Electrical Design Software | Elecdes Design Suite by Scada Systems Ltd

How to Generate Multi-line Materials Reports

Fundamentals

The multi-line materials reports contain the same information as the traditional materials reports, however the data is is arranged better for importing onto a drawing or for printing. The report for each component or type of component is arranged into a block of data that spans multiple lines. Each report is split into pages, with each page in a separate file such that each file can be imported onto a separate drawing without further filtering or splitting of the report file.

Multi-line bill of materials reports can be generated by enabling the option Generate multi-line reports on the Ebase dialog. Ebase uses customisable multi-line report templates located in the <EDS>\RTEMPLATE directory in the current installation for setting up the format of these reports. The reports are created in the folder \MATERIALS_REPORTS in your current project directory.

The following table shows the generated multi-line reports :

Multi-line reportBase report usedTemplate file used
<ProjectName>BOM_ML_<PAGE>.dbf<ProjectName>BOM.dbftemplate_BOM_ML.dbf
<ProjectName>BSUM_ML_<PAGE>.dbf<ProjectName>BSUM.dbftemplate_BSUM_ML.dbf
<ProjectName>BOMSA_ML_<PAGE>.dbf<ProjectName>BOMSA.dbftemplate_BOMSA_ML.dbf

Multi-line reports file naming

The general format for the multi-line report dbf files is <PROJECT NAME>XXX_ML_<PNL>_<PAGE>. An example of filename used for multi-line BOM report is Project1Bom_ML_CP1_1.dbf.

The explanation of each part of the file name is as follows :

  • <PROJECT NAME> is the name of current project ( e.g "Project1" is used in the example filename ).

  • XXX_ML identifies multi-line version for the materials reports ( e.g. BOM_ML is used in example filename comes from BOM report ). The names of the multi-line versions for BOMSA and BSUM will contain BOMSA_ML and BSUM_ML respectively.

  • <PNL> identifies that every component listed in the multi-line report belongs to the <PNL> specified in the filename ( e.g "CP1" is used in example filename ). You can configure the #PANELFILTER attribute in the template file to generate separate reports for each panel.

  • <PAGE> This number will represent the page number for multi-line reports ( e.g "1" is used in example filename ). You can configure the #LPP attribute in the template file to modify the number of lines per page.

Procedure

  1. Save the current drawing, if it is currently open in a CAD session. This ensures that the material report function is not working with an old drawing file while the drawing session has new data.

  2. Run EBASE.

  3. Ensure your current EBASE project contains the drawing files relevant to a bill of materials.

  4. Tick Material Reports

  5. Tick Generate Multi-line Reports

  6. Click Compile Reports

  7. Ebase will generate the material reports first and then create the Multi-line Reports.

See also:

How to Generate a Bill of Materials

Customise BOM Multi-line Report Formats

Customise BSUM Multi-line Report Formats

Customise BOMSA Multi-line Report Formats

Multi-line reports customisation attributes