1. What is the material section?
All techpacks/products on PLMBR are divided between three main default sections i.e. sketches,
materials and
measurements, and the
custom sections.
The material section is one of the three main default sections where you will add all information (BOM or bill of materials) about the different types of materials you will use in your design such as fabrics, trims, hardware, labels, packaging, etc. in the form of a material table.
BOM rows are added in the material table in form of cards. Skip below to learn how to create one from scratch.
2. How to create a material table
There are 3 methods of adding cards in the material section:
2a. Adding individual cards
Step 1: There are two ways of adding material cards -
-
By clicking on + add material
By dragging in your material image file
Step 2: Start adding information to your materials table.
Pro tip: You can also enter information in the cells by simply using copy/paste from excel.
2b. By importing a CSV excel file
You can quickly create a material table by directly importing an Excel (CSV format only) with your product's BOMs and other realted information.
Before importing a csv file, make sure your material section is completely blank
Step 1: Click on this icon import materials from csv located on top-right of the material section.
Step 2: Browse and select the .csv file you wish to upload and click open.
You can use this excel template to update your material table data before importing it on PLMBR.
Step 3: This screen will pop-up where you will select the information from your CSV file you wish to include.
- Under Source you will see the names of the columns from your csv file
- Under Destination you will select and match the relevant columns where your table data should go.
- For e.g. if in your .csv a column in called CARD TITLE, then in the destination area you should also match it with
CARD TITLE
- In case you wish to hide a certain column into your material section, you can click on this
icon to hide a column as shown above
. Your data will be imported, but just won't be visible. You can always unhide that column late through the column manager.
-
You can switch any column to color column using the
icon.
-
Check
the columns you would like to show in your material table.
-
You can preview the columns and the order of the final table after you have made all the changes.
-
Click on the "Import CSV" icon to import the table with the final changes made by you.
To download this material table as a .csv, click on this icon export materials to csv located on the top-right of the material section.
2c. Sourcing from library
Who can use this feature? PLM premium and PLM professional
You can quickly create a material table by directly sourcing the cards from the library. Learn how to create a library here.
Step 1: Click on this icon and select Add materials from library from the drop down.
Step 2: Select the library folder and then select the library from where you want to source the cards. You can also change the library later.
Step 3: Click on + Select material from library to add cards to the section.
Step 4: Select the cards(s) to add them to the material section.
Once selected, all the selected cards will be visible in the section.
The sourced cards can only be edited from the source library.
3. How to add, hide, delete, and rearrange columns in the material section
Step 1: To make any changes in the column, click on the icon located at the right top corner of the table.
Step 2:
To add a new column, click on the +ADD COLUMN at the bottom of the window.
To hide a column, click on the
icon and this will hide that column from the table.
To delete a column in a card click on the
icon.
To rearrange a column, click on the
icon then drag and drop to rearrange that column.
To change the non-color column into the color column, click on
icon.
4. What is color and non-color column
In the materials table, all columns highlighted in green indicate the color-combos of your design. While the one in dark green is selected as the sample color. You can change the sample color by either clicking on the column header or by going to your techpack/product settings.
The non-colored columns (i.e., not in green) don't indicate any design colors.
You can switch any column from color to non-color (and vice -versa) using the icon located inside your column manager.
5. How to add sub-materials in the material section
Sometimes it is required to have sub-materials under a major heading of the material. They can be created on PLMBR by following these steps.
Step 1: Click on the icon located on the right end of each card.
Step 2: Go to the materials tab and click on add sub-material.
New sub-rows will be added and you can enter the material details in those sub-materials.
6. How to print material section in the PDF?
To print your custom section/s in your techpack/product PDF, navigate to the doc view/tech pack page. From the document settings make sure the material section is selected. If not, check the material section and wait for a couple of seconds for your new rendered PDF with the material section.