Hello all. I need some help.
I found that in a two level BOM scenario that includes:
a) Raw Material Items (not BOM’able) that are used in a BOM for a Sub-Assembly Item
b) the sub-assembly (BOM’able) is used in a BOM for a Product Item.
when clicking on the Linked With icon while in an item record for a raw-material item - links exist for both level BOM’s. (the sub-assembly BoM and also the finished Product BOM).
However, when clicking the Linked With icon in the sub-assembly item record no links show to the BOM of the finished Product Item.
Is this planned behaviour? Is there any other way to easily show where a sub-assembly is used? The functionality of the “Linked Documents” feature seems to be the natural way to show where an item is used irrespective if it is a leaf or a node in the BOM tree structure.
Another +1. There must be an easy way to get from an Item to all a list of the BOMs it appears on.
Hello Dale,
The BOM report can be filtered on ‘Item Code (BOM Item)’ to ‘Equals’ the sub-assembly Item Code.
This will list all BOMs that the sub-assembly is a member of.
I consider this the “long way” to solve the need. In my mind the “Linked With” button is a basic need for users hopping from one record to related records without the need to search. Just think of the time lost in day-to-day operations if every move from one related record to another would require a search/filter
Another thought just crossed my mind: If the “Linked With” function does not show any BOMs that the sub-assembly is a member of then what happens if the sub-assembly item happens to be deleted. Will there be validation and an error message that the item cannot be deleted as is appears to be linked to a top level BOM? (Assuming any other links have been released or did not exist). I’d rather not try this on a production instance.
Digging deeper into the logic…
Can anyone on the development team confirm this?
If the “Linked With” lookup for parent BOMs is done only on the ‘BOM exploded items list’ then sub-assembly items will always be missed as they will ONLY appear in the ‘BOM items list’. This also explains how bottom level items (not BOMable) will appear linked to both intermediate level BOMs and top level BOMs.
It appears that there is a need to fix the “Linked with” lookup to search, at a minimum, only the ‘BOM items lists’ (not the exploded ones). Alternately, if membership in all parent levels of BOMs is a desired feature, then both ‘BOM items’ and ‘BOM exploded items’ need to be searched with duplicate appearances weeded out. (UNIQUE).
Should I open an issue on this?
I am a bit concerned about data integrity with the linkage apparently being missed by the system.
Hi @davidgal, I am seeing the same behaviour as you with the linked-with icon. I have a 4-level BOM (top-level assembly to lowest-level leaf node) and only the leaf node shows any “linked-with” BOMs (lists all three parents).
I also tried using the BOM report as you described to show “where used” for an Item. It worked, but I’m not sure I would have found this without your hint. How did you find this?
Also, I am concerned by how long it is taking to search for linked items (from clicking linked-items, until either a list or “no links found”). I have only 20 Items and three BOMs in a test database and the search is taking 15 seconds or more, and I wonder what will happen with with 25,000 items and 1000 BOMs?