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Review your import in Excel before matching

Optional, but worth it on any large import. Pulling the list into Excel first shows you what you're working with, catches quantity problems while they're still easy to fix, and helps you judge what genuinely needs to be in the assessment.

This step isn't required. You can match everything directly in eTool and many people do, particularly on small imports.

But on anything substantial — a few hundred rows and up — it's worth pulling the import into Excel first and reviewing it there. It's what our own assessors do, and it does three useful things: it shows you what you're actually working with before you commit to anything, it lets you spot quantity problems while they're still quick to fix, and it builds your judgement about what genuinely needs to be in an LCA and what doesn't.

Excel is also simply better at sorting and filtering several hundred rows than any web interface, and most people are faster in it.

Get the data out

Option A:  Copy directly from the eTool screen

If you've already pushed your model to eTool using the Revit plugin: 

  1. In eTool, open your design and go to the Import tab.
  2. Select your Revit import and click Edit. This opens the matching screen.
  3. Wait for the screen to finish loading. On a large import this can take a couple of minutes, and rushing it causes problems — see Troubleshoot the Revit plugin and import.
  4. Click into the list and press Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+C.
  5. Paste into Excel.

 

Ctrl+A selects every row, not just the rows visible on screen. On a 719-row import you get all 719. You don't need to page through or copy in batches.

The columns you need are Category, Item, Area, Volume, Length, Count, Import Unit and Template. Anything to the right of those can be deleted — it's there for the import process, not for your review.

Option B: Export directly from BIM using Dynamo or Schedules (Semi-automatic)

If you prefer to sanitize and structure your data before uploading to eTool, you can bypass the plugin and export directly from your authoring tool to a CSV/spreadsheet:

  • Dynamo or Grasshopper: Use visual programming scripts in Revit (via Dynamo) or Rhino (via Grasshopper) to extract precise model geometry, parameters, and material quantities into a clean CSV format.
  • Native BIM Schedules: Export material schedules directly from Revit or ArchiCAD into a CSV or Excel file.

Group by category first

Components arrive interleaved rather than grouped, because the categories come across as Revit recorded them. Sorting by the Category column so all the walls sit together, then all the floors, then all the structural columns, makes the list far easier to work through — and gives you something that reads much like a bill of quantities.

Decide what you don't need

You do not have to match everything. This is worth saying plainly, because new users often assume they do and spend hours matching items that will never affect a result.

Two principles do most of the work:

The cut-off criteria. Items contributing under 1% can generally be excluded. Which specific cut-off applies depends on the standard you're assessing against, so check that first.

The Pareto principle. In a concrete building, the concrete and the steel will almost certainly account for around 80% of the impact. Knowing that tells you where to spend your attention, and where not to.

Practical things to look for:

  • High count, trivial item. A few hundred of something that's individually insignificant — stair nosings, door hardware. Ignore them. Many are already inside the relevant eTool template anyway; stair nosings, for example, are typically included in our stair templates.
  • Descriptions that make no sense. Stray lines and modelling artefacts come across like anything else. If you can't identify what an item is and it's clearly minor, ignore it.

If you're new to LCA, this is the step where the judgement gets built. Over a couple of projects you'll start recognising within seconds what can be left out — and, just as importantly, why leaving it out is defensible.

Look for quantity red flags

This is the part that saves the most pain, and it catches a problem that's very hard to spot later.

Check that each item has a quantity in the column that suits it. A concrete element with no volume is a red flag. An item that has only a count, or only a length, when you'd expect an area or volume, is a red flag.

Here's a real example from an import: a row for Landing, 300mm thickness — count of 8, with area, volume and length all showing zero. The thickness is in the name, so the information exists, but no measurable quantity came across.

Left alone and matched to a floor template, that row imports as zero. It won't error. It won't warn you. It will simply contribute nothing, and you'll likely only notice much later, once you're deep into modelling and a result looks wrong.

When you find one, you have three options:

  1. Ignore it — if the element is already covered by another template. Stair landings, for instance, are generally included in eTool's stair templates, so importing them separately would double-count.
  2. Go back to the model and get the real quantity, or make a reasoned estimate, then correct the quantity in eTool after import. If you estimate, record the reasoning in a column of its own. That matters beyond your own notes: if the design goes to certification, a documented assumption lets the reviewer follow your thinking instead of querying a bare number.
  3. Fix it in your spreadsheet now, so the right number is in front of you when you match.

 To mark a row in eTool for follow-up, add a column of your own flagging it for review. 

Check the units line up

Every eTool template has its own unit — m², m³, lm or count. If you match a row to a template whose unit doesn't match the quantity you actually have, eTool takes the value from that unit's column. If that column is zero, the item imports as zero.

This is worth checking deliberately, because a row with a mismatched unit still looks complete. 

Checking it in Excel, where you can see every quantity column side by side, is much faster than discovering it row by row in the matching screen. Where a unit doesn't line up, you have two ways forward:

  • Convert the quantity into the template's unit in your spreadsheet — for example, applying a thickness to turn an area into a volume — and use that corrected figure.
  • Clone the template and change its unit. More effort per template, so it's rarely worth it for a one-off. It becomes worth it if your models consistently deliver quantities in a unit your templates don't use — a common situation for organisations with an in-house BIM team and a repeatable modelling standard.

If the list is mostly duplicates

Reviewing is one thing; aggregating is another. Where an export lists the same material dozens of times — once per area or element rather than once in total — combining those rows before import keeps the finished model easier to work with and speeds up a large import considerably.

That's a different task with its own rules, including which items should stay separate. See Aggregate project data prior to importing into eTool.

Then go and match

Once the list is sorted, filtered and checked, go back to the matching screen and work through it. Your spreadsheet becomes the reference you match against, and the decisions are already made.

See Match imported components to eTool templates.

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