Welcome to my latest development called Bumblebee – an Excel and Dynamo interoperability plugin that vastly improves (in my opinion) Dynamo’s ability to read and write Excel files. This development would’t happen without help and previous development from David Mans at NeoArchaic, of which this Bumblebee not only takes its name but a lot of inspiration and code. The plan is that eventually improvements and changes that were implemented here will find its way to Grasshopper’s version of Bumblebee and they will become one. Until then, Dynamo users rejoice!
Of course you can get Bumblebee from Package Manager and unlike my previously developed Mantis Shrimp there is no tricks to getting it installed. It will automatically drop a handful of components to your packages folder in Dynamo directory. For specific instructions on how to use each one of the components and what is possible to achieve with each one of them you can refer to Bumblebee Primer: BB Primer
To download BumbleBee from Package Manager just search for it by name:
Here’s an example of Bumblebee in action:
Most basic functionality that Bumblebee (BB) will support is reading Excel files. It allows for reading either an entire document or a specific range from it. Ranges can be created in a variety of ways where you can choose an origin and extents or only either origin or extent. Each way has its unique advantages for users and in general offers a lot more flexibility than OOTB Dynamo Read Excel node. You can even read more than one Worksheet at the time. Awesome!
Besides extended reading abilities, BB was also well educated in writing. It can write data to single sheet but also to multiple sheets as well as to single sheet but starting from multiple origin points. What was previously not possible – leaving blank rows while writing data – is now very much possible.
You can use this plugin for your online pharmacy as well as for the accounting and sale of medicines right on your site.
All of this enhanced writing abilities comes from the idea that you can send “pockets” of data to excel and define an individual origin or even a sheet name for each. All this is done using a new class called BB Data so you can do stuff like this and write multiple sheets at once. Double awesome!
Also, BB now supports an array of conditional formatting styles. For those of you that use Excel extensively you know that you can really quickly use formatting styles to highlight certain aspects of your data sets. Now you can set formatting rules right from Dynamo and do some amazing things – highlight missing information or incorrectly provided information.
Now, that is pretty cool if you ask me. Finally a tool that I can use to visually verify my data and keep my Excel loving PA’s happy.
Also, I am super happy with something that a friend of mine – Adam Sheather – has developed as courtesy to me. I asked him if it was possible to improve the currently available color selection in Dynamo and he has responded with the coolest (1990s Excel style) Color Picker. Now packaged under UI++ will come super handy for Bumblebee users and many others – especially now that Dynamo supports color preview. Thanks Adam!
Of course this is not the end of Bumblebee, this is only the beginning. I am releasing it now to public so that more of you can get your hands on it, and break it. Yes, I hope that you break it, only so I can improve it. It’s an open source project with all source code available on GitHub: BB GitHub, so I am hoping that all of you can contribute as well. Please feel free to post comments and issues to GitHub as it makes it easy to track development and tasks.
Also, Bumblebee Primer is an Open Source project with all of the files on GitHub. Same rules apply here. Please feel free to post comments there or develop new functionality.
Right away I can say that my next development will be adding Charts to Bumblebee, but before I get there i will probably be working on material for my ACADIA workshop. :-) I will provide more details about that as everything crystallizes.
This is great! It will be especially helpful for a project that I am working on where I am trying to create a whole bunch of search sets using excel sheets as the input. Next step: trying to figure out how to make my custom “create search set” node.
Chris,
What is it that you want to search for? There is a node in Bumblebee called Search Value Get Row that will search for a first matching value and will extract an entire row that this value was found in. This might be handy in the context that you are describing.
Good luck!
Sorry, should have been more clear. I need a node to create a search set in Navisworks.
Well, you posted that question under Bumblebee write up so I assumed that you were asking about Excel. When it comes to Navisworks, I have no idea. I am sorry. This is Adam Sheather question. He’s the expert.
Try using BIM Cave Auto search. It’s a free add on for Navisworks.
Really awesome !
Thanks Konrad
Hi Konrad
Thanks for sharing your awesome work!
I was just testing it out, but i cant seem to get the write excel to work!
i’m following your example, and then trying to feed the BB Data’s data inpunt with a list of room areas.
When i run it with my excel file open i get an error (see attached) but when i close the excel and then run the dyn. it goes through, but it erases all the excisting data in the worksheet.
Cant figure out where i’m goinig wrong, hope you can help!
Attachment: BB-Write-to-Excel.png
I replied to you via email. Just to make sure that everyone else gets the response I am posting it here. I removed the “clear content” functionality when overriding already existing excel files. I assumed that you would want to clear all before writing a new set of data. Instead i will be publishing a new node for that.
The issue of having to close excel to write. Yes, that is the case at the moment. I will be publishing a new node that will allow you to override live/open files.
Good luck!
Ps. Download latest Bumblebee from Package Manager to see this change. Thank you,
I want you to teach dynamo with video :)
anything else I can do for you? maybe donuts and coffee in a morning? :-) oh, man. I used to make videos but they take too long. now someone would have to pay me to make me make a video. LOL
shame on me, I haven’t even tried the package, but just read your post and want to know if you can read / write a key schedule?
Bumblebee is for reading and writing Excel files. Key Schedules are a totally different animal.you can do that with other nodes in archi-lab package. not bumblebee though
Hi Konrad,
Firstly, I’d like to say a massive thank you and give a “high five” for your work to date. It has saved me, and countless others massive amounts of time, while making Revit even more practical and enjoyable.
Secondly, I’m using your Bumblebee nodes. They work great, however I’m wondering if it’s possible to read and write to / from excel at the same time without causing a circular reference / loop.
Example:
I change the “Width” parameter in Revit. Using the Bumblebee Live Write Excel node, the “Width” updates in Excel. I then change the “Width” value in Excel. Revit updates the “Width” parameter using the Bumblebee Read Excel node.
I’m not sure if this is possible but it would make my current much more practical and streamlined. I plan on running it in automatic mode.
Thanks again,
Andy.
It sure is possible. I will try and have a look at that this week. Stay tuned.
Sounds great Konrad!
Thanks,
Andy.
Did you get that process to work? I have the exact same hopes and dreams as Andy.
Thanks
I can’t get the BB node to work with a newly specified sheet name. It works if I choose an existing sheet name or default sheet name (Sheet1) but not if I specify something else. Great tool but i could use some help with this.
Thanks
Care for an image with the set-up / error? I will try to help you but i will need a little more info. This seems to be working fine on my machine.
It’s a big definition so I captured some of the relevant space. When I try to use the BB Data node and specify an new (does not exist) sheet name the definition fails to run. I get the error at the write node that says “something went wrong”
When I specify sheets that already exist in the xlsx it works. I’d like to generate the names new and not have to rely on there being an existing xlsx with sheets.
ALSO, since I have you, is it possible to write to two write nodes, one specifying by column, one not by column, but both referencing (using) the same xlsx doc? It was working but now it seems to be a little broken.
Thanks for your help. Great Package!
Attachment: ModelQueryNew.png
Please update Bumblebee to latest from Package Manager. It has been updated recently with new functionality. This might have been fixed.
You probably don’t want to write to the same document at the same time from two different sources. Just like with regular Windows UI it would tell you that a document is already open and will offer the “read only” method. I can suggest that you put a time delay on your components so that one doesn’t start until the other one already finished. You can probably use Function.Compose for that.
Good luck!
Hi Konrad,
First off I think this package is amazing and am continuously impressed by your work!!
This is probably a silly question but I can’t find an answer anywhere. What I want to do is apply a Graphic Style, specifically a text style but my excel document wont update with it. I tried combining the function with the BB Data node but that created an error. See attached.
What do you connect the Graphic Style node too? All reference images crop that bit off :)
Matt,
Check this out.
Attachment: Capture4.png
Also,
You can see that I disconnected filePath from FormatExcel node. It’s because if you don’t supply a path it will format a open document. This works in “live mode” this way. Of course you can close Excel and give it a filePath to format it that way. Good luck!
Konrad,
I’m currently using the most up to date version of your excellent bumblebee package (2015.10.12).
What I am trying to do is write 8 different lists to a single excel sheet.
If I collect all of the lists into one large list using List.Create and pass that master list through BB Data, everything works fine.
But If I try to pass each sublist through their own BB Data node first, and then do a List.Create, I can an error.
In some of your examples I’ve seen the data being written to excel handled both ways. So I’m just curious as to what I am doing wrong.
Attachment: 2015-10-16-08_00_58-Dynamo.png
Something like this?
Attachment: Capture5.png
Konrad,
Yes that is exactly what my graph looks like… just more complicated. And I repeatedly get the error message as an output.
I’ve attached the file for your review (if you have time!).
Thanks
Attachment: Extract-Arch-Drawing-List-Upload.zip
Update:
it appears to work just fine if the excel file is already created.
But using the setup without the file already in the specified location it fails every time.
Interestingly, if you create a list of the data and then pass it through the BB Data node it will create the excel file just fine.
Can not get my “Search Value Get Row” node to work. See attached image. Working on:
Dynamo 0.9.0.3067
Bumblebee 15.11.10
Did I do something wrong?
Attachment: Capture.jpg
Joe,
You are doing couple of things wrong. First I think I mentioned in the Bumblebee Primer not to use the Get Worksheet Name and Read Excel nodes together like that. They are both trying to access the same session of Excel and will cause errors. Also, I think that SearchFor input accepts a list of strings, instead of a single one. I might be wrong about that.
Thanks for the help. I’m still getting a “null” value after removing the “get worksheet name” and creating a list of strings. See attached image. Any other ideas? I’v check spelling and caps.
Thanks
Joe
Attachment: Capture2.jpg
Can you share that Excel file? Also, learning how to debug properly will help you greatly in the future. All you have to do, to see what the error message is: Double click on the node, copy/paste the Python node inside of it back onto the canvas. Now you can wire up the Python node, just like you would the custom node, but it should return the error message. This might prove invaluable when working with Dynamo.
Error:
“Warning: IronPythonEvaluator.EvaluateIronPythonScript operation failed.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 24, in
ImportError: No module named bumblebee”
File was to big to attached. Ill see about this in the morning.
So nice of you to help. Thanks again.
Joe,
Are you on Dynamo 0.9? I haven’t updated Bumblebee to 0.9 yet, so naturally it’s looking for a file that might not exist (or exists in a different location). The way to fix that is to go inside that Python node and change this line from 0.8 to 0.9.
Attachment: Capture-1.png
That did the trick! Thanks!
Hey
I am trying to export Schedules to Excel. I want to export the schedules i have already created in the Revit project out to Excel and cant seem to get it to work. Any ideas?
Yeah you can go to File>Export>Reports in Revit. No Dynamo needed.
Konrad
Yeah, i was wondering if i could use Dynamo to do this. Doing it the manual way is very tedious when i have a lot of schedules in the project. I was hoping to be able to automate the process without the use of other addons.
Has anybody found a way that I can insert an Excel schedule directly in Revit. I do not want this schedule to be linked to any Revit elements. Any comments are greatly appreciated.
Yeah there is a way. You can use a tool called Sticky by Imaginit. If you don’t want to spend money on it, you can code it up yourself. I will tell you that it takes some fancy cell splitting in a key schedule. :-) good luck!
there is also schedule XL that is part of the CTC BIM Project suite, revit express tools. less pricey as you get many other useful tools. Coding is free, and time consuming, but so challenging
Hi, I am trying to write a number of lists to excel using your bumblebee write excel nodes. The live write node works perfectly as expected but using the write excel with file path node always return “null”. The file path link links to an existing file and I have tried running with and without the excel open first. Do you have any suggestions why it may not be working?
Dynamo version: 0.9.2.4472
Bumblebee version: 2016.3.29
Thanks in advance.
Attachment: Capture-1.jpg
please download the latest Bumblebee package from the Package manager. I apologize for it but I had a small typo in my code last time I posted an update to Bumblebee and that’s whats causing this error.
great, problem solved, thanks!
Hello Konrad,
Have you experienced a situation where you upload bumblebee and the live.write.excel node is not within the package? I’ve managed to download the complete package on my desktop computer, but when trying to install in a laptop the node is missing. Both – desktop + laptop – have the same versions of revit [2015] and excel [2010].
Thanks.
Well, for some reason the live write excel.dyf was not transferring during the download on my laptop. I fixed the problem by transferring the dyf file from my desktop to my laptop. Now, the node is in the dynamo package on my laptop.
Great work, by the way….
Kelly,
I think that I have discontinued this node in the latest build of Bumblebee. Right now, you can “live read” an Excel file using the regular Read Excel node if you don’t provide filePath input. It will automatically check for an open session of Excel if there is no FilePath input provided.
Cheers!
I tried installing BumbleBee this week for Dynamo build 1.0.0.1180 and the DLL is not included. Thru a thread I found on dynamobim.com other users said they had to install a 6/15 build to get it to install so I followed suite. This was the only package that would work on gethub!
After messing around some, and playing with my new BB nodes, they’re simply not passing data. Output of anything with a BB is Null even when just pushing strings. (I have your exact screenshots from this site shown, my data tabs all say “Null”.
I cycled all of the Booleans between true and false, nothing matters, nothing different regardless of the “RunIt” node or “by column” and the result doesn’t change at all.
Don’t mind the mess of the included screenshot, lots of Dynamo going on around the test nodes for BB. All nodes, including Dynamo build # is shown in the capture.
update to dynamo 1.0 coming out soon. please use 9.2 for now
With Dynamo 1.0, you can’t install any of the versions of Bumblebee made this year! I had to install the oldest package still available (6/15) to get the nodes available.
All off the BB nodes are not passing data, Null output even building the simple test you show in your explanations.
I attached a screenshot (Don’t mind the mess around the BB test, I’m hoping BB can offer a solution to my “Write to Excel” that can either write a table, or at least preserve a table and write to the cell value. Current Dynamo node to Write to Excel with Overwrite values on physically deletes the page, and any formatting, or hidden formulae in the cells.
Latest build of Dynamo (1.0.0.1180) will not install the latest version of BumbleBee. Thru tips on dynamobim.com people are using the 6/15 build as the only functioning build!
Well with 6/15 installed, none of the Bumblebee nodes work. Even with the test example you show above, the outputs of all the BB nodes are null.
(I’ve tried uploading an attachment of the screenshot attached, but the website has errored/failed on my post 3 times now with an attachment. I can email you more info if you’re interested, but there’s no link to email you, or the webmaster I could find either.
Jason, please relax. I will update that package and fix all of the issues when I am back from my travels overseas.
Hi Konrad,
Big fan of your work. I know you can generate new excel sheets within a single excel book, but I was wondering if your package has the capability to create an entirely new excel book?
I would like create a new excel file each time I run, but not overwrite old data, and would like to build this step into Dynamo if possible. My hesitation with creating a new sheet in the same excel file is that the excel file will quickly get very large.
Thank you in advance!
Have a look at the node called “New File By Template”. It’s not doing exactly what you need, but I think you can make small changes to it and get it to work. Good luck!
Thank you, Konrad.
I am running into the attached error on this block.
Also, the block is writing a unique file for each letter of the file name, rather than one single file with the full name.
Not seeing what I am doing wrong.
Attachment: IndexError.png
Never mind, I realized it was looking for a list not a string.
While trying to write something into an excel the “write excel” node gives back that “os is not defined” (line 138). I tryed several versions of bumblebee now, getting back the same erorr again and again.
Dynamo: 1.1.0.2094
Bumblebee: 2017.11.2
Win10
May you please help me to fix it?
Thanks!
Would also like to know the solution for this.
Dynamo: 1.2.1.3083
Bumblebee: 2017.12.1
Windows 7
Excel 2013
Latest build for Dynamo 1.2 does work with excel 2007 which I have on my laptop but works fine when I’m in the office. In fact they don’t work using read excel ( from the office node) either. 1.2 seems to not talk to that version of excel.
I haven’t had a chance to develop for Excel 2007. Last and only version of Excel supported is 2014.
Hi! I’m looking for a way to populate a table or matrix of data being pulled from Revit to Excel. I’m trying to achieve a table with the number of condo suites of each type (columns) x floor level (rows) table. The suite types include Studio, 1 BD, 2 BD etc.
When I try to achieve this through Dynamo, if my Revit model has no 2BDs on Level 2, there is no field created to generate a “0”. What is worse is that as the project progresses, if the number of 2BD suites on a level changes from 1 2BD to 0 2BD the lengths of my lists change and all my mapping from Revit to Excel gets completely scrambled. Is there anything in BB that could help deal with data gaps or conversely match one specific data field to the right spot in the matrix?
Any advice would be very appreciated!
Hi Konrad,
Great work, thanks a lot, just one thing… I can’t see the Condition Value Type node? Has it been depreciated?
Cheers,
Mark
Have you seen this: https://konradsobon.gitbooks.io/bumblebee-primer/content/320_cell_value_formatting.html I think they should be under Types. I might have renamed it at some point.
Hi, yes, the graph I was looking at is here:
https://konradsobon.gitbooks.io/bumblebee-primer/content/340_2_color_formatting.html
I’ve had a look through the types but can’t see it (see attached jpg)
Cheers,
Mark
Attachment: Types.jpg
loving the Bumblebee nodes and they are working great but I am seeing the excel services are not closing in the background after close and in instances of opening similar files its using the temp info instead of reading the file.
Adam,
Thanks for reporting. It’s been a while since I looked at Bumblebee, but perhaps its time to make an upgrade. :-)
Is it possible to change only particular cells in excel and than save it with new name. I was trying to use “New File By Template” however I cannot make it work.
I have one excel file from which i want to take data and use it to fill few cells in spreadsheets for structural design to calsulate columns ( i got 50 of them)
Attachment: 2017-10-03-16_17_52-TCC13-Slab-Punching.xlsm-Excel.png
Hey Konrad, thanks so much for the great tool. Getting into using it with Revit 2018 and Dynamo v 1.3.1.1736 and am getting the following error, see attached image. I’m not familiar with attempting to debug the python code but was hoping you could help clarify. The goal right now is to simply extract data from Revit Elements of a single category and write the parameters as the column headings and the values in the rows below. Nothing too crazy when creating my lists supplying the BBData input. Let me know if there is an easy fix. Cheers!
-T
Attachment: 17-1025-Unable-to-Write-to-Excel.png
Hey Konrad, this package is amazing so far.
As you can see in the attached image i’m using your nodes in our custom company Dynamo scripts to automatically log the usage of our Tools.
This log is going to be a template to log all our tools.
There is one function that i’m missing in the functionality and would love to see:
– A toggle in the Write Excel node to add the new data as a “new row”. (manually in Excell right click –> insert row
Hopefully this is achievable. Thank you for all your work so far!
Cheers~
Attachment: Example.png
This is a great package, very useful!
I have two short questions:
– I’m trying to write an excel file and format it at the same time. However, my script only works when I execute it twice (or point it to an excel file that already exists). Any ideas on how to fix this?
– I would like to slip in some python code to autofit the column widths in excel. The Microsoft.Office.Interop has a function worksheet.Columns.AutoFit() that should help with this, but I have no idea how to integrate that into the graph. Would it be best to edit the python code of the format code or better to make a new node?
I have included my graph in a .rar file (to get around the upload attachment limitations) but that didn’t work. I can’t include links to dropbox either (spam alert). What’s the best way to share graphs in the comments? Screenshots won’t really work because the graph is too big.
I would log the issues and feature requests here: https://github.com/ksobon/Bumblebee It should allow you to upload files as well.
Hi Konrad,
Thanks for an awesome package! :)
I had a question about the pie chart function of Bumblebee. I understand the default multiple colours for the data are randomised – is it possible to dictate what colours you want to use from a given colour palette. I am using Bumblebee to create a set of pie charts for work and need to keep to corporate colours.
Any help/advice would be very much appreciated! Many thanks in advance!
It’s been a while since I looked into this so I am not sure. If there is a way I probably described it here: https://konradsobon.gitbooks.io/bumblebee-primer/content/410_pie_chart.html
Hi there!
Do you recommend this tool to working on a set of Revit Sheets?
I am looking for a proper solution how to import a big amount of data (let’s assume a hundreds of Sheets) from Revit to Excel. Update data in Excel and upload it again to Revit. To have a control on the whole data.
Have you tried using Bumblebee in similar issue?
Thanks in advance!
I would probably say that Dynamo is not the best solution for dealing with large amounts of data coming from Excel. It’s certainly possible and there are tools like Bumblebee that will handle it for you, but at the same time you should perhaps consider commercial solutions as well.
Cheers!
Hi
I am Using Revit 2018.3 and My Dynamo version is 1.3.2.2480.
Can you please tell me what is the latest version and link for Bumblebee.
I want to highlight some Excel cells with some conditions but failing with the nodes.
Attachment: Highlight-Excel-Cells.png
I think that Bumblebee’s last version was 1.2. I will log your issue here: https://github.com/ksobon/Bumblebee/issues/36
It appears that Bumblee’s “Write Excel” node does not work with a list input to the “BB Data” input parameter “origin”. This is also after adding the “import os” instruction to both the “Write Excel” and “Read Excel” nodes. I’d think that would have been updated since it was discovered over 3 years ago.
“Write Excel” spits out the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 165, in
File “\Packages\BumbleBee\extra\bumblebee.py”, line 643, in Origin
return CellIndex(self.origin)
File “\Packages\BumbleBee\extra\bumblebee.py”, line 55, in CellIndex
match = re.match(r”([a-z]+)([0-9]+)”, cellAddress, re.I)
TypeError: expected string for parameter ‘string’ but got ‘list’
I’m running Dynamo 2.0.2 and Revit versions 2017-2019.
Can you post a link to a sample file that I can open, and re-create this issue?
Thanks for your hard work.
I am interested in Excel use with Dynamo standalone, and came across with your package.
There would have been a few changes since you first developed. Is there much possiblity in Excel-Dynamo process, without Revit?
Cheers
It should work with the Sandbox. Do you get any errors?
Hi Konrad,
it seems that the output of the “Read Exel” is only raw data.
is there a possibility, when reading an Excel file to get the formatting of the cells?
I would like to get the color of a cell background to create filters schemes in revit
It’s possible to get that data, however, Bumblebee doesn’t support that output at the moment. I can’t make promises as to whether it will in the future.
Hi Konrad,
How can I read formatted text (some is bold & underlined and some isn’t) from an Excel file with Dynamo to place a text note into a Revit Drafting View? I’m able to get the text note into the Drafting View, but it loses formatting.
I’ve attached my files for you to test. Thank you in advance for any help you may give!
Levi
Attachment: Excel2Revit_Sheet_List.zip
That functionality is not supported by Bumblebee. All text is read without formatting when reading from Excel files. Sorry.
Thanks for letting me know. I’ll just have to figure out a different approach.
I’ve posted a responses to an issue posted back in ’18 found here: https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/cannot-clear-excel-contents-with-bumblebee-node/17813/2
The issue I was having that led me to this post was an apparent error with the “Clear Content” node. It would post “Success!” without having completed the clear operation on the specified sheets if a filepath was specified, only if there was a live file it could attach to. I did some digging and testing with the python node itself and finally determined the root cause: Lines 18 and 105. I would have contacted you about what the issue seemed to be, but since I didn’t find anything when searching online, I decided to spend some time looking inward at what I was feeding it through my script, which in turn meant I had to peak at the code to see what it was expecting, and finally found the solution.
Line 105 refers to the ‘os’ namespace, but the only place that namespace is used in an import is line 18: ‘from os import path’. So line 105 doesn’t actually know what ‘os’ is, only ‘path’ from ‘os’. I would suggest updating both lines 18 and 105 to the following:
18: ‘from os import path as ospath’
105: ‘ospath.isfile(str(filePath)):’
That’s my preferred way, but there’s obviously any number of ways to resolve that.
After I made that change, the node worked properly for me. I would also suggest adding in a ‘message’ variable override in the ‘except’ clause, so that if another issue occurs in the ‘try’ clause, users like myself won’t be as confused as to why/where the node isn’t working as intended.
Now that the “Clear Contents” node is working for me, this plugin is exactly what I needed and is an extreme help in avoiding the larger runtime overhead of the OOTB Data.ExportExcel node. Thanks for the all the hard work in putting this together!
Wow! Thank you for sharing. This is amazing. I will try and incorporate these changes into Bumblebee as soon as I can. Thank you again!
Hi Konrad. this problem is still present in the Bumblebee package. I tried to rewrite it as user Paul wrote but it doesn’t work.
New version has just been published with this fix: 2021.25.1
Hello Konrad,
Big fan of you work, the Bumblebee nodes have been particularly helpful and Archi-lab is just a necessity in my dynamo scripts. I’m creating a script that pulls information from the Revit project as well as some user input via data shapes to create a transmittal that matches the format of what we use in other programs. I am able to copy the template file I created (using FileSystem.CopyFile), and then rename it (using Rename Files from Archi-lab I believe) and then pulling it all together into the Bumblebee Write Excel node.
My issue is that the excel file is unable to be opened, saying the file is corrupted or the extension is wrong, however, in Dynamo I don’t receive any errors.
I’ve attached a screenshot, maybe you could help me diagnose what is going wrong. I’m not sure how to troubleshoot when the problem doesn’t take place in dynamo!
Attachment: transmittal-copy-file.png
Tyler, I am not sure I can help just by looking at the screenshot of the code that Bumblebee node contains. Please post a link to a Revit model, Dynamo Script, Template Excel file that you are attempting to create and anything else that I would need to be able to re-create the issue. In order for me to help, I would really need to re-create it first, only then I can understand what’s going on.
This issue was on me – copying a template file and changing the extension to xlsx.
In regards to your write excel node, I’m not sure if this is the design but I was able to create a workaround. When I would try to write over an excel document which was pre-formatted, the data wouldn’t appear, however I was able to set formulas referencing cells in another sheet and writing to the blank sheet. This solved the issue but again, I’m not sure if it was the intended design.
Currently my transmittal script works perfectly, and I’m trying to expand it to also create a Document Register from a separate excel sheet. However, to keep everything running smoothly with the addition of a new sheet several issues in, I need to be able to read the document, adjust the data to suit, and then write over the data.
To better explain, say the register has the sheets 1000, 1001, 1005, 1010 each with various issues to them. If I issue the drawings but now have a drawing 1006, I need to add it to the list in numerical order and ensure the previously issued revisions remain attached to 1010 which will need to be moved.
I there an issue with this plan in regards to reading the excel sheet and then writing the same excel sheet? I was unable to acheive the results with a simple passthrough function. I receive an error from excel or a null list. I fear this may be against the function of Dynamo’s processes. Is my fear correct?
Alternatively, what I’m working on now, is separating the sheets to different workbooks so that the register file references cell data in a separate workbook file which I can then write to. So I read the data, amend it, and then write it to a different workbook. My question then is, because the cells reference another workbook, will the read excel node return the formula in the cell or the contents of the cell? (please be contents, please be contents)
I hope you can shed some light this!
Hello Konrad,
I’ve solved the excel file issue from my previous post – I was changing the template extension which excel didn’t like.
But to recap with my new issue:
Big fan of you work, the Bumblebee nodes have been particularly helpful and Archi-lab is just a necessity in my dynamo scripts. I’m creating a script that pulls information from the Revit project as well as some user input via data shapes to create a transmittal that matches the format of what we use in other programs. I am able to copy the template file I created (using FileSystem.CopyFile), and then rename it (using Rename Files from Archi-lab I believe) and then pulling it all together into the Bumblebee Write Excel node.
However, the write excel node from your Bumblebee package does not write to the file I’ve copied over. I get the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 171, in
File “”, line 112, in WorksheetExists
Error: ‘NoneType’ object has no attribute ‘Sheets’.
Attachment: transmittal-excel-code.png
Back again. I have an issue with the Write Excel node now. For smaller data sets, it runs and completes instantly with no issues, but when operating on either my door or wall data sets, it doesn’t seems to ever finish. After leaving it alone for more than an hour and returning, it still seems to be churning (no spinning wheel cursor, but neither Dynamo nor Revit are responsive to clicks), and the only thing that will break its running status is attempting to open the excel file it’s writing to. This causes the file to immediately close upon opening, and kicks the Write Excel node into an error state for being unable to write to a read-only file. Funny thing is, this is happening even when I only have one Data node (so only one sheet) with both rows and columns worth of data, but the excel sheet will update it’s last saved date-time stamp in the file explorer, indicating that it has been saved after a completed export even though opening the file causes the node to enter the above error state.
All data sets are at least two rows and contain multiple columns, so I highly doubt it’s an issue of one data set using a different method/if statement in your node. When using a similar method of writing to excel (in VB for another software), I’ve been able to handle much larger data sets in times periods more similar to my smaller data sets in Dynamo, so I know this should work the way it’s written, but I can’t figure it out.
Do you have any ideas/suggestions/solutions for why this might be or how to fix this issue? I’d much rather use this node set to avoid long runtimes for the Dynamo script, but at this time it’s looking like I’ll have to resort to the OOTB Excel.Write node for the actual exporting of data.
Hey Paul, can you post a link to a sample Revit model/Dynamo definition and anything that I might need to re-create this issue. I would love to help, but I cannot really do much until I can re-create the issue first. Thanks!
Funnily enough, I’ve had difficulty replicating the issue once I began reintegrating your Write nodes into my script to replace the OOTB nodes. The only major change I can identify that might cause that is removing the summary tabs I had in the file, which contained a heavy amount of formulas. I’m thinking that, even if I had excel set to only manually refresh the formulas, opening the file with any external script (like your nodes) ignored that setting, drastically increasing the run time, and potentially throwing the script into an unresponsive state.
Moral of the story, at least from what I can tell: exports through a Dynamo Script should only go to a file as raw output, maybe with some formatting setup. Any summary or use of formulas should be done after the fact or better yet in a completely separate file.
Hello Konrad,
I’m getting room data from revit on to excel and back simultaneously (with data stream await on the file path).
It works perfectly from excel to Revit every time. But when I try modify a parameter in a room in Revit (with the excel file opened) it doesn’t allow me to do it and it doesn’t write it to excel until I close the file.
The error comes because the file becomes read only once it’s read. Is this possible?
Is there any way around it?
thank you very much for your awesome work!
axel
Attachment: 2020-01-14_11h49_48.png
Can you try not to Read/Write to it at the same time? Try to set the Boolean toggle for the RunIt input so that when it’s True for Read, it’s false for Write so that it’s not doing the action at the same time.
Hi Konrad , we were trying to use your package in a dynamo Masterclaas in Bogota Colombia, but the latest version has a bug in the node Excel Format, its a typo format error in the BB style input.
Thanks for all your help
Attachment: Capturabumblebbe.png
Thanks for reporting. It was fixed in version 2021.25.2
I am a cost engineer, I deal with cost control and bill of quantities. I always export schedules from revit to excel. If I export a wall schedule with Type Mark, Type, Description, Area … and for example I have a table with 10 different walls … If the model has been updated and the walls become … in the second export I will have 8 walls, plus the 2 walls of the first export which are not overwritten with the Write Excel node. I can remedy this by adding a colored row or a row of null values to the end of the list. A reference to understand what the new and old data are … Then manually deleting the old data. But it is still a manual operation and not very elegant. Can you solve this problem?
I thought about using the clear contents node and the write excel node in sequence, but I don’t know if it can be done.
P.S. thanks Konrad for updating the clear contents node.
Hi Konrad!
Great work you’ve done with this package. I’m encountering a problem with a script that uses the read node to get value and then the write node to fill the excel file. Is there an issu combining those to node as the write node needs to have Excel closed. I have errors occuring but for some reason it did work once…
Thank you anyway. Please keep it going on
Yeah, you have to be careful to make sure you don’t try to access the file from two sources at the same time. make sure you read it, let the node close the file and release it, then write to it.
Thanks for your reply. I don’t really know how to have the write node launch only after the read node has closed the file but I just figured adding a copied version of the file in my workflow works fine. If you have a solution to do it from a single file, I’m all ears.
Also I keep getting prompt windows asking to rename an excel temp file I guess. Is that occurring for everyone?
Again thanks for this great package
There is a node in archi-lab.net called Lists.BooleanGate. You can use that to make sure that the process of writing into the file doesn’t start until after the read process is complete. Please see the image for example.
Attachment: readWriteExcel_2020-07-19_10-11-31.png
Hi Konrad!
Great package. It has helped me tremendously.
However, I found the function of Read Excel a bit hard to use when the node ask for the full sheet name. I my case, I have about 50 schedules that needed to be checked with an Excel file. So, my Excel file would have 50 sheet correspond to all the schedules. However, Excel limits the character of sheet name, while schedules often have long name. And the node will not work unless the input string match exactly the sheet name in Excel. This lead to a bunch of string.replace before feeding the schedule name into the node. This task is painstaking, and often result in error if 1-2 characters is misspell.
So if the node has function for the sheet name to contain or start with certain strings, it would make much more sense to users like myself.
Thank you for the work!!!!
Hi Konrad.
List of 3 levels.
Why these errors?
Attachment: Cattura.png
Hi Konrad,
I am having trouble taking data from a ‘ParameterByName’ across to excel (tying to get ‘Space Type’ Data Across for HVAC calculation). The info is pulled across in the list prior to the BB Data node.
It seems to work when i use direct with Revit and the gragh works without this parameter and just ‘Get.ParameterValueByName’.
Probably doing something stupid. Thanks in advance for your help
Attachment: Template.png
Try opening the Excel file, and then disconnect the path node.
Hi! I am facing a weird problem while working with BumbleBee package. It looks like a bug, but maybe I’m doing something wrong. It is very easy to reproduce this:
1. Place the “Read Excel” node. (filePath: read below, runlt: True, sheetName, “Sheet1″, byColumn: True/False, origin:”A1”)
2. You can create any number of tabs in the Excel table, but in one of the tabs in the first column (“A1” in this particular case) there should be only one value (“1.1″ in this particular case)
3. Run the script and you will receive an error:
”
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 129, in
File “”, line 45, in ReadData
AttributeError: ‘str’ object has no attribute ‘GetUpperBound’
”
I tried this on different versions of the package (2020.2.1, 2021.25.3)
Attachment: screen.jpg
You are going have to provide me a reproducible example. Sample file is best. Also, please post it here: https://github.com/ksobon/Bumblebee/issues so I can keep track of it.
Hi… Konrad,
Thank you for this great work.
Do you have a version that work with Python3 ?
I haven’t transitioned this to Python3 yet. I was hoping that Dynamo team would write some nice translators or updaters so that we don’t have to do this manually.
Hi Konrad. Is there a node to create an excel table?