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How to Add Components to Your Eturnity Library

Add main components from the component database and create your own cost items for labour and recurring costs.

Video Guide: Adding Components to Your Library

Note: This video still shows the earlier workflow with a single Add component button. The underlying concepts still apply, but the steps in the product have changed. The instructions further down in this article are the authoritative ones.

Watch this short overview of how to add components to your Eturnity library:

▶ EN - Add components to the library
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Key takeaways:

  • Eturnity maintains a component database of the major technical components (modules, inverters, etc.)

  • You search this database and transfer several components into your private library at once

  • Installation services, accessories and recurring costs are cost items you create yourself

Your Private Library

When you navigate to Library > Components, you see all the components you have selected and added to your private library. Active components are immediately available when creating projects, provided they have a name in the project's language, and can be configured with your specific prices and settings.

Two Ways to Add a Component

The toolbar above the component list holds two buttons. They lead to different things, and which one you need depends on the kind of component you want to add:

  • Add from component database: transfers main components — modules, inverters, battery storage systems, heat pumps and the other technical products — together with their data sheet values from the component database maintained by Eturnity

  • Create own cost item: creates an item that only exists in your company — one-off like labour or scaffolding, or recurring like a maintenance contract

You will find the same two buttons in the top right of a component's detail view, so you do not have to return to the list first.

Which Route for Which Component Type

Which of the two buttons you need depends solely on the component type. The library knows eleven component types in total, and the assignment is unambiguous.

These nine main components come exclusively from the component database. You add them via Add from component database and cannot create them yourself:

  • Photovoltaic panel

  • Inverter

  • Mounting system

  • Battery storage

  • Heater

  • Solar thermal collector

  • Thermal storage tank

  • Charging station

  • Energy manager

These two types you create yourself, via Create own cost item. They do not appear in the component database:

  • Other component

  • Recurring costs

An example: a Mounting system is a main component. You therefore add it via Add from component database, not via Create own cost item — it is not offered as a component type there at all. The same applies to modules, inverters, battery storage and every other type in the list above. Only your own cost and service items are created by you.

Your benefit: You get one of the largest solar component libraries on the market, with more than 10,000 technical components — all common PV modules, inverters, battery storage systems and further components, including data sheets and simulation parameters, without having to maintain technical data yourself.

Prerequisites

To add components to the library, you need:

  • Administrator role: only administrators can create and edit components in the library. Other roles see the list without the two buttons and without price columns; they can search and filter, but cannot select or export components. In the price table of the detail view, they only see Price break and Sales price

  • For main components, the corresponding licence in addition. Without it, Add from component database is not displayed; opening the link directly returns you to the component list

  • Access to the Library > Components area

Partner licence users: whether you can transfer main components from the component database yourself with a partner licence depends on your licence.

Adding Main Components From the Component Database

Main components are the heart of your project planning. Eturnity provides you with a comprehensive, continuously maintained database of all common components on the market — complete with data sheets, product images and technical specifications.

Important: you cannot create your own main components — only Eturnity can add them to the component database. The reason: main components require precise data sheets, product images and simulation parameters for accurate calculations and professional proposal generation.

Step-by-Step Instructions

  1. Navigate to Library > Components

  2. Click Add from component database in the toolbar at the top

  3. The page of the same name, Add from component database, opens, showing the component database as a table

  4. Narrow down the list: type a model or manufacturer into the Search text field, set filters under View settings, or sort using the arrow icon next to a column header

  5. Tick the checkbox on the left of every row you want. The checkbox in the header row selects all components on the current page

  6. A bar appears at the bottom showing the number of selected components

  7. Click Add components there

  8. Eturnity confirms with Your components have been created successfully and takes you back to Library > Components

Tip: Your selection is kept when you page through the list or change the sorting, so you can collect components across several pages. Changing the search or the filters, however, clears the selection, because a differently narrowed list is a different list. Add everything from one search before starting the next.

What the Table Shows You

  • Available in library: a tick means the component is already in your library. Those rows cannot be selected; the note reads This component is already in your library.

  • Datasheets: the available data sheets are linked per language and open straight from the list — so you can check you have the right model before transferring it

  • Brand name, Model, Component type and Created in database help you narrow things down. Which columns the table shows, and in which order, is set under View settings > Columns

  • Save a combination of filters, columns and page size under View settings with Save view and a View title. Next time, select the view in the drop-down next to the search field

You can select up to 1,000 components at a time. Once the limit is reached, no further checkboxes can be ticked and Eturnity points this out with You can select up to 1000 components at a time. In that case, add the first selection and then start a second round.

After Adding

Back in the component list, Eturnity arranges the view around what you have just added: the list starts at page 1, is sorted by the date the components were added (newest first), shows the columns that matter for price maintenance, and every newly added component carries a blue New marker. If your company works in several languages, the list is additionally narrowed to the language Eturnity is currently displayed in.

This is the right moment to enter prices and margins — the components are immediately selectable in projects, but initially without your prices: cost price, calculation surcharge and installation costs are usually set to 0.

What to Do When a Component is Missing

At the foot of the database page you will find the note Can't find the component you are looking for? with the same approach that applies here:

  1. First remove all filters and search again — a filter left in place is a common reason for a component not showing up

  2. Also check whether the component is already in your private library and merely archived there: in Library > Components, archived components are shown with a red name; under View settings, narrow the list down with the Status filter set to Inactive. Open the component and click Restore

  3. If it still does not appear, request its registration from support: by email to support@eturnity.com with the relevant data sheets, or via the chat in the Help Center

  4. The support team adds the component to the component database and informs you once that is done. It is then available to all Eturnity customers

  5. Afterwards, transfer it into your library as described above

Creating Your Own Cost Items

For services, installation work, accessories and individual items, you create your own cost items. Exactly two component types are available here:

  • Other component: one-off items such as mounting work, travel costs or a special product

  • Recurring costs: items that come up regularly, for example a maintenance contract or a monitoring subscription

All other component types are main components and come exclusively from the component database.

Creating Your Own Cost Item

  1. Click Create own cost item in the toolbar at the top

  2. Under Component type, choose either Other component or Recurring costs. The type you created last is preselected; after reloading the page, it is Other component again

  3. Enter a meaningful Name (examples: "Module installation", "Travel costs", "Maintenance contract"). The name is mandatory and may be up to 200 characters long; choose it so that you can find the item unambiguously in projects

  4. (Optional) Enter an Internal item number

  5. (Optional) Add a Description. This can appear in the proposal later on

  6. Tick at least one box under Technology affiliation — without it, the component cannot be created

  7. Click Add. The detail view of the new component opens so you can enter prices and further details right away; until then, all prices are 0

Multilingual companies: Eturnity creates your own cost item only in the language you are using Eturnity in when you create it. To make it available in projects in another language as well, add that language in its detail view via Add language, enter a name there and save.

Why Technology Affiliation Matters

The technology affiliation determines:

  • Relevant selection: it defines for which systems — photovoltaics or heat pump, for example — the component is available in projects at all

  • Organisation: components are grouped by technology in the bill of materials and in the proposal

  • Price dependencies: certain automatic price scaling options are only available with an unambiguous assignment. The "per module" dependency, for instance, can only be selected if the component is assigned exclusively to photovoltaics

Assignment Strategies

  • Specific assignment: assign the component to a single technology for clearer organisation and maximum configuration flexibility

  • Multiple assignment: for cross-cutting services such as "project planning" or "maintenance" that apply to several technologies

Best Practices

Recommended Approach For Starting To Build Your Private Library

  • Work in batches: add one coherent group per search — all modules from one manufacturer, for example — instead of collecting across the whole database. This matches how the selection behaves and makes the subsequent price maintenance easier

  • Focus on frequency: prioritise components you use regularly. A large library is no advantage if half of it never makes it into a proposal

  • Enter prices straight away: use the New marker after adding to give the freshly added components their prices and margins immediately

  • Organise thoughtfully: use consistent naming and technology assignments when creating your own components

  • Component descriptions: add detailed descriptions for your own cost items that appear in proposals

  • Internal item numbers: use your own item number so items can be reconciled with your ERP system

  • Regular review: review your library regularly to archive unused components and add new ones

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