To import your data into One Click LCA you should have the following:
- One Click LCA user account
- An existing project linked to the user account with a valid One Click LCA license that enables automated import (Starter Plus, Business or Expert)
- Checked the guidance and set up your preferred automated import option
Choose your import method
Import via BIM modelling software
Once you have downloaded your prefered software plug-in, open your model in your modelling tool software and find the One Click LCA button
Import with Excel or gbXML file
Click 'Import Excel or gbXML files'. Templates for Excel import can be found at the bottom of the Import from Excel guidance.
Set the import target and your import settings
'Choose the project or entity' and 'Choose or create a design' - Choose in which project and design the data should be imported. If you do not wish to overwrite any of your existing designs material data, you can choose 'New design'.
'Choose the tool' - Select the calculation tool. This will define which environmental data can be linked to your building materials. Different calculation tools have different requirements for the environmental data that can be used for the LCA calculations. Make sure to select the correct tool, in such way you ensure that in the material mapping to environmental profiles (step 6) will be done according to your certification rules.
'Filtering settings' - The setting will define which material groups/classes will be imported. Select filter based on your certification or import all groups by choosing 'All data'. You are also able to manually select the material classes to be imported in the filtering phase of the import process.
‘Existing data preservation’ - Select the option for existing data.
- Replace existing data with imported data - Overrides any data previously included in the design.
- Add import to existing data - Useful if you import your model in sections, e.g. separating different building parts. When selecting this option, none of the previously entered material data in your design will be overwritten.
- Only update the quantities from the import - Allows for the re-uploading of updated BIM models or Excel files, simply updating the quantities of the previously included data.
'Remove empty data' - Recommended setting, which will remove all data that does not have a material name defined or no quantity. This will make the import also faster.
‘Convert all to metric/imperial unit system’ - This setting allows you to convert all units of the model to metric or imperial unit system depending on your user account settings. Use this if your model has the quantities in different unit system than what you are using on One Click LCA.
Choose the import process phases to be reviewed manually
This setting will allow you to choose which phases of the import you wish to review and make changes to where needed. Contents of each phase are explained in the following sections of this article. Once you have selected suitable import settings, click ‘Continue’
Classify your materials
In this phase, you can review the classification/category assigned for your materials in your BIM model and view/adjust the targeted classification in your project. If the classification is not correctly set for certain material groups, you can select a new classification for them from the drop menu.
Filter your imported data
Dependent on the purpose of your LCA calculation, you might not need to include all building elements to the study, so it's best to filter them out. If you deselect a group, it will not be imported. By clicking on the green question mark you can manually delete the materials that you do not wish to import.
Combining your data
Depending on how the information in your model/dataset is given, you can select the most suitable way to combine your data. Combining data is crucial to speed up the import and to simplify your calculations. The software will also give you recommendations on which rule to use. This will significantly reduce the amount of imported data.
CLASS - shows to which material group the material belongs to (e.g. beam, column, wall, etc). In most cases, this is always used as grouping criteria, since it is important to see your LCA results for different building elements.
MATERIAL (or IFCMATERIAL) - describes the material of the data, if material info is also described in another group, e.g. Type or, Comment, then make sure to use it for combining criteria.
QTY_TYPE - describes the quantity type, it is crucial that the data which uses different quantity to describe the amount is not being combined. So make sure to use this as combining criteria.
There are other parameters which you can choose as combining criteria, dependent on your modelling software or import file.
When you click on the green sheet you will see which elements are combined in this specific group. You can select 'Ungroup' if you do not wish to combine this data.
Review your data
Once your data is filtered and combined you will be able to review how the data is being imported and make material level changes to classifications and quantity types on this phase of the process.
Model checker
Available for Business license and Expert users, check how to fix the issues with your import model here.
Mapping your materials
Identified data
Lists the data which the software automatically mapped to environmental profiles based on the description
Make sure to confirm if all is mapped appropriately for your project.
By clicking on the column headings, you are able to sort the rows.
'Material' - Material names imported from your model/file
Green sheet icon - See which data is contained in each row
'Class' - If necessary, you can change the material CLASS for each row
'Comment' - Use the comment field to mark anything you might need to know after the import, e.g. if the resource is consisting of more than one material.
'Quantity' and 'Share' - Shows the data significance for your LCA calculations. According to the EN 15978 standard, the materials with the share of less than 1% can be discarded. The sum of discarded materials cannot be more than 1%. A total of maximum of 5% may be discarded.
'Resource name' - Automatically selected environmental data. You can click on the arrow to see all available mappings for this material name or choose to search our entire database for a new resource.
Green question mark - See a detailed description of the auto-selected data resource
'Mapping basis' - Shows what this mapping is based on. Your own mappings are given as the default mapping if you have previously saved mapping for this material naming. Other mapping basis in order of priority:
- Full One Click LCA name set - if full data point name is used as the material name in the original file
- Colleague mapping
- Users in the same country
- AI mapping - Only available in this import workflow onn some tools and for all tools in the udpated import process, not in the mappings that are returned automatically in plugins. Learn more about AI Mapping
- Global users
'Report bad mapping' - When choosing a mapping from the list of previous mappings made for the material naming you have used, you can report a bad mapping other users have made if the mapped material is not representing the corresponding material row.
'Decide later' - Imports the row without a mapped resource. This row will be displayed as 'Unidentified material' in the building materials query of the target design after the import. 'Unidentified material' rows can then be changed to material data points using the Replace feature.
'Delete' - Deletes the row, it won't be imported
Unidentified or problematic data
Lists all the data which was not mapped or has some issues, e.g. the name is too generic. Same issues are listed in the Model checker.
'Target resource' - Find a suitable environmental profile to describe your material. Choose the filter ribbon to simplify your search.
Find help for choosing the right environmental profiles by looking into our guides:
- Material selection
- Finding EPDs
- Average material quantities
- Selecting concrete resources
- Selecting metal resources
- Selecting building technology resources
Updating your previously imported data
To update the quanties for previously imported data, be sure to select the 'Only update the quantities from the import' option for Existing data preservation in the Settings stage.
In the updating stage you will then see a breakdown of the updated data, and the unchanged data for your import.
Changes to the quantites can still be made to the materials at this stage before clicking 'Continue' and completing the import process.
Analyse your results
See our guidance about reporting LCA results here.
Download EN 15978 sample report template from the attachments here.
All the imported data can be edited in the ‘Building materials’ question form. You can also create a copy of the data for editing purposes.
Tips and tricks
Download excel at any stage of your import
In all the import steps you can click ‘Download Excel’ and get your data on an Excel spreadsheet. Having the data in the Excel allows you to review or modify your data without modifying your model. This may be useful if you are not familiar with the modelling practices. Read more about importing data from Excel here.
How to import resources that consist of more than one material
Resources which consists of more than one materials can be imported in several ways:
- Map your material to one of the materials it consists of and mark to the comment row that this is 'Composite' or similar (just so you find it easily in your 'Building materials' question form). After the import process is completed, you can go to the 'Building materials' question form. Make sure to divide your material quantities as necessary.
- Select 'Decide later' and map your materials in the 'Building materials' question form after the import. Make sure to divide your material quantities as necessary.
- Delete the row and add the composite materials in the 'Building materials' question form. Make sure not to forget it!
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