IQ Skills – Panel Extraction Builder

 Overview

The Panel Schedule Table Builder is an IQ skill that reads an electrical panel schedule sheet in PDF form and digitizes it — IQ works through each schedule on the sheet, recreates it as a table you can extract, and gives you a one-click push into Excel. If someone on your project team is currently retyping panel schedules by hand, this skill replaces that work. This video shows where the skill lives, the one setup step it requires, how to cross-check the output while IQ is still building, and how to get the finished tables out.

What you'll learn

• Where IQ Skills lives in the chat window and how to confirm you are in skill mode
• How to select the Panel Schedule Table Builder skill
• Why this skill requires the search scope set to current sheet, and what that means for multi-sheet projects
• How to use the yellow link in each generated table to jump to the panel on the sheet
• How to QC the tables while IQ is still processing
• How to push the finished tables into Excel with the yellow download icon
• What processing time to expect on a large set

Before You Begin

This skill runs against one sheet at a time. Have the electrical panel schedule sheet you want to digitize open in the project before you start, and know how many panel schedule sheets are in the set — you will run the skill once per sheet.

IQ must already be loaded on the project. If this is the first time IQ has been opened on this project, let the loading screen finish identifying sheets before running any skill.

Part 1 — Open IQ Skills and Enter Skill Mode

1. Open IQ and the chat screen.
2. Look in the upper right corner of the chat window.
3. Click the IQ Skills button.
4. Confirm the background turns blue. That is your indicator that you are in the skills area.
5. With skill mode active, locate the Panel Schedule Table Builder in the skills list.
6. Select it.
7. Navigate to an electrical panel schedule sheet in the project.
8. Open the sheet so it is the active sheet on screen.
9. With the panel schedule sheet open, head down to the chat window.
10. Click the project dropdown (the search scope control).
11. Isolate the search to current sheet.
12. As IQ starts to build, scroll up in the chat to see what it is producing.
13. Read the panel schedule tables as they appear.
14. Locate the yellow link inside each generated panel schedule.
15. Click the yellow link. IQ takes you right to that area on the sheet and highlights which panel it is.
16. Cross-check the table against the highlighted panel on the drawing.
17. Continue working down the list while IQ keeps building.
18. Wait for IQ to stop processing.
19. Look at the bottom of the tables for the yellow save / download icon. It appears once processing is complete.
20. Click the yellow download icon.
21. The tables push directly into Excel for you.
22. Open the exported table in Excel.
23. Verify the extracted panel schedule data against the source sheet.

Note: The blue background is the same skill-mode indicator used by every IQ skill. If the background is still the standard chat color, you are prompting normally and the skill will not run.

Part 2 — Select the Panel Schedule Table Builder Skill

The intent of this skill is to take what is on the sheet in PDF form and digitize it. IQ reads through each schedule on that sheet and recreates the table for you to extract.

Note: On many projects, panel schedules are transcribed by hand into a spreadsheet as part of the project process. This skill is built to replace that step and should save that person a substantial amount of time.

Part 3 — Navigate to an Electrical Panel Schedule Sheet

Part 4 — Isolate the Search Scope to the Current Sheet

This is the one setup step the skill requires. Skipping it is the most common reason the skill does not return what you expect.

Note: This particular skill you do need to do this on. If there are multiple sheets of panel schedules in your project, you have to go one by one — open a sheet, set the scope to current sheet, run the skill, then repeat for the next panel schedule sheet.

Part 5 — Watch IQ Build and Start QC'ing Early

You do not have to wait for IQ to finish before you begin checking its work.

Best practice: Start cross-checking and QC'ing while IQ is still building. The yellow link makes verification fast because it puts the source panel on screen next to the table IQ produced.

Part 6 — Know What Processing Time to Expect

Note: If your project has a lot of equipment, it takes a little bit of extra time to process. Expect anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes depending on how large your project is. This is normal — keep QC'ing the tables already on screen while it works.

Part 7 — Push the Tables into Excel

Note: The download control does not appear while IQ is still building. Its appearance at the bottom of the tables is your signal that the run has finished.

Part 8 — QA/QC the Finished Output

Best practice: QA, QC — trust, but verify — with anything that AI is producing for you. The yellow links in the chat and the exported Excel table give you two ways to check the same data against the drawing.

If you have questions about this skill, reach out to the AECinspire team. Support is there to help.

Quick Reference

Troubleshooting