Creating BOM items in Upchain

In this lesson, we'll explore the two ways of creating items in your bill of materials without CAD: the BOM interface in the web app, and the Upchain Office plugin for Excel.

Creating items in the BOM interface

Understanding how to create items and assign the proper item type is critical to maintaining an organized bill of materials. Let’s start creating items in the BOM interface of the Upchain web application.

Key takeaways

1. Creating items in the BOM interface is handy for individual items that do not have a CAD model associated with them.
2. Choose the correct item type in order to set the structure and context.
3. Child items can be created under any item listed in the BOM structure, but typically children are added to an assembly.

Creating items using the Excel plugin

Now that we know how to create items in the web app, let’s learn how to import an entire BOM structure using the Upchain for Office Excel plugin. We’ll also explore some of the best practices in this process.

Before getting started:

If you wish to perform the actions demonstrated in the following video, you must install the Upchain for Office plugin. This is available from the Plugins page in the Upchain web app. 

Upchain plugins require an up-to-date version of Java 8 (64-bit) or Amazon Corretto 8 installed on your computer. If you have the 32-bit version installed, please uninstall that version. You must also have admin rights to your computer in order to install software locally.

Key takeaways

1. To maintain the structure of your BOM, be sure to map columns for ID and Parent ID.
2. It is mandatory to map the fields for Item Number and Item Name before importing.
3. Templates are a great way to save time and ensure imports are consistent.