp) to ATTIN the csv file whenever opening a certain drawing. 

In Excel, I guess you can link the csv file to the work Excel file.

So the csv file become a shared data file between AutoCAD and Excel.

[Michiel.Valcke]

Instead of working with AutoCAD blocks, you could use table's that have a datalink to Excel, and use the drawings with the tables as xrefs in your main drawing. You can link the table to a data-extraction that also holds things as area of an object, fields, etc.

Some information you will be able to update from the excel, other data (like fields with area values) will be visible in the excel but should only follow the properties of the polyline in AutoCAD

It's not a very clean approach and it is an easily corrupted workflow if someone messes up somewhere. But in theory you could do it like that instead of investing in an asset management software.

[Peac3]

Thanks @3wood and @Michiel.Valcke for the additional solutions. 

I'll see later if I need to take some actions on the subject, the idea of using the facility management software was submited first, we have a local company that could do it for us, this must be taken into consideration. 

So, people will think hard and if they don't want to go with softwares or a company doing it for us, I'll look at the AutoCAD solution then, if they want me to do it. 

I am not marking this as "solved" yet. 

Thanks. 

[Peac3]

Hi I tried the Datalink option with the table in AutoCAD and Excel. It's easy to update from Excel and then the table will follow in AutoCAD. Howerver, what i would like is the contrary, such has updating the table in AutoCAD and this would update the excel file, without exporting a excel from autocad, a reversed datalink?

It don't look possible... ? Searching about this right now... 

[pendean]

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@Peac3 wrote:

...It don't look possible... ? Searching about this right now... 

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Do you mean like these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szhJY1zr8Dg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czGFl0AcZDI 

and for troubleshooting 

https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Microsoft-Excel-OL...