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Creating a bill of materials


Bas Vellekoop

Question

I`m trying to create a bill of materials for a table design.

 

The idea was to create a worksheet to count all the symbols in the design (every part of the table is a symbol) and add a column to type a description for every symbol. But this doesnt seem to be possible. Is this correct?

I want to add text in the blue part.

 

If this is not possible:

 

Probably attaching record is the way to go.

Only me is told that i have to 'reload/replace' all the symbols on al the design layers to give it the record/info I attached to the symbol.

Is there a way to attach the record to symbol and 'send' the information in it to all exciting symbols without replacing them?

 

Thanks!

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Pretty much the same answer in a slightly different terminology.

 

Everything in a Database section of a worksheet has to be either a formula or a reference to a Record.Field combination.  ONLY Record.Field combinations can be edited in the database.

 

So to be able to add the extra data you will have to have fields attached to the object. If you already have a record format attached you can just add the fields to the record format and the =Record.Field formulas into the database header. You can then fill in those fields either in the Data pane of the OIP for each symbol or enter it directly into the database cells and it will be stored in the correct Field.  If you don't have a record already attached, or if you don't want the extra data to show in that record, you can create a new record format with those field and use that Record.Field in the database header. You can have data from multiple records show in the same database row as long as each record is attached to the object that is shown in that sub-row.

 

What there is not an easy way of doing is have the default values for the newly created fields flow into the symbol instances that are already on the drawing. But since you want the data in the database, unless you have thousands of symbol instances, it is probably easier to just use a copy/paste into the database section.  If you copy the data from one cell and then select multiple cells and paste, that value will be pasted into all of the selected cells. This works really well for things like setting or changing defaults.

 

If you do the new record thing, each symbol instance will get the default values when you attach the record to the instance.

 

If you want to attach the new record to the symbol definition, it will probably be easiest to go through and do a Replace Symbol to change the symbol instance to the "new" version of the symbol.

 

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You are correct. You have to create a record format with the fields material, finish, description, and anything else you may want to categorize.

 

You are incorrect in that you have to "reload/replace" all of the symbols.

  1. You simply have to add the record format to each of them.
  2. In your worksheet, with the data summarized by symbol name, you can simply type in the material, finish, description, etc. into the worksheet.
  3. By doing this, the worksheet will distribute the correct data to all of the objects summarized within a given database header row and with the record attached.
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