Hi all,
Is there a way of setting things like description, purchase/manufactured / non-stock item for parts created from materials inside a configuration.
As far as I can see, it’s only possible to set the part number, and the description ends up as ‘Needs config’.
Thanks in advance!
Out of the box? Not so much. You can set things like the QuoteDtl.LineDesc (which we do all the time) with a Document Rule or the QuoteAsm.Description for a subassembly on the BOM with a Rule Set, but things like purchased/manufactured are not immediately available. I suppose you could call the part service contract from within a document rule on the configurator (we’ve done this to add a miscellaneous charge to the quote based on a configuration) to update the part record.
More importantly, why would you want to do this? Isn’t the configurator acting on a base part comprised of materials and subassemblies that are themselves defined parts in your system? Changing something like whether those parts are purchased or manufactured could have ramifications down the line for things like MRP because you’d be changing the part record itself and not just for the particular occurance of that part on the resulting BOM. If you can lay out what you’re trying to accomplish, maybe someone can suggest an alternate method.
Sorry for the long post…
tldr: Yes you can through custom code, but it’s maybe not the best idea. What are you trying to do?
Yes. In the Document Rules.
Here I have one action that sets the Description for various aspects of the configured part.
The expression is:
OrderDtl.LineDesc = Inputs.edtPartDesc.Value;
JobHead.PartDescription = Inputs.edtPartDesc.Value;
DemandDetail.LineDesc = Inputs.edtPartDesc.Value;
Part.PartDescription = Inputs.edtPartDesc.Value;
QuoteDtl.LineDesc= Inputs.edtPartDesc.Value;
You can select the target entity from the upper left pane:
BTW - Inputs.edtPartDesc.Value is an input on my Configurator entry. It is dynamically created when the other inputs change. This way I can show it on the configurator entry window, and then use it to update the PartDescription.
How about for when you want the Configurator to create a part entry?
We have to do this as we then have to do a Transfer Order to another plant. And TO’s can only come from inventory, which means that a part entry must exist (and be Qty Bearing)
Good point - this is where I don’t have a lot of experience because we don’t allow for on-the-fly parts. Everything here has to go through Engineering to be spec’d, designed, and tested to conform to safety controls.
Not to hijack the thread, but…
Do the parts you create this way actually get written back to the part table or are they just floating around the ether as one-offs?
Also, I don’t see Part as a target entity within my document rules. Do you know if this was a recent add with the configurator revamp or is it just due to our practices?
You have to enable Part Creation and then you will see Part as a valid entity name
We have them create Part table entries.
One thing to remember, is that the created part entry is a copy of the configurator part. So if you can, set as much of the configurator part to be how you want the final part to be (UOM, Qty Bearing, plants, etc…) Then just update the fields that might be different for this specific part (like description).
And if you don’t need 100% of the parts created with the configurator to create part table entries, you can use the “Prompt User to Confirm new part” option on the Record Creation tab
Like @danbedwards said, you have to enable record creation.
There are also options to create revisions. We don’t do that. Nor do we create a MOM for the new part. (But we do create the MOM for the configured part).
The Target Entities that are available are on the Detail tab of Configurator Entry
(I don’t recall what makes certain table names enabled for record creation and others not)
The Enable Part Number Creation option must be checked, in order to select which tables can have recores created for.
E10’s implementation of Configurator is WAAAY different than that of V8. So I’m still learning myself.
Make sure you download and read the Tech Reference Guide for Configurator
Thanks for all the feedback guys.
Should there be a context target entity available for parts that are materials in the method? I still seem to only be able to write to the part number and a few other fields, but the description gets written as ‘Needs config’ and the other fields I’d like to set are not available.
Sorry… I missed the “for material” part…
You’d think that the Configurator could be setup with a “Buy To Job” part. But if you know that when designing the configurator, then it’s assumed that you could create a non-QtyBearing part in the part master.
I guess I could see a need where the BTJ material part could be so dynamic, that having all the variation in the PM is not realistic. Like if the BTJ part was a fiber optic cable of an exact length, that you specify when ordering. Like
P/N: CABL-FS-FM-1234.5
Description: Fiber optic cable with FS and FM terminations, exactly 1234.5 mm long
And this is a component n the configured part.
Edit:
You may have to make that component a configurable part itself. I believe there are ways to have multiple levels, where the parent part’s inputs can be used to configure the configurable child component.
Actually you can set a materials description (or practically any other field)
In Configurator Rules,
return true;
Just to flush this out a bit and hopefully save some headaches in the future…
We played with this a couple of different ways a few months ago and this is what we found:
The easiest way was to pull the part on the main configured part as an assembly and then you can access that part’s materials in the same rule set. Our specific use case was to prompt for a color option in the configuration and then swap the pigment color in the materials of every assembly within the template BOM. Maybe this could work in this case if there are only a couple of changes between the parts (swapping a purchased part for a manufactured part, for example)?
The other way was to make the sub-component part configurable, as you suggest, and then configurations chain. However, the sub-configurator will launch (and display a screen) after the main part’s configurator and you have to click save on it for the sub-configuration to process. If that’s acceptable (e.g. prompting for different information than in the main configuration), then the document rules for the sub-configurator should, in theory, be able to apply the changes to the part as described in previous posts. Again - our parts are static in those regards, so I’ll gladly defer to your expertise in that area.
Hi all, thanks for the replies. I’ve taken a look into the sub-configurator method, and it might be too much to ask our sales team to be creating tons of part records, even if they are automated. We are instead going to change our process to allow more generic parts to be used initially. Thanks again!
