Automatic fill of Line Number in BOM's

[Alex1988]

Hi Guys,

Does anyone have experience will automatic population of the Line Number automatically or what should be updated or customized to reach this?

Alex

[BenLoosli]

By line numbers, do you mean the BOM index?

These are added when you have a column in your BOM table that calls out the Index- &rpt.index.

It can be locked in that BOM.

It is automatically generated when the BOM is populated.

See this PTC article: https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article?n=CS133915

[joe_morton]

I looked through some Support articles before.. I couldn't find any automated way to do this. The closest I found is you go to the WTPart structure and click on each line item. It will "auto" number the lines you click. I want to use line items, but it's basically unusable as-is. 

[BenLoosli]

Can you give an example of what you are looking for?

[joe_morton]

Below is the Line Number field in a WTPart Structure. We could do more logic for tracking BOM  changes if we consistently used them. Example: PN 1 in line number 10 is removed and PN 2 is added in line number 10. Downstream systems could interpret that as a Replace instead of an add/remove. The trouble is, there's no automated way to enter even the default line numbers. 

[Alex1988]

We are currently checking for the autofill even with the default line numbers. One of our developer might have found a solution. I will keep you posted if its works completely.

[Ismail_shaik]

Hi Alex,

Did you find any solution for this? If yes, could you please share the details?

[kaudibert]

LINENUMBER  and FINDNUMBER  can be added to Windchill by the site admin and then added to the assembly as a COMPONENT PARAMETER to get transferred to Windchill Structure automatically. Duplicates can be eliminated with the merge uses in Windchill

[kaudibert]

Found the article.

Article - CS197902

[Alex1988]

While this is a good article, it doesn't suit our solution.

Line Number is present OOTB in the Uses Tab of a Part Structure. This Attribute is filled when you click on the field. Our goal is that the user doesn't have to click in the field and gets this automatically. In cases where the user has a BOM with 300 parts it would be rather cumbersome to click every needed box to have the line number filed.

[kaudibert]

Doesn't sound like you read the article. LINENUMBER gets assigned in Creo and transferred automatically to Windchill. OOTB does not have LINENUMBER assigned in Windchill as an attribute. Uses tab get's filled in by Creo if the attribute is created. You need to have the Site Admin create LINENUMBER at the Site level.

[Alex1988]

Hi,

We are talking here about a WTPart Structure that is not connected yet in any way to the CAD structures.

[kaudibert]

Ok sorry, didn't know you were going backwards. We always start with CAD then send that to Windchill and Windchill sends that to ERP

[Alex1988]

Hi,

Still working on it but we encountered some difficulties at the moment. The idea is that the auto complete is done with a Data Utility when the structure is expanded in Structure Tab.

We will let you now once its finished.

[kaudibert]

See attached for the CAD centric approach

[kaudibert]

This is a video on Merge Uses in Windchill

[calonso]

Hi,

did you found finally a solution for this? Now facing the same necessity.

Thanks

[Alex1988]

Hi,

We ended up extending the LineNumberDataUtility.

Each time the user expands the structure the missing line numbers are filled.

New line number will have have a value of the the latest line number added with the line number increment.

At the moment we do not use the Line Number in the ERP system, we just need it to be able to create uniqueness in the structure.

Alex

[aacciano3]

Hi @Alex1988 

Are you able to share how you achieved such customization?

Thanks

[Alex1988]

In our case the code cannot be shared as its client property.

[d_graham]

Guys, I created an action in the WTPart action menu that will do it.

I wrote the tool such that it runs only if the WTPart is checked out by the user and it is run from the Working Copy's page. If the tool is run from a non-working copy a window tells the user they need to run it from the working copy.

So, let's say you start of with no line numbers or there are some missing line numbers or whatever.

First checkout the WTPart.

Then select the *Auto Line Number Structure option.

Then refresh the page.

As this is just an example, I incremented the Line Numbers by 1 but that could be whatever you want.

In this example I entered one line number just to do the checkout.

After running utility and refreshing page.

Seems to work well and can certainly do multi-level structures as well.

David

[DT_9681624]

@d_graham Can i get the java utility created for Automatic fill of Line Number in BOM's via action Auto Line Number Structure option . please share the utility here.

[pcauwels]

We are facing the same issue described above.

Is it possible to receive the code to add an action in the WTPart action menu that will do it as shown above?

Thanks on advance.

[AJ_9942604]

Hello David,

Could you please provide a brief overview regarding the customization you did to achieve this?

Regards,

Albert

[d_graham]

BTW, I also have the auto line numbering working from a workflow. For example automate line number all WTParts on a Promotion Notice, Change Notice or Change Activity.

If anyone has a specific behavior they’d like to see post the EXACT details here or send me a private message with those details and I’ll try to write the code to do it.

David

[vschmaltz]

Hello David,

Is it possible for you to share an example of your Auto line number structure method with us? That is exactly what we are looking for.

Regards,

Vincent

[@_1647]

@d_graham 

Hi

could you help us for this customization cause we stucked over there.

[FabioValente]

Hi @d_graham , can you share the sample code of this funtionality?

We need it too and are stucked on solution.

thank you.

[@_1647]

I have a solution for this and using that utility we can do autonumbering for multilevel as well as for single level also we can auto-generate line numbers on a single click and if there are already few parts with number under structure then that utility will add unique numbers only on new parts.

[aacciano3]

Hi,

Are you able to share the utility?