Sharing your BOM with your team and organization can be a hassle and a lot can be lost in the process. Here at Bommer we develop software that removes the hassle from the whole BOM process however so we have found that through the use of Google Drive Stream sharing your BOM has never been easier. Read on to find out more. 

Setting Up Google Drive File stream locally

If your organization already uses Google Drive and other Google services then one of the most useful features for sharing your materials is the Drive. This allows for the live storing and sharing of materials in the cloud. For details on how your administrator can help set up Google Drive File Stream locally for your team please see their guide on it here. 

Once this process is set up then you will have local access to the files on your particular machine, without having to manually upload the files. 

Exporting your BOM in SOLIDWORKS

Once you have your File Stream set up and a location was chosen for the proper maintenance of your BOM you have to export it. We have written a guide on the details of exporting your BOM in SOLIDWORKS here that you can check out.

When exporting your BOM make sure to always save to the same location and overwrite the file each time. This way anyone with access to the folder or a link to the shared file can just refresh and see the latest version.

Sharing the BOM

Once the file has been uploaded to the Drive location then there are two ways to share the file.

The first is to get a shareable link to the file. Right click on the file itself and click Get a shareable link. This will copy a link to your clipboard that can then be sent to the proper recipients. These links can always be refreshed and will show the latest version of the BOM as long as it is saved to the same location each time.

Do keep in mind that you must turn on link sharing for this to work. That pop up will appear automatically when you press the shareable link button. Just mouse over to the switch and make sure that it is green as seen above.

The second way to share the file is to grant access to the file itself. This the more traditional method of sharing files within an organization. Anyone with access to the file will be able to look at the file whenever they want by accessing their Shared with me files on Drive.

This is done by right-clicking on the file and pressing the Share button. Then you add the emails of the people that you are sharing it with and they will get notified. Again anytime you update the file they can access also updates and they will see the latest version of the BOM.