The use of Excel is pretty much ubiquitous in most industries including AEC, and the idea of being able to open up a BIM model inside Excel and work with its data is brilliant in its simplicity. This review explores a new application, CellBIM, which actually does this. With it, you can bring a BIM model into Excel, work directly with its elements, query it, perform calculations, take-off quantities, and explore any aspect of the design visually.
AECbytes Blog 
It is possible to edit the Revit database using an Excel like interface using the Database Editor. The advantage is that of having that running inside Revit is that any change is automatically verified by Revit and implemented in real time. Also any changes in the model are automatically reflected in the data.