What is good practice to build configurator?

[m_rubach]

Hello, I have been building a configurator of kitchen cabinets. I had never built a configurator before, so I'm not sure that I do it well. I will be thankful if someone can show the way how to do this right.

Now I have a lot of parts in the assembly, and independent of which configuration I choose, I disable the visibility of not used parts and change BOM structure of the occurrence in the assembly to reference.

oOcc.Visible = False
oOcc.BOMStructure = BOMStructureEnum.kReferenceBOMStructure

I only do these steps, nothing else.

Maybe I should delete unused parts and insert only which I use.

I don't build it in one multi-body part because finally I want to have a BOM with each part separately with their properties. 

In the main top assembly, I will put cabinets with different configurations, but each time I will have to save as my cabinet configurator in a new subfolder with all subparts. It is not comfortable, but I will not do this many times annually.

Maybe there is a better way, which I should follow. Thank you in advance for the advice.

[marcin_otręba]

The best practice to do it will be thinking it through, what do you want to accomplish, and what can go wrong.
I assume you have full complete template assembly in wchich you want to change configuration including parameters change, presence of parts, location and maybe name of parts (and corresponding drawings ?), do you want to change some iprops as well ? like project, names, etc. ? how do you want to do it ? open template and configure it then place into assembly? or place into assembly first and then click on occurrence and configure it ?
all is possible including creation of new configuration files folders for each configuration, renaming files , changing parameters and iprops at fly, keeping drawings with newly saved model files etc.

If you will delete not needed occurrences from your assembly then remember that if you make any mistake - like you will exclude wrong parts, it will be harder to correct it because it will not be there, better approach would be first make it invisible like you do it now - or maybe supress it, this will give you also possibility to use previous configurations as template and re configure it to new ones. if you delete parts then sorry but propably it will be useless.

also there is no problem with using multibody parts, and save it to assembly with all bodies saved as parts...

[A.Acheson]

Hi @m_rubach 

Make use of library parts and content center parts heavily. Anything that doesn't change often that can be used in multiple different designs, lock it down with part numbers, descriptions and make it read only in a library. Model states will be a good replacement for iparts. 

If you have super custom items that don't really follow your standard designs maybe make them with make parts/assemblies and change the iproperties afterwards, good for one offs. 

If you want to speed up drawing creation name your faces that need dimensions this will help with drawing automation. 

[JelteDeJong]

We’ve set up our workflow like this:

• We use template assemblies that include all the components needed for any configuration.

• A read-only library stores our standard parts (e.g., hinges, locks).

• Our sales configurator generates XML files with the required parameters.

• A custom add-in handles the automation process (we call it the “generator”).

Here’s a general overview of how the generator works:

1. Copy template files to the project folder.

   • Standard parts from the library are referenced, not copied.

2. Remove unused components from the assemblies.

   • This is based on the parameters provided by the sales configurator.

3. Update parameters in the assembly.

   • We’ve found it’s faster to remove unnecessary parts before updating parameters.

4. Update iProperties and other metadata as needed.

5. Update drawing files.

   • We also add dimensions here. We’ve noticed dimensions can sometimes become detached after views are updated, so we handle that as part of this step.

Im not sure if this is the absolute "best practice," but it's a solution that works well for us in practice.