Bommer is designed to be adaptable to almost any bill of materials workflow out there. A large part of adapting Bommer is defining the properties you want to include in your bill of materials. The Bommer Settings dialog lets you see what properties are configured, add new properties, surface built-in properties (such as mass, bounding box, or file metadata), change existing properties, and delete unused properties; you can also import and export your configuration to share with colleagues or back up your Bommer system. Read on to learn how to use the Settings command.
Launching the Settings command
To launch the Settings command, navigate over to the Bommer BOM Manager in your SOLIDWORKS task pane, and click on the gear icon in the toolbar above the table:
The very first tab in the dialog that pops up is the Custom Properties tab, where you can set up the properties Bommer will show in the BOM.
What properties come out of the box with Bommer?
Bommer comes with some pre-establish properties out of the box, such as part name, part number, description, make/buy indicator, etc; these are the basics for what we believe constitutes a Bill of Materials. By default, Bommer is set up to use unique custom property names to avoid collisions with your existing SOLIDWORKS properties. You can use these properties as is, edit these properties to connect them to your existing data, or delete them and add your properties anew.
Does it work with PDM?
Yes! Bommer can read and write any custom properties you currently have on your PDM data cards, and will only change the underlying file if it is checked out and writeable. To use these properties, use the SOLIDWORKS custom property name when configuring your properties.
How to create a new property
Start by pressing the Add button:
This will open the dialog to create a new property
What kind of properties can I create?
Bommer lets you create two distinct types of properties: custom properties and builtin properties. Custom properties represent SOLIDWORKS custom properties, and can be added as text fields, true/false checkboxes or multiple choice drop-downs which represent a bounded set of values a property can take.
Builtin properties surface any of the dozens of data points that Bommer reads, exports, or computes when building the bill of materials for your model. These can include mass properties, author information, document paths, and more.
Custom properties
To add a SOLIDWORKS custom property to Bommer, select Text, True/False, or Multiple Choice from the left hand side. For each property, you will need to specify some key information to tell Bommer how to get and set values for that property, and how to display that data within Bommer's interfaces:
- Category: Bommer groups your properties in its screens into categories; the category is used to facilitate this grouping, and to disambiguate properties with the same name.
- Name: The name for the property. This is what will be displayed as the head of the column for that property. This can be whatever you want it to be.
- Custom Property: The name of the SOLIDWORKS custom property that Bommer will read from and write to for this Bommer property.
- Scope: Scope controls where the custom property Bommer will use is located. For a component, scope controls whether a property is fetched from a file's custom properties, or from a configuration specific property. Additionally, Bommer allows you to define assembly-specific properties called Top Level properties that store information about a component within the assembly's data. You can also check Use Part (@) if value in scope is missing to allow Bommer to fall back to the part file's custom properties; this is useful for design-table properties and in other cases where a configuration property might override some default value.
- Order: In what order are the properties displayed in both this menu and the all properties view. The lower the number the higher up in the priority it will be. When creating a new property it will always default to the next available number. If you change this though to an existing number, it will replace it at that number and shift the other properties accordingly.
Text Properties
The most versatile and simple of the properties you can create. This property is a text field that you can fill with whatever data is needed.
Multiple Choice
This field allows you to create a property with a pre-determined set of values that can be chosen from.
In addition to the above information, Multiple choice properties have the following attributes:
- Values: These are the options for what can be selected for this particular field. Typing the value in the text line and the pressing add will move it to the Values box and these will be the ones you can choose from.
- Allow new values in editor: This checkbox will allow new values to be added to the list of options on the table itself. If this is not checked then only "approved" values can be used.
True/False
This creates a checkbox in the live table that can be toggled.
Builtin properties
These are some of the most powerful properties that Bommer unlocks for use in your BOM, as much of these data are not available or exportable en masse from the standard SOLIDWORKS tools. To define a builtin property, select Builtin from the selection on the left. Similar to custom properties, builtin properties require a Category, Name and Order. Additionally, you must select which builtin property to associate with this Bommer property:
For a list of properties that are supported check out our guide on builtin properties. We are always adding new ones to the list. If there are bits of data that you would like to access or request as a builtin, then feel free to reach out to support@bommer.io and let's chat.
How to edit an existing property
To edit an existing property, you can double click on the property row in the table or single click and then click the pencil icon in the toolbar. From there, the Edit Property dialog as shown above will pop up with the information for the existing property already populated. Make your edits and press OK to save them, or press Cancel to discard your edits.
How to delete a custom property
You can delete a property by single-clicking on a row to select it and pressing the red X icon in the toolbar. You can delete multiple properties by selecting multiple rows before pressing the delete button. You can even delete all of the properties to start from scratch by selecting all rows and hitting Delete.
How to save your changes
To save any changes to your properties back to the Bommer settings storage, press the green check save button in the toolbar. Once you close the Settings dialog, Bommer will read in any changes and reload your bill of materials data using the new settings.
I made a mistake!
No worries! You can use the Undo and Redo buttons in the toolbar to undo and redo any changes to your properties, e.g. adding a new property, editing a property, deleting one more properties. You can also press the underlined back arrow reset button to revert your changes back to the default properties Bommer ships with.
How do I share my properties with my colleagues?
To make sure everyone on your team is working from the same set of properties, you can use the Export Settings and Import Settings commands, located inside the Settings dialog. The Export Settings command produces a file that can also be stored in your vault or other configuration management system. You can find more information in guide on importing and exporting your Bommer settings. Please be aware that if you import settings it will overwrite any settings in your Bommer system. We recommend exporting your settings before importing your team or company standards, just in case.
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