BOM Comparison

You can compare one bill-of-materials to another to see which items have been added, removed, or updated.

A BOM comparison can be performed on the Bill of Materials tab to compare the BOM of one item to the BOM of adifferent item or to compare a revision of an item against a different revision of the same item allowing you to identify changes at the item field or attribute level. For example, you can compare two different but similar components or compare the working version of an item against the latest released revision of the same item. If you are using change orders, you can compare the differences between the pending changes and the latest released revision of the related item so you can see the changes that will take effect when the change order is approved.

When comparing two BOMs, you can change any of these parameters for either of the two items:

Revision

Select a different revision for one or both items.

BOM Configuration

Change the configuration of either item to display the BOM assembly in one of four states:

• Released Revisions: displays the released revision for all children in effect on the date given and is applicable for any date.
• Working Revisions: displays the working revision for all children, applicable for today and any future date.
• Pending Changes: displays the working version for any child where the working version is associated with the same change order that the Root is associated with. Otherwise, displays the Release Revision effective on the given date.
• All Pending Changes: displays the working version for any child where the working version is associated with a change order. Otherwise, displays the Release Revision effective on the given date.

As of

Change the date to view either item's BOM at a certain point in time.

The differences are identified on the Bill of Materials tab, including changes not visible on the screen, changes in child items that are not evident in the parent (indirect changes), and changes in attachment metadata. Changes to custom BOM properties that are not included in the current BOM view are not shown in the comparison. Be sure to include the custom properties you want to compare in your BOM view.

The BOM displayed reflects the view as of the date and configuration selected in View Settings. The view is summarized in the view description above the BOM.

If the selected date is outside of the effectivity range, the system identifies the revision that is or was in effect on that date and reconfigures the BOM accordingly.

When a date is not specified, the date is implied and calculated using the closest date to today for which the selected revision was in effect, is in effect, or will be in effect.

You can also export the results to Excel where you can sort and filter data for a more in-depth analysis.

Level-by-level Comparison

Item revisions can be specified and pinned. Pinning allows you to lock a particular revision of an item in the context of a parent assembly. When an item has a pinned relationship to a child, that child is always selected regardless of the date or the revision bias. A pinned relationship always overrides any other configuration option. Pinning an item does not pin the item's children. If the two BOMS being compared are fully pinned, they can be compared level-by-level.

Pinning overrides all other configuration options. When a BOM structure is fully pinned, configuration changes are not possible. Because of this, the BOM comparison can take place at every level. While this provides significant performance improvements when comparing two BOMs, fully pinned BOMs are not generally recommended unless another system is in place for selecting items, such as Autodesk Vault.