Best practices using functional groups
Although you can re-apply a functional group template, aPriori recommends the following practice: if you find that you want to apply a functional group template to a roll-up that already has one (for example, you have updated the functional groups, or you applied the wrong functional group template to the roll-up and now wish to apply the correct one), create a new roll-up instead, and apply the updated or correct functional group template to new roll-up.
To create a functional group template
1 Open Functional Group Template Generator.xls in the install-support\templates directory of your aPriori installation.
2 Put the name of the functional group hierarchy in cell A1. This is a name of your choosing. It is used in the filename of the generated template.
3 Specify the functional group structure as follows:
• Put names of top-level functional groups in column B.
• Put each child group in the column immediately to the right of its parent group. Put the first child on the line immediately below (and to the right of) the parent’s line. Put any additional children immediately below that.
• Do not leave entirely blank any row or column that is within the structure specification.
• Only one cell of each row should be occupied.
• Insert additional columns as needed.
4 Use the spreadsheet’s Browse button and/or the text field next to it to enter or navigate to the directory to contain the generated template.
5 Click the spreadsheet’s Create Template button. The template file is created in the specified directory. The filename is the group name followed by .fgt.XML.
6 You can use the spreadsheet’s xmlOutput tab to view the generated XML.
Here is an example:
The spreadsheet above generates the following functional group hierarchy:
In this example, the name of the parent roll-up is ATV, which precedes the node names of the functional groups that are created.
As an alternative to using the template generator spreadsheet, you can create the XML yourself. Use a format like the following:
Since XML does not allow numeric element names, use the following type of format to handle numerical functional group names:
Save the new file with the .fgt.XML extension so that aPriori can recognize the file as a functional group template. For example, a valid template filename is myFunctionalGroups.fgt.XML. If you are editing with Notepad and do not save the file with this extension, the file will be stored as a text file and aPriori will not be able to import it.
To create functional groups using a functional group template
1 Open a rollup.
2 Select Tools > BOM > Apply Functional Group Template from the aPriori menu bar.
3 Navigate to the location of your functional group template file, select it, and click Open to create the structure described within your template in the open roll-up.