Items, statuses, revisions, and versions in Upchain

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We are about to get you up to speed on items in Upchain.

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Specifically, this video will explain what an item is,

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how it works and help you to understand how different types of data are managed within an item.

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So let's find out what items are all about.

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Items in Upchain represent an object in your Bill of Materials.

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This can be an assembly, sub assembly, part or component.

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Each of these items are listed as a single line within your Bill of Materials.

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The best way to think about an item in Upchain is to think of it like a box.

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An item contains a set of information about the object listed.

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So what information is connected to an item?

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Well one of the key piece of information is item attributes.

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These are things such as quantity, manufacturer, cost and so forth.

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The CAD model is also part of item information.

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This means we can see and even work with the CAD file

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which is usually imported into Upchain and managed by its corresponding item.

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An item can also have drawings attached to it.

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These can be managed by the CAD model or attached separately.

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Translations are generated automatically by Upchain

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throughout the lifecycle of the item and documents are handled in a similar way to what drawings are,

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but these documents are different from CAD files, drawings and translations.

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These are usually support documents such as information about the part or supplier.

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Visualizations can be created manually to compare to similar objects

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and markups are changes related to the information for the item,

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for example adding comments or annotations to a drawing.

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Along with the information we just discussed

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items also have a data model to help identify it from other items in Upchain.

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This model consists of four main pieces of information.

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Item number, major revision, minor revision and version number.

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We'll start to unpack these aspects in more detail in upcoming videos.

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Now that we have an idea about the information contained within an item,

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let's go and see how to view this information in Upchain.

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In this video, we will be discussing the key item types listed in the Bill of Materials

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and the different status is an item can have throughout its lifecycle.

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Working with items requires a thorough understanding of how they might appear

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and what level of development they may be in.

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So let's take a look.

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Remember, you always need to select a project first

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in order to set the context for what you will be working with.

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Let's take a closer look at our fishing rod assembly.

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We can expand the parent in the navigation tree to view the items beneath it

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or simply select an item in the tree to have it displayed in the center of you.

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We can see the rod itself and also the fishing reel as separate parent assemblies.

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We can then expand further in either of the views to take a look at the items beneath our rod assembly,

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we will expand further on navigating the BOM management interface in an upcoming video.

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This fishing rod serves as a basic introductory assembly to explain some key concepts.

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The icons next to each item are a great way to help visually identify the item type.

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This will also help you to identify assemblies from individual parts and components.

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Assemblies for example, have three shapes grouped together

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while single items imported from CAD are usually displayed as a box icon.

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Upchain offers many different icon variations to help distinguish item types

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and the icon will depend on the chosen item type.

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Now that we have an understanding of the icons that we will find in our BOM structure.

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Let's take a closer look at different status is for our items.

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When an item is first added to a BOM structure, it is assigned status of development.

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With this status, the item can now be edited, meaning documents can be attached,

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attributes updated and general changes made to the model and drawings.

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When we are satisfied with the state of an item,

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we can submit it to a change request to begin a formal release.

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In this case, the status of the item will update to pending.

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This means that the item has been submitted for review and is now locked for editing.

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Upon approval of the change request, the item status changes to released.

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This means it is locked from most forms of editing and can now be made available to other departments.

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Should a change need to be made, a new version of the item will first need to be created.

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Feel free to jump over to the help center for more information on item types, icons or status.

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So now that we've identified what items might potentially look like

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and the possible status as they can be in.

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We will discuss versions and revisions in the next video.

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In this video, we will go through in detail what exactly are item versions what are item revisions and how these two works together.

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It's important to understand how an item's life cycle operates from Upchain's perspective.

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And how this life cycle is affected by changes and updates.

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Items and Upchain can contain a large amount of data.

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As we have previously seen, this can be status, attributes, documents, and CAD files.

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Another piece of information we have for an item is the major and minor revision numbers and the version numbers.

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So, how do version numbers and revision numbers work together?

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Well, as we will see when we make changes here to our items, the revision number will not change until the item gets released.

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The revision number will only change when we move the item from a development state into a released state.

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As we mentioned previously, a released state indicates that the item is now formally approved.

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Bear in mind that some attributes that don't affect the item data itself like cost or quantity can still be edited after release.

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Just to make last minute adjustments simpler and easier.

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So, what happens if we need to make a change to a released item?

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Since the item has been released we need to create a new version of this item.

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Items can have new versions created very easily through the web application, but it will strip any CAD and attached files from that item.

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If you have CAD or other documents attached to the item and you wish to retain them,

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you will want to create a new version via the CAD plugin in your CAD software.

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This is covered in-depth in our MCAD course.

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And if this is relevant to you, you may want to head over there once you've completed BOM management.

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Once in development, changes can now be made.

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For example, we could update the description for this part if it was accidentally omitted prior to release.

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Remember that changes to attributes and within the CAD plugin will not affect the version numbers,

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while changes to the status and versioning up in the web application will.

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Moving an item from development over into released again will always be done with a change request.

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And we look at change requests in greater detail in the change management learning path.

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Now looking at an already released item, the major revision number is AA.

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This indicates that it is the first major revision of this item.

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And the same would be applicable for a minor revision in the case that we had set the affecting change request to be a minor revision.

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In that case, the minor revision number would have versioned up instead.

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The version number of an item indicates just that the version of that particular item for a specific revision.

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For example, looking at this item, we can see here that the version number is set to V1,

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and the major and minor revision numbers are set to XX.

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The item version will change in certain situations such as when the item is released and a new item version is then created at V0.

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The version number will increase whenever you create a new version of that item.

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File version also exists for items with a CAD file attached.

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This number will adjust whenever a CAD user checks out the CAD file and then saves changes back into Upchain.

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It also tracks incremental changes to the model over time.

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For example, this top clip item is currently set at major revision AC,

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minor revision A1, item version 1, and file version 11.

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Meaning that the latest iteration of this item is referencing the 11th CAD version,

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and that there are 10 versions prior to this in Upchain that reference previous versions.

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As we have now seen, both the revision number and version number work closely together,

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to help indicate where a particular item is in its development life cycle.