topic Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM in Inventor Forum

Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 14:00:51 GMT

I've tried the Inv online Help, to no avail

I need an exported version of the BOM.

I need it to be Structured and I need ALL Levels.

I know how it's supposed to happen, but it doesn't

The "Export all levels" radio button is ALWAYS greyed out

If I'm doing something wrong, please tell me the correct way.

Or fix the bug.

This should be so easy.

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Cadmanto — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 15:15:32 GMT

Duncan,

What version are you running?

See if this thread helps you.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/2017-build-256-can-t-export-all-bom-levels-of-main-assy-to-excel/td-p/7331839

Windows 10 x64 -16GB Ram
Intel i7-6700 @ 3.41ghz
nVidia GTS 250 - 1 GB
Inventor Pro 2018

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

philip1009 — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 15:38:03 GMT

Do you have Vault Workbook or Professional? There's a solution supports multi-level exporting an Item BOM:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/vault-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2014/ENU/Vault/files/GUID-86373139-0500-4B28-A5C3-DE80A53D1AF6-htm.html

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 19:24:38 GMT

Inv 2019.1.2 not using Vault

Win Pro 10

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

johnsonshiue — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 19:27:21 GMT

Hi Duncan,

Is "All-Level" enabled in Structured BOM View? Go to BOM dialog -> click on the Magnifier button -> View Properties -> All Levels.

Many thanks!

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 07:37:39 GMT

@johnsonshiue wrote:
Hi Duncan,

Is "All-Level" enabled in Structured BOM View? Go to BOM dialog -> click on the Magnifier button -> View Properties -> All Levels.
Many thanks!

It is now

None of that is very obvious. For example, why can't we, the users, change this setting whilst in the Export Bill of Materials dialogue. Radio Buttons suggest it can be changed, but it can't.

I can't see a big difference between the Structured tab and Model Data tabs, except Structured has items numbers.

How about utilising the difference tabs; Model Data - just has Top Level, Structured - has everything in hierarchical format, Parts Only - has parts, not assemblies ?

Or a different way/place to set what is displayed and what is exported ?

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 07:58:15 GMT

@johnsonshiue

A quick thought, why can't we import BOM data from M$ Excel ?

Initially sounds daft, but we can do so much more with M$ Excel than with Inv's BOM.

We could Export that data, manipulate it with M$ Excel, Import it, them push it through to the parts/components. Obviously, Library parts/assemblies are already protected.

Just a though.

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 08:34:54 GMT

@johnsonshiue

One more quick request, can you ask your Technical Writers to have a look at the Help for BOM as exporting all levels doesn't appear to be that clear.

In particular, ask them to look at the Help that is available from the Help button on the BOM dialogue, which is the first place users will go.

cheerz

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

johnsonshiue — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 18:58:15 GMT

Hi Duncan,

Points are well taken. Indeed, this particular workflow is not that apparent. If you don't do it regularly, you could have hard time finding it. I will work with the project team to see what we can do about the workflow and its documentation.

Many thanks!

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Hunteil — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:27:51 GMT

This has taken me years to find this... And multiple companies and multiple teams of power users with us asking how to get full structured BOMs from Inventor.... Everyone just tells us to use Vault. But Vault requires tons of customization and time to configure it just right. And the only support we kept getting was to get something custom programmed for each company costing them $10-30,000 dallors for a program that required upkeep and sometimes required Vault. This is trully outragious! I'm about to have an anurism over this. I'm so thankful to have found this. Thank you @Anonymous & @johnsonshiue for finally finally finding the answer.

PS: Down side is some items do show up that were not intended to be exported like Vendor sub components. But that's okay. I can edit it for my quick printouts. It would be nice if this was better supported in general on the Inventor side.

PSS: The technical documentation for this still doesn't mention anything on this Jan 12 2021.

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

cadman777 — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 00:02:51 GMT

What I do for vendor assemblies in PARTS ONLY is change the BOM STRUCTURE to INSEPARABLE.

I use 2010 and tried it in STRUCTURED BOM, but it didn't work.

But maybe it'll work for you in the newer version?

Just a guess...

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Hunteil — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 14:59:45 GMT

@cadman777 , To answer your question, setting the BOM STRUCTURE to INSEPARABLE does nothing to prevent this. (Inventor 2019 Build: 330, Release: 2019.4.9 Date: Tue 08/25/2020.)

Setting it to PURCHASED doesn't help either.
Setting it to REFERENCE just makes it disappear which we absolutely is not what we want.
Setting the children of the Vendor part to REFERENCE worked... But at the cost of causing more problems like having to adjust settings on your views for the "Line Type" not to be dashed and fixing the margin b/c the view cropped/chopped off the referenced parts. Not worth all the extra work in my opinion.
Setting the children of the Vendor part to PHANTOM worked!

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

cadman777 — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 15:59:46 GMT

Thanx for the good report.

You ran the gamut to see what COULD work.

Nice work.

Glad you found a solution.

Just tried it in 2010.

Works as expected!

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

cadman777 — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:02:59 GMT

...

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

MJH_ — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 14:49:24 GMT

Excellent solution, thanks Johnson!

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

johnsonshiue — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 21:23:03 GMT

Hi Matt,

Just to extend a bit on this workflow, the setting actually is saved within the iam file. So, you can open the iam template files so that next time it will persist without having to change it again.

Many thanks!

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Ethibaudeau — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 17:37:07 GMT

When I go to "View Properties", that selection the level selection is also greyed out (in addition to the greyed out option in the "Export Bill of Materials" dialog):

If I go to the help page, I see this, but I don't understand what it's trying to say:

If I disable the structured BOM view, it doesn't change anything.

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

CGBenner — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 17:58:11 GMT

@Ethibaudeau

Hello! In your BOM, right click on the Structured Tab and select View Properties. If it is set to First Level, change it to All Levels, and then try the Export again. This time it should default to All Levels.

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

Ethibaudeau — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 19:40:11 GMT

I was trying to show in the first image in my post, that option drop down is greyed out as well.

Re: Exporting ALL Levels of Structured BoM

johnsonshiue — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 20:19:29 GMT

Hi! I guess you are on Model Data tab. Export isn't supported there. But you may select all cells -> Ctrl+C and Ctrl+P to an Excel spreadsheet.

Many thanks!