Hi all, 

I have a question about methods or experiences of setting up the drawing BOM structure.

The assembly I’m making a drawing of is several hundred parts large, and contains maybe a dozen sub-assemblies.  Some of the sub assy are for modeling convenience, and some of them have actual part numbers.  When for convenience (we call it an MFA – Made For Assembly), I want to show only the parts and not the sub assy info.  And if the sub assy has a part number then I want to hide the parts on the BOM, just show that sub assy.

What I’m wondering about is the merits of an Indented BOM versus changing Show (the default configuration setting) / Hide (shows top level, hide parts) / Promote (basically dissolves sub assy on the BOM) settings for each sub assy. …I don’t think I need to worry about needing to vary the settings for another type of drawing.  I think it will be consistent use. 

It seems like having it set at the sub assy level (a saved configuration property) makes the BOM more robust.  If the BOM is reinserted later it should still be close to correct.  Compared to an indented BOM – the dissolve/expand/contract settings would need to be recreated from the default Indented BOM.

One complication is that with a standard Top-Level Only BOM my balloons are not working right.  I hate that, does anyone else run into that?  I just get an asterisk balloon on many of the parts.  So I have to set the BOM to either Parts Level or Indented, and then fiddle with what is displayed or not. 

Setting it to parts level showed about 600 items, when there should only be about 150.

I need it to work for me now, and then I’m also concerned about the next guy coming along to edit this drawing in a year or more.

...Just did some experimenting. In theory I think It shouldon't matter  if I use Indented or Parts level, the Hide/Promote settings work the same.  However, the Parts Level BOM shows the balloons correctly, the Indented has some of the same problems as the Top-Level Only (displays asterisk instead of item number).  And using those settings does make the change more permanent, compared to using Dissolve on the Indented BOM. 

Thoughts or preferences? 

Thanks,

Brian