Promote components without affecting the subassemblies

[mat_hijs]

I've been working on a curtain wall for a semi large building. I split the building into 3 volumes. In volume 1 there are 8 floors and 3 facades. I then split volume 1 by floor and facade, meaning I now have 24 (8*3) pieces that in reality form 1 volume. This is also how I built my assemblies, so I have 24 of them. I placed all these in one big assembly to see how the performance would be, and this is still workable. So now I'd like to test how the performance would be if I wouldn't have split it up into 24 subassemblies, but instead built everything in one big assembly. Of course I don't want to place every single component again, so I thought of promoting the components within my 24 subassemblies. I guess this would work but I don't want to affect the subassemblies because these are still what I'm using for production.

Is there a way to accomplish this without affecting the subassemblies?

[-niels-]

I don't know if there's an easier method, but the most basic workflow would be to promote the parts of your sub-assembly, then delete the (now empty) sub-assembly and not save the changes made to it...

If you've reused the same assembly, then all other instances will become empty as well, so you'd have to save the main assembly, taking care not to save the empty sub-assembly, and close-reopen.
Then repeat the process...

[mat_hijs]

That's what I thought of too, but I find it a little risky because the subassemblies are still to be used, that's why I asked.

[-niels- · Accepted solution]

As long as you don't save the emptied assembly, it should be alright.
You can always make "security copies" and use those if you want to be extra cautious.
If you're using Vault, you can always get the vaulted version back. (assuming everything is in the Vault before the promoting)

[SharkDesign · Accepted solution]

Click your sub assemblies one by one and use the 'save and replace' on the productivity tab. Then you can do what you want to them really. 

[mat_hijs]

This confirms what I already thought, I'll either need to be really careful not to save subassemblies or copy them first, but there's no specific command to do this.

Thanks anyway!