Purchased assembly - parts item type

[lmilesVSQKU]

Hi All,

I am wondering what the correct method for uploading a purchased assembly is from the CAD plugin.

I have opened the CAD file for a motor driver board which is a purchased item. The assembly has many individual parts which do not need to be represented in the BOM. It seems the easiest method is to use the BOM manger in inventor to change all parts to phantoms then upload via the CAD plugin. Is this the correct approach for managing purchased assemblies? Are there any approaches that might be better?

In addition to the above question. I have already uploaded many purchased assemblies to Upchain through the plugin, which automatically classifies parts as manufactured. So all parts of my purchased assemblies have had items made for them. In regards to managing the BOM and ordering parts does this matter? Should I be trying to convert all parts of purchased assemblies to phantoms?

Sorry if this is an obvious question but I am still trying to wrap my head around the use of Upchain.

Thanks again for your help.

[emily.caulfield · Accepted solution]

Hello lmilesVSQKU, thank you for your question. 

To answer your first question, your approach of using the BOM table in Inventor to set the children as phantom is certainly valid. However, when creating the item in Upchain, it will still create the assembly as an Assembly item. You can always change that to a purchased part after that but if you have item numbering rules that depend on item type, that may not be the best approach. Another way to do this is to create the purchased item in the Web application first. Then, with the assembly open in Inventor, open the Project BOM, locate the item you created, right-click it and select Attach Active CAD. This assigns the assembly item to the item created in Web and all children are automatically registered as phantom. More info on this process is here.

For items where you have already created the purchased assembly with children, you could use the eBOM attribute 'Reference only' to mark the child items as a reference, though that may confuse other users if they're not familiar with what that is meant to convey (more info on eBOM attributes here). You could instead check out the assembly, rename each child component file so it essentially 'unregisters' them from Upchain, check in the assembly and use the BOM Anomaly wizard to ensure the 'new' children are registered as phantom. The items that used to be in the eBOM would be removed from the eBOM. Those items would still exist in Upchain, but would no longer be associated with the item or project. You could then change the assembly item type to purchased after that as well.

I hope this helps.