Importing/Exporting Bill of Materials information

The format of the Data

The import allows you the opportunity to do a mass update of bill of materials (BOM) information. Items can be either modified or removed from the Bill of Materials. Exporting this information makes it available for another Fishbowl installation to get your Bill of Materials definitions. You use a CSV file formatted in a way that Fishbowl knows what to do with the data. This is easiest to do with a spreadsheet program.

Fishbowl can add new bill of material items. The CSV file may have more columns in it than the ones listed below. All extra fields will be ignored. If there is an error on any line of the update file, the entire update will fail allowing you to easily fix the problem and rerun the update.

All lines affecting one Bill of Materials must be grouped together.

All fields will be one of two types:

Text - A textual value. May contain any character, but if it contains a line break, comma or double quote, it must be wrapped with double quotes on both ends. If a field is wrapped, all text must be inside the double quotes. Double quotes in the text value must be doubled to import properly
Numeric - A decimal number greater than or equal to zero with up to four digits after the decimal point. The number must not have thousands' separators in it - 1234.56 is a valid number, while 1,234.56 is not.

CSV Fields Describing the Bill of Materials Line

Column Name	Type	Description
BOM NUMBER	Text	The number for the new Bill of Materials. *Required*
BOM DESCRIPTION	Text	The description of the new Bill of Materials. *Required*
BOM ACTIVE	Text	The active status of the Bill of Materials. Accepted values: True or False. If not specified on import, will default to active.
AUTO CREATE	Text	The auto create setting for this Bill of Materials. Values must match one of the following: Never Short Quantity Order Quantity Always Create Build To Order *Required*
REVISION	Numeric	The revision number of this Bill of Materials.
CALENDAR CATEGORY	Text	The calendar category for the Bill of Materials.
QUICKBOOKS CLASS NAME	Text	The name of the QuickBooks class for this Bill of Materials.
BOM NOTE	Text	A note about the Bill of Materials.
BOM URL	Text	A URL pointing to more information.
CF-	Text (30 chars)	The Bill of Material's custom field value. The name of this column is CF- followed by the name of the custom field. There is one custom field column for each of the Bill of Material's custom fields.
ITEM TYPE	Text	The type of the Bill of Materials Item. Values must match one of the following: Finished Good Raw Good Repair Note *Required*
ITEM DESCRIPTION	Text	The description of the the Bill of Materials item. *Required*
PART NUMBER	Text	The part that is associated with this Bill of Materials Item. This field is required for all Bill of Materials Item types except work order and note.
QUANTITY	Numeric	The quantity associated with this Bill of Materials Item. Required for raw goods and finished goods.
UOM	Text	The unit of measurement to use for this Bill of Materials item. It must match (including case) an existing UOM abbreviation (not the name) in Fishbowl. *Required*
IS VARIABLE QUANTITY	Text	Determines if the Bill of Materials Item uses a variable quantity. Accepted values: True or False
MIN QUANTITY	Numeric	The minimum quantity that must be added if this Bill of Materials Item uses a variable quantity.
MAX QUANTITY	Numeric	The maximum quantity that can be added if this Bill of Materials Item uses a variable quantity.
OPTION GROUP	Text	The option group this Bill of Materials item belongs to. Leaving this field blank will not add the item to a group.
OPTION GROUP PROMPT	Text	The prompt asked of the user when configuring on a SO or MO. This is required if OptionGroup is set.
IS GROUP DEFAULT	Text	Determines if the Bill of Materials Item is the Item Group default when it is a part of an item group. Accepted values: True or False
PRICE ADJUSTMENT	Numeric	The amount to adjust th price by for every quantity above or below the default quantity. Price adjustments do not apply to Finished Goods.
IS ONE TIME ITEM	Text	Determines if this is a one time item. A one time item will not be affected by the quantity of a work order. Accepted values: True or False
IS STAGE	Text	Determines if the Bill of Materials Item is a stage. Accepted values: True or False
STAGE BOM NUMBER	Text	The Bill of Materials number of the stage Bill of Materials. The Bill of Materials specified must contain a finished good part that matches the Part field on this import line.
CONFIGURATION SORT ORDER	Numeric	The line number of this Bill of Materials item in the Configuration of a Bill of Materials. Configuration sort order is for reference only and is not used during the import.
CFI-	Text (30 chars)	The Bill of Material Item's custom field value. The name of this column is CFI- followed by the name of the custom field. There is one custom field column for each of the Bill of Material Item's custom fields.

Creating a CSV file

In order to import your data, you must first export it to a comma separated values (CSV) text file. All major spreadsheet programs can export data in this format. If you do not know how to export your data to a CSV file, please refer to the documentation of your spreadsheet program.

When exporting to CSV format, make sure to verify the following:

The data is formatted properly (see the first section)
The file must contain column names in the first row, using the column names in the table above.
Each bill of material item to be added or updated is on its own line
Commas are used to separate fields
Text values are surrounded by double quotes