Working with BOMs and Catalog Parts

You can import bills of materials into aPriori using the BOM Loader in the VPE Toolset. The BOM Loader is a separately licensed module which lets engineers and managers quickly:

• Generate and organize new aPriori part and assembly components

• Update and organize existing components

• Add hierarchical structure to rollups

• Import lists of purchased parts and their cost data, providing the ability to load a complete parts catalog

The BOM Loader is an efficient way to populate your aPriori database with components and cost data that can be rolled up and analyzed further using the BOM Comparison Report. For more information, see the BOM Reports" section of the aPriori User Guide.

Note: In versions previous to 2015 R1, aPriori supported a separate Catalog Part Loader. This feature has now been deprecated and its functionality is now covered by the BOM Loader. To use the BOM Loader to load Catalog Parts, you must make the following explicit settings:

1 In the input file, set level and quantity to 1 for all components, and map accordingly.

2 In the input file, set official to true, and map accordingly)

3 Ensure that the Calculate Values... checkbox is checked.

4 Open the scenarios after importing and bulk lock them (there is no ability for the BOM loader to import scenarios as locked). -As an alternative, your System Administrator could implement an Access Control scheme that maps UDAs that only allow certain people to edit those scenarios.

To start the BOM Loader

1 Select Tools > VPE Toolset from the aPriori menu bar to display the aPriori VPE Toolset window.

2 Click BOM Loader to display the aPriori BOM Loader tool.

This dialog and its fields are described in the next section.