BIMIO Relay

Goal. Load the project's schedules and understand the state of each one.

1. Open the BIMIO tab on the Revit ribbon and, on the Data panel, click Relay.The BIMIO · Relay window opens and starts loading automatically; a progress popup shows Loading schedules and then the schedule-by-schedule status check. You can abort it with Cancel if the project has a huge number of schedules.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-03.pngThe main Relay window just opened with the Loading schedules progress popup in the foreground.

2. Look through the list: each row shows the schedule's name, category, layout and status pill.Supported schedules appear first. Unsupported ones show the reason under their name (for example, material takeoff schedules or those containing elements from linked models) and have their checkbox disabled.
3. Type in the search box to filter by name or category.The filter applies instantly, with nothing else to press.
4. Click Pending sync if you only want to see the schedules that need your attention; switch back to All to see everything.Pending sync keeps the Excel pending, Revit changed, Conflict and File missing states visible. The filter is not saved: every session starts on All.
5. Double-click a row to open that schedule inside Revit.The Relay window minimises to let you see the schedule; restore it from the taskbar when you are done.
6. Click Refresh whenever you create or modify schedules in Revit to re-scan the project.

• Hover over the status pill to see a tooltip with when and where it was last exported.
• The window does not block Revit: you can leave it open while you model.

Goal. Generate an editable .xlsx file for each selected schedule.

1. Check the destination folder on the Export folder chip in the window footer; to change it, click the chip, type or browse to the folder and confirm with Use this folder.By default an FJV.ScheduleSync.Exports folder on the Desktop is used. The choice is saved per project (and as the global default for new projects).
2. Choose the layout for each schedule in the Layout column: Preserve or Itemise.Preserve respects the schedule's grouping (one row can represent several elements); Itemise forces one row per element. Decide before exporting: changing it later forces a re-export.
3. Tick the checkbox of the schedules you want to export.The header checkbox ticks or unticks every row visible under the current filter. You can also highlight several rows with Ctrl or Shift and tick one checkbox: the change propagates to all highlighted rows.
4. Click Export selected.If any selected schedule has unsynced Excel edits (Excel pending or Conflict), Relay warns you that re-exporting would wipe them: Yes, overwrite includes them anyway and Cancel excludes them from the batch and exports only the rest.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-04.pngThe Exporting schedules progress popup showing 2 of 5 and the name of the schedule in progress.

5. When it finishes, review the Export complete dialog and click Open file to open the last file, or OK to close.You can tick Don't show this for the rest of this Revit session to stop seeing this notice for the current session. The exported schedules move to the Up to date state.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-05.pngThe Export complete dialog with the name and path of the generated file and the Open file and OK buttons.

• The footer status also works as a shortcut: after a successful export, clicking the green pill opens the last exported file.
• Saving is atomic: if something fails mid-write, the previous file is not corrupted.

Goal. Modify values in Excel in a way Relay can read and apply later.

1. Open the exported file in Excel and edit the values in the white cells.You can copy and paste, fill series, sort and use the autofilter as normal: the filter includes the hidden key column, so sorting does not knock the rows out of sync.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-06.pngAn Excel file exported by Relay: a title row with the schedule name, tinted headers, grey read-only cells and one cell with the text <varies> in italics.

2. Respect the grey cells: they are read-only and any change in them will be ignored.The third row of the file includes a legend reminding anyone who receives the file without knowing the tool of these rules.
3. Leave the <varies> text as it is unless you want to impose the same value on the whole group of elements in that row.If you replace it with a real value, Relay will ask you for explicit confirmation when syncing, telling you how many elements are affected.
4. In Yes/No columns, choose the value from the cell's dropdown rather than typing it.
5. Do not touch the hidden column A or the hidden sheets (_FJV_Meta and the baseline); do not change the column headers.You can delete whole rows or columns to focus on a subset: Relay reads that as a filter of yours, not as changes to apply.
6. Save the file and close it before returning to Relay.While the file is open in Excel, Relay cannot read or write it and will show you the Close Excel to continue notice.

• The file can travel by email or through the cloud and come back: as long as the hidden sheets and column A remain intact, Relay will accept it.
• If you add an auxiliary column with your own notes, no harm done: columns that do not exist in Revit are ignored.

Goal. Apply what you edited in Excel to the model, with a prior review.

1. In Relay, click Refresh if the schedule does not yet show Excel pending.
2. Click the Excel pending pill on that row, or tick several schedules and click Sync selected to process them one by one.With several rows highlighted (Ctrl/Shift), clicking the pill on one launches the action for every highlighted row that shares the same state.
3. Review the Review changes window: each modified cell shows old value → new value with a checkbox to include or exclude it.If the diff contains problems (for example, contradictory edits of the same type parameter), the Some changes can't be applied notice appears first: those cells are excluded automatically and the rest remains applicable.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-07.pngThe Review changes window with the changes table: cells with ticked checkboxes, a LINKED tag on a type parameter and the Apply 12 changes button at the bottom right.

4. Tick or untick the cells you want to apply and click Apply N changes.The button shows how many changes are selected and is disabled when there are none.
5. If you replaced any <varies>, answer the Overwrite <varies> cells? dialog: review each case and click Yes or Skip, or use Yes to all / Skip all remaining to resolve the whole queue at once.The dialog shows the column, the new value and how many elements each decision affects. Decisions only apply to this sync; the next one asks again.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-08.pngThe Overwrite <varies> cells? dialog showing the notice of how many elements are affected and the Yes, Skip, Yes to all and Skip all remaining buttons.

6. Wait for the changes to finish applying and read the Sync complete dialog; then save the Revit model.All changes are written in a single Revit transaction named BIMIO Relay — Import (a single Ctrl+Z undoes it in full). If Revit rolls the transaction back, nothing is applied and the state tells you so. Relay does not save the model for you.

• If there are partial failures after applying, the schedule stays in Conflict and the footer status offers the log with the details; sync again to retry the remaining cells.
• If the diff turns out to be empty (for example, you only saved the Excel file without changing anything), Relay detects it, does not show you an empty preview and returns the schedule to Up to date.

Goal. Review the changes with good judgement before applying them.

1. Read the summary line: affected cells, edited rows, new rows and deleted rows.
2. Toggle between Show changes (only columns with changes, the default) and Show all columns to see the whole table with context.
3. Use Select all and Select none to start from everything ticked or everything unticked, then fine-tune cell by cell.You can click directly on the cell's text or on its checkbox to toggle it.
4. Watch for the LINKED tag: it marks type-parameter changes propagated from another row of the same type; they toggle on and off as a group.
5. Highlight several rows with click, Ctrl+click or Shift+click; toggling a checkbox within the highlighted group propagates the change to the same column of every highlighted row.
6. Double-click a row to select its elements in Revit and check them in the model.The preview and the panel minimise together and keep their state; when you restore the panel from the taskbar, the preview comes back exactly as it was.
7. Read the row colours: green with a + are rows new in Revit (they will be added to the Excel file on the next re-export) and red struck-through with an × are rows whose element no longer exists in Revit (they will disappear from the Excel file when re-exporting). They are informative: they apply nothing to the model.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-09.pngThe preview with a green row marked with + and a red struck-through row with ×, alongside normal edit rows.

• You can sort by any column by clicking its header and resize columns by dragging their edge.
• Read-only and unmappable cells show a disabled checkbox: they cannot be applied.
• Enter is equivalent to clicking Apply N changes and Esc to Cancel; in Relay's other dialogs, Enter accepts the primary action and Esc cancels.

Goal. Regenerate the Excel file when the model has changed since the last export.

1. Click the Revit changed pill on the row (or include the schedule in a selection and click Sync selected).If you select several schedules in Revit changed, Relay groups the confirmation into a single dialog for the whole batch.
2. In the Overwrite Excel? dialog, click Show changes if you first want to see, in read-only mode, how Revit and the current Excel file differ.This preview is informative: the apply button appears disabled as Read-only preview. With several schedules in the batch, it shows the changes of the first one. Closing it returns you to the confirmation dialog.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-10.pngThe Overwrite Excel? dialog with the list of affected schedules and the Show changes, Cancel and Yes, overwrite buttons.

3. Click Yes, overwrite to re-export and replace the Excel file, or Cancel to leave it as it is.

• If the Excel file also had unsynced edits of yours (Conflict state), sync first from the normal preview so you do not lose them: re-exporting overwrites the whole file.

Goal. Switch between grouped rows and one row per element.

1. In the row's Layout column, click the option you want: Preserve or Itemise.If the schedule has never been exported, the change is saved with no further questions.
2. If the schedule already has an exported Excel file, confirm the Re-export to apply the new layout? dialog by clicking Re-export now, or keep the current layout with Keep current layout.The new layout changes the file's row structure, so it has to be regenerated for Excel and Revit to keep matching.
3. To change several schedules at once, highlight them with Ctrl or Shift and click the layout on one of them: it propagates to all highlighted rows.

• Use Preserve when you want to edit type parameters in bulk: one grouped row pushes the value to every element in the group.
• Use Itemise when you need to edit different values per element (marks, instance comments...).

Goal. Generate a shareable report of the detected changes before applying them.

1. With the Review changes window open, click Export to HTML…
2. Choose the file's name and location in the save dialog and confirm.The suggested name is the schedule name followed by _preview.html.
3. Review the report, which opens automatically in the browser.The HTML reflects the columns visible at that moment (depending on whether you have Show changes or Show all columns active).

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-11.pngThe preview HTML report open in the browser, with the schedule name as the title and the list of changes.

• Export the HTML before applying if you need a record of what was changed and from which values.

Goal. Understand what went wrong and unblock the situation.

1. If the Close Excel to continue dialog appears, close the file in Excel and repeat the operation.Relay detects the file lock both when exporting and when reading the file to sync.
2. If the footer status pill turns red, click it to open the error log.A dialog opens with the details of each error and the Open log folder button to open the logs folder. The log also records notes from successful syncs: skipped blank cells and Revit warnings.

   

   assets/shots/relay/fig-12.pngThe error log dialog with the summary at the top, the list of messages and the Open log folder button.

3. To abort a long operation, click Cancel in the progress popup.Loading, batch exporting and syncing can all be cancelled between one item and the next.

• Logs are stored in the AppData\Roaming\FJV\ScheduleSync\Logs folder, named sync-date-time.log.
• A partial failure hides nothing: unapplied cells stay marked as pending until they are genuinely applied.