PROMOTE from Sub-Assembly - All Files EXCEPT VIRTUAL..................???

[phlyx]

We have some temporary sub-assemblies that were created just to keep all the parts together while inserting into a higher level assembly.  These are slides and temporary sub-assembly has the motor, the gearbox, the slide, and virtual parts for the controller and cable to capture them as they are not in the models.  Tried to PROMOTE these parts and cannot.  Wasn't sure why until I just tried promoting the actual physical items.  Looks like VIRTUAL PARTS CANNOT BE PROMOTED.  We spent a lot of time creating these virtual parts with all the iProperties to assure they get ordered properly and now we can't promote them into our main assembly?!?!?!  PUH-lease Autodesk, why?  Just plain old why?  I see no reason to not treat a virtual part like a regular part and allow us to promote them (or demote them).  

[jtylerbc]

Do you actually need to promote them at all?  If you make that subassembly with a "Phantom" BOM structure, the parts will show up in your BOM as though the subassembly didn't exist at all.

I'm not necessarily saying that there wouldn't be a use for promoting Virtual parts - there probably would be uses for that.  But I am questioning whether it's necessary in your particular example.  

[phlyx]

We try to keep the depth of sub-assemblies as shallow as possible.  When we get more than 2 levels deep, it messes with other departments, especially purchasing.  So if we find ourselves in that situation, where we have a sub-assembly that could easily be promoted and not make things cluttered, we do it.  And yes, we need to promote the virtual parts or they do not show up on the BOM and do not get ordered.  Often virtual parts are things like a servo controller, a motor or encoder cable, a software package, things that would not physically be in our assembly model but have to be ordered.  A virtual part is still a part, a thing that needs to be ordered just not modeled, why would you ever NOT want to be able to promote it?