Productstream Helps Resolve Duplicate Items for ACAD Mechanical

Posted February 21, 2007

9146981:2007-02-22

by Community Admin1

When working with Items in Productstream, it’s possible to have components in a design that may actually be duplicate information from an existing Item. Because of this, when an Item is assigned, Productstream provides a method for resolving possible duplicates.

When using Autodesk Inventor, Productstream will use the information extracted from the ‘Part Number’ property to identify duplicates. During the ‘Assign Items’ process, the ‘Find Duplicates’ dialog will show the duplicates and allow you choose the Item that the CAD data should be assigned to. If the ‘Auto-select first duplicate’ option is selected; Productstream will select the first Item it identify as the duplicate.

This process is the default behavior with Autodesk Inventor due to the ‘Part Number’ property being designated as the ‘Equivalence’ property. This allows Productstream to compare Part Number information in the search for duplicate data.

When using AutoCAD Mechanical there is no default property assigned as the ‘Equivalence’ property, due to the flexible nature of the AutoCAD Mechanical BOM. To assist with this issue, Productstream will use a BOM column named ‘PSEQUIVALENCE’ if it is found in the drawings BOM.

To create the BOM column in AutoCAD Mechanical:

1. Select the Properties button in the BOM dialog.
   
2. Enter the name and description of the new property as ‘PSEQUIVALENCE’.
   
3. Enter a formula mapping the field to an existing property that is used to uniquely identify the components.
   
4. Uncheck the visibility option for the new BOM column.
   
5. Press the OK button to apply the changes.
6. Press the OK button to close the BOM dialog.
7. Save and Close the drawing file.

When the ‘PSEQUIVALENCE’ column has been added to the BOM, Items being added from AutoCAD Mechanical which have duplicate values will be recognized as duplicate data.

This helps prevent duplicate Items being created when assigning items from AutoCAD Mechanical drawings.

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