What is material ordering?
Ordering a sold project from your wholesaler normally means transferring the bill of materials by hand into an order form or the provider's webshop – component by component, article numbers included.
Your benefit: with an ordering subscription, you create the order directly from the project's bill of materials. Components, quantities and – where set – article numbers are carried over automatically; you only adjust what's really needed.
Prerequisites
Administrator role, to set up an ordering subscription
Which wholesalers offer material ordering depends on your country and licence – for example Krannich or Solarmarkt in Switzerland, Tepto in Germany
Setting up an ordering subscription
Navigate to Library > Subscriptions
Find the Ordering type collection for your wholesaler in the Subscriptions table and click Subscribe
Once the subscription is active, an extra Order tab appears in every project.
Creating an order
The Order tab in a project initially contains a single tab, Bill of materials. As long as no order exists yet, it shows an empty state with the Create Order button.
In a project, open the Order tab and click Create Order in the Bill of materials tab
Choose the project variant you want to order for – the bill of materials is taken as a snapshot at this point; optional items aren't included
Once the order is created, a second tab, Order placements, appears next to Bill of materials – both sit within the same Order tab.
Adjusting the bill of materials for the order
In the Bill of materials tab, you now see all the items carried over, with supplier & article number (from the component library), component, internal item number, bill-of-materials quantity and order quantity. Adjust the order quantity here – independently of the bill-of-materials quantity, for instance if you already have material in stock.
Then select the items you want to order – all selected items must have the same supplier – and click Continue. The bin lets you discard a whole order again.
Sending an order
How the order is transmitted is set in the respective subscription and isn't something you choose. In Switzerland and Germany, orders are currently sent by CSV upload (e.g. with Krannich, Solarmarkt, Tepto): a CSV file is downloaded, which you upload yourself to the provider's webshop or send by email. With other providers, the order can instead be sent directly by email to a stored contact person.
Keeping track of orders
In the Order placements tab – right next to Bill of materials within the Order tab – you see all orders for this project, with reference, supplier, ordering method, and who ordered and when. Clicking a row reopens that order.