Manage iProperties

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Manage iProperties.

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After completing this video, you'll be able to use and create custom iProperties and manage drawing properties.

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Inside of Inventor, we want to open up the supplied dataset Blower.IAM which is in the assembly subfolder under the Blower subfolder.

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We also want to begin by creating a new empty standard part and selecting Create.

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In this video, we're going to be focusing on iProperties, how to create custom iProperties and use parameters inside of those iProperties.

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So in this empty file, we're going to start by clicking the FX icon to go to our Parameters.

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We'll add a numeric called length.

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We'll set this equal to 4 inches, and we'll add another numeric called width, and we'll set this equal to 1 inch.

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For both of these, we're going to toggle the Export option and click Done.

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Next, at the top of the browser, we're going to right click on our part name and go to iProperties.

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Inside of iProperties, we're going to create custom iProperties.

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Notice the length and width values are already listed here,

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because we use the export option.

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We're going to add another custom property called part_MTL for material.

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In the value we're going to select equals.

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Start with the left brack, and in all caps, type the word “material.

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Then we're going to finish off the bracket and hit Enter.

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Notice it currently it says equal material, and if we select Apply, it says generic.

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Let's go ahead and close our iProperties.

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Go up to the Generic drop down and make sure that this is set to Steel.

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Next, we'll go back into our iProperties, back to Custom, and note that it's been updated to steel.

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Now we have our length and width values, which have automatically been populated

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and our part MTL, or material, that's set to steel currently.

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Next, we want to go to our project and create a custom description.

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We can create custom iProperties directly in any of these dialog boxes.

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For this one, we're going to start by typing in equals again using our brackets and type in “PART_MTL” for our part material,

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we'll close the bracket.

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We'll put a space and type the word “plate,” because we want the material name, and then the word plate.

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And then in closed brackets again, we'll type in “length”, close the brackets, put an X, and then in another set of brackets we'll type in “width”.

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It is important that everything here is case sensitive.

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We want to make sure we hit Enter and note that it's now populated with steel plate 4 inches by 1 inch.

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We added that custom iProperty equals part material plus the word plate,

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and then we use the length and the width values with an X between them to represent the overall part.

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This is a great way to add custom iProperties and also bring in parameters that we've set as export directly into our custom iProperty dialog.

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Next, let's go ahead and move over to the Blower.IAM.

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When we take a look at the bill of materials, we have the ability to add custom iProperties.

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In this case, let's add a custom iProperty that's called Backorder.

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Instead of setting this as Text, we want to set it as Yes/No and hit Enter.

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We'll select OK, and now we've got a new custom iProperty called Backorder on the right hand side.

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In order to see this populated, we need to have that backorder custom iProperty in all of our parts and sub-assemblies.

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For this example, we're going to add it to one of them by right clicking and navigating to the iProperties for just the sub-assembly.

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We're going to go to Custom and create a new Yes/No iProperty called Backorder.

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It needs to be exactly the same as the custom iProperty that we used at the top level.

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We're going to say OK and navigate back to our bill of materials.

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As we scroll to the right, we can now see that “No” is populated for that specific component or sub-assembly inside of our blower assembly.

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This is a great way to use customized iProperties to toggle values like yes/no for things like back ordered status.

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It's also a great way to add customized iProperties that can bring in information from your user parameters.

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Remember that when creating customized iProperties, we'll go back to our part for this,

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we have the ability to create them as yes/no items, text items, we can use a date, or we can set it as a number.

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Keep in mind that if you want a specific date, such as the creation of a file,

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you may want to use the text option and manually type in the date in whatever format you need.

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The date option is not able to be formatted, so that's something that you would need to take into consideration.

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Next, we want to talk about iProperties and drawings.

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So we'll go back to our blower and then from our dropdown we want to create a new drawing.

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I'm going to go ahead and move this view off to the left.

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When we take a look at a detailed drawing, we have the ability to create those custom iProperties directly in the drawing,

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as well as pull information from our part.

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We can see that the default parts list is populated with the part numbers, quantities, and items from the assembly.

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We also have information about drawn by checked in the date.

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Let's go to our document settings.

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In the tools area, select Document settings, go to Drawings.

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At the very bottom, we have an option to copy model iProperty settings.

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We're going to check this option to copy model iProperties, and we can pick specific iProperties we wish to copy,

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or we can select the All iProperties.

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If we have custom iProperties in our assembly, we'll be able to bring those in as well.

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Let's go ahead and select OK,

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Apply, Yes to our warning, and select Close.

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Now, if we go to annotations and add a text note, let's go ahead and just add a note up here.

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We can change the Type to Standard iProperties.

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We can go to the Property that we wish to use,

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in this case, Author.

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Then we can select this X icon to add the parameter.

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As soon as we do that, note that Autodesk Inc is populated inside of the note on our drawing sheet.

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So once again, this is a great way to use custom iProperties or default iProperties in our parts and our assemblies,

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not only at the part level, but the assembly level as well as the detailed drawing level.

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Let's go back to our Tools for one second and go to our document settings and going to our Drawing standards.

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Note that the drawing standards are going to be per our document setting.

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We also have the option to use additional sources for custom iProperties

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and we can search for those locations to import those values.

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In this case, we're working directly with created iProperties in the part assembly and the detailed drawing level.