How to Fix Solidworks BOM Not Updating Problem

Solidworks BOM Not Updating
Solidworks BOM Not Updating

In Solidworks, it may be beneficial to deal with several bill of materials inside a drawing. However, when one of the BOMs is deleted, the balloons on the referenced view may not always correspond to the remaining table. This blog post will concentrate on BOM and Balloons and update the BOMs as necessary.

How to Fix Solidworks BOM Not Updating Problem

Updating BOM Reference

  • Manually updating BOM Reference

Due to various setups, having numerous views and a BOM in a design might occasionally be advantageous. When one of the BOMs is removed, the Balloon on the view it refers to does not match the BOM that is still present. It does no good to re-insert the balloon. There are two ways to fix this:

  1. Add another view.
  2. Ensure the current view is referencing the right BOM.

Option 1 will not be discussed; instead, option 2 will be the main focus. To manually update the BOM, right-click on the view and select “Properties”.

On the view right click choose properties

Check the box next to “Link Balloon text to specified table” under balloons and then choose the table you wish to link to.

Drawing view properties balloons section

The active drawing document’s Bill of Materials (BOM) tables will all have their referenced configurations updated by this macro utilizing the SOLIDWORKS API. In the event that a drawing view is eliminated, the bill of materials tables will still be in place because they are not connected to the drawing views.

To the mentioned configuration of the view, BOMs are not connected. The BOM won’t update as a result of changes to the configuration specified by the view. In accordance with the sheet’s default view, this macro will locate any BOM tables and modify the settings that they reference.

  • How to update a named BOM

A named BOM can be updated to a specific version of the source file or item.

  • Expand BOM in the View area of the Bill of Materials tab, and then pick a named BOM.
  • Refresh (next to Versions) in the File section allows you to update the version of the source file. Refresh is represented by two icons:

One of the icons indicates that the source file or item has changed since the BOM was produced or modified. Warning icon The other indicator shows that you are using the most recent version, but that alternative versions are available. Refresh icon

  • Click the Refresh button. Warning and refresh icon
  • Expand the File Version list in the Update Source Version dialog box and choose the version to use.
  • The most recent version has the highest version number.
  • Select OK.

Options in the bill of materials

You may occasionally run across one of the following problems while dealing with subassemblies on BOMs.

  1. The BOM just lists the subassembly and not your parts.
  2. The subassembly may not be listed on the BOM by itself.

Most often, this is caused by a configuration parameter in the subassembly that is being impacted. Open the assembly, choose Configurations, then select the Active Configuration from the context menu by selecting “Properties”.

Assembly active configuration select properties

Look for the option “Bill of Materials Options” and the subsection “Child component display when used as a subassembly”.

Configuration properties bom options section

When the BOM is set to “Indented” AND the assembly is utilized as a subassembly in another assembly, you have three options for how to display the assembly;

  1. Show: This displays the full assembly along with its name and parts.
  2. Hide: In the BOM, this entirely conceals the pieces, leaving only the subassembly visible.
  3. Promote: When this radio button is selected, just the component pieces of the assembly—not the assembly as a whole—are displayed.

Depending with what you want to display in your BOM, each of them has a variety of purposes.