Using functional groups
You can create functional groups for roll-ups to organize large product structures that may not be defined in CAD. Functional groups may help you:
Organize very large product structures for comparison across programs
Establish the framework for costing dynamic product configurations in very large product structures
Assign team responsibilities for function costs within a program
Functional groups in a roll-up are just roll-ups created within that roll-up. You can create functional groups one at a time, or you can import a functional group template, which generates the entire functional group structure in one step. For example, if you want to generate consistent functional group structures within multiple roll-ups, you can use your functional group template for multiple roll-ups. For more information on reusing a template, see Cutting, copying, and pasting between roll-ups on page 1. Roll-ups can have functional groups applied both through the UI and through the BOM Loader (see the VPE Administrator Guide).
The template is an XML file which describes the roll-up hierarchy to be created in the parent roll-up. The hierarchy represents your functional groups. You can create a template by using the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet Functional Group Template Generator.xls in the install-support\templates directory of your aPriori installation.