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BOM Part Numbers

Question asked by David Mandl on Aug 10, 2011
Latest reply on Aug 25, 2011 by David Mandl

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In design tables, you can set the part number field (as seen in the Bill of Materials Options section of the configuration properties screen).

My company is using DriveWorks for design automation, which means that we have to specify a custom property for any $partnumber variable that we want to show up in the drawing BOM. We cannot capture the $partnumber property directly, so we set the text equal to a custom property. (See below for a sample showing how the design table gets set up)

This works just fine. If $PRP:"01 Part Number" = 9999-01, you will see 9999-01 show up in the part number column of the BOM table in the .slddrw file.

There is one problem. If you look at the configurations tab on the screen shot above, the $PRP command is not evaluating in the assembly/part file. Notice how the description of the -01 configuration reads -01 [$PRP:"01 PART NUMBER"] instead of evaluating to whatever value has been set for the "01 Part Number" variable. At first I didn't think anything of it, but there are some interesting consequences when it comes to how these part numbers show up when the files are checked into Enterprise PDM:

Is there a reason that the $PRP expression does not evaluate? Does anyone know if SolidWorks has any SPRs in the works that will give us a different way to link the BOM part number in the configuration properties window to a custom property or a configuration specific property?

On a related note: in the design table, you write to the BOM Part Number variable using the string $partnumber. Is there way to recall that variable elsewhere (such as in a custom property)?

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Scott McFadden Aug 10, 2011 4:33 PM

David,

FYI, there has been some issues on the forum with being able to view images. You thread is no exception.

With that it is kind of making it difficult to see what you are describing. Nothing you personally can do about it.

I know it has been mentioned that hopefully today it should be fixed.

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David Mandl @ Scott McFadden on Aug 10, 2011 4:45 PM

Hmmm...

That does make it hard to understand just what on Earth I'm babbling about in my post, doesn't it?

The first picture shows a design table that's formatted sort of like this:

Header 1	Header 2	Header 3	Header 4
Design Table for: Assem1
	$PRP@FINISH	$PARTNUMBER	$PARENT
Default	ANODIZED FINISH	$D
-01	204 ANODIZED FINISH	$PRP:"01 PART NUMBER"	Default
-02	313 ANODIZED FINISH	$PRP:"02 PART NUMBER"	Default
Architectural	ANODIZED FINISH	$D	Default

... and also a configurations tab that shows the indented structure of the derived configurations:

Default [Assem1]

--> -01 [$PRP:"01 PART NUMBER"]

--> -02 [$PRP:"02 PART NUMBER"]

--> Architectural [Assem1]

The second picture is a screenshot from our Enterprise PDM vault which shows that the -01 configurations of parts were displaying part numbers of $PRP:"01 PART NUMBER" instead of evaluating the $PRP command to show the correct part number that is defined in the Custom Properties tab.

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David Mandl @ Scott McFadden on Aug 10, 2011 4:52 PM

Also, I suppose these questions could be answered/debated without screen shots to show what we're talking about:

Does anyone know if SolidWorks has any SPRs in the works that will give us a different way to link the BOM part number in the configuration properties window to a custom property or a configuration specific property?

In the design table, you write to the BOM Part Number variable using the string $partnumber. Is there way to recall that variable elsewhere (such as in a custom property)?

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Scott McFadden @ David Mandl on Aug 10, 2011 7:28 PM

Yes, it does make it a little difficult. I personally don't know of any SPR's that deal with this.

You can look in the portal downloads portion yourself for that.

I guess I am not understanding if you have your custom properties setup in the parts

and you double click on the column headers and change it to reflect the proper custom property

I don't understand why it does not give you need.

I am using 2011 SP 3.0 and I do this all the time.

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David Mandl @ Scott McFadden on Aug 11, 2011 9:44 AM

I'm not entirely following what you mean by the column headers.

The $partnumber string is used in design tables to control a very specific variable- the "part number displayed when used in a bill of materials" text box under "Bill of Materials Options" in the configuration properties window.

Changing the column header in the design table to something like $PRP:"Part No" would just write those properties to configuration properties. While I could use that as a custom column in my BOM tables on my prints, those values would not be written to the Bill of Materials options for each configuration. There are some PDM implications of this that would be confusing to a lot of the people that would be using the program.

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Scott McFadden @ David Mandl on Aug 11, 2011 10:22 AM

Dave,

I understand what you are talking about.

What I am saying is this in the BOM, not the DT.

So can that variable in your DT be tied to a custom property and be setup as shown above in your BOM?

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David Mandl @ Scott McFadden on Aug 11, 2011 11:04 AM

I see.

That would definitely work on the prints. And I could probably set up the part number columns in the BOMs in Enterprise PDM to refer to a variable instead of the file part number.

I would still need to control those properties in the design table and I would still have to use $PRP commands to refer back to my custom tab in order to get these properties driven in DriveWorks. That said, I think the resulting configuration specific properties would probably evaluate, which would solve my problem.

It would still be nice if a future service pack could update the problem of $PRP commands in the Bills of Materials Options section of the configuration properties could evaluate before they show up in a BOM table on a print. Either that, or if a "part number" drop down could exist on the configurations tab in the File>Properties screen- similar to the BOM Qty drop down that already exists there. Either one of those would be the ideal solution, IMO.

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Scott McFadden @ David Mandl on Aug 11, 2011 11:28 AM

I don't know anything about Driveworks, but it seems like you are well on your way to

a solution.

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David Mandl Aug 25, 2011 11:04 AM

So far, it looks like the best solution is to use Enterprise PDM's Dispatch tool to automatically edit my variables and just leave it at that.

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