How to Import a Bill of Materials (BOM)

In this article, we will be discussing how to add a bill of materials ("BOM") to a page in DocuStudio.

Article Topics

• How to Add a BOM to a Page
• How to Override an Existing BOM or Merge Two BOMs 

How to Add a BOM to a Page

Ideally, your Bill of Materials (BOM) should be available in column-delimited format (i.e., Microsoft Excel) The first 1 through 7 steps in the process describe how to copy a parts list from an existing PDF catalog into Excel. If you already have the BOM in Excel format, start at step 8.

1. Open the BOM page in the PDF parts catalog.
2. Open a blank Excel document, then return to the parts catalog page that contains your parts list.
3. Hold ‘Alt’ on your keyboard and drag your mouse over the first column in your BOM.
4. Copy the entire column by letting go of ‘Alt’ and pressing ‘Ctrl ‘C’, or right click on your mouse and click ‘Copy.’ 
5.  Go to your open Excel file and click on cell ‘A1.’
6.  Paste the copied information in that cell.
7.  Continue copying each column from the PDF into the next column in the Excel document following steps 1 through 7. 
8. Copy all fields that contain information from Excel or exported parts list format delineated by column (ex. In this spreadsheet you would highlight cells A1 through E23 and copy).
9. Open DocuStudio and click the ‘Import BOM’ button  in the ‘Page’ ribbon.
10. Drag and drop column headers into the appropriate columns from the list on the left to the headers on the right above the BOM columns.
11. Once everything matches up, click the ‘Import’ button. 

How to Override an Existing BOM or Merge Two BOMs

1. Open up the parts page (.plz) file in Docustudio that contains the BOM that needs to be updated (superseded or merged with another list).
2. Copy all of the new information using 'Ctrl C' (must be delineated by column - PDFs need to transferred into Excel following steps in above instructions).
3. Click on the 'Import BOM' icon  in the ‘Page’ ribbon.
4. The information you copied should automatically populate in the 'Import BOM' table.
5. Check that the column headers match the information in the column.
6. Toggle the 'Override'/'Merge' option to pick whether you are overwriting the BOM, or if you are appending information to the current BOM. 
7. Click the 'Import' button to complete your changes. 

For complete instructions on how to create, populate, hotpoint and save a new parts page, refer to: How to Create an Interactive Parts Page.