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Chapter 5 – Report Configuration

ARES Electrical 2027, Reports, Bill of Materials Settings, Header, Detail, Drawings, Attributes, Properties, Weight, Bill of Materials

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Written by Vinicius Moraes

Introduction

In Chapter 3, the reports were generated with the default settings of ARES Electrical. Each report, such as the bill of materials, is built from a configuration, and each configuration uses drawings (blocks) to define how the report looks on the page.

By customizing these blocks, you can adapt the reports to your company’s or customer’s standard: change the header, add new columns and show other component information.

In this chapter, the bill of materials of the direct-on-line starter from Chapter 3 receives a new Weight column, with the weight of each catalog part.

Working with the Bill of Materials Settings

Opening the Bill of Materials Settings

  1. On the Reports tab, go to the Templates panel and click Report Templates…

    Report Templates… button in the Templates panel of the Reports tab

  2. In the Bill of Materials Settings window, in the Configuration field, choose ANSI - BILL OF MATERIAL.

    Bill of Materials Settings window with the ANSI - BILL OF MATERIAL configuration on the General tab

ARES Electrical shows the options of the selected configuration, organized in five tabs:

  • General – page group where the list is created, sorting and grouping of the items.

  • Data – which items are included in the list, filter and how accessories are listed.

  • Coordinates and Distances – start position of the list, lines per page and height of each line.

  • Breaks – how the list is split across pages.

  • Drawings – the blocks used to build the list.

The Blocks of a Report

On the Drawings tab, each line indicates a block used by the list. The Value column shows the address of the block, and the Description column explains the function of each one:

  • Header – drawing inserted at the top of each page of the list, with the title, the column names, the date and the time. Example: QCCFG\DRAWINGS\ANSI\HEADER-BOM.

  • Detail – drawing that represents a component in the list. ARES Electrical repeats this block once for each item. Example: QCCFG\DRAWINGS\ANSI\LINE-BOM.

  • Accessory drawing – drawing that represents an accessory in the list.

  • Footer – drawing inserted at the bottom of each page of the list.

  • Totalizing – drawing that represents the total in the list.

The two main blocks are the Header and the Detail: together, they form the report table. The blocks have attributes, text fields that ARES Electrical fills in automatically. In the Detail block, each attribute is linked to a property, which indicates which item information appears in that column, such as the quantity, the manufacturer or the code.

Drawings tab with the Header, Detail, Drawing accessory, Footer and Totalizing blocks

📖INFO: The columns of the Header and the Detail must be aligned. Whenever you add, remove or change the width of a column in one of the blocks, make the same change in the other.

Creating New Blocks from Existing Ones

Instead of changing the default blocks, create new blocks from them and make the changes in the copies. This way, the default list remains available.

  1. On the Drawings tab, check the address of the block in the Value column, for example QCCFG\DRAWINGS\ANSI\HEADER-BOM.

  2. In ARES Electrical, click Open (or press Ctrl+O).

  3. Browse to the C:\ProgramData\AE\ELECTRICALDB\QCCfg\Drawings\ANSI folder.

  4. Select the HEADER-BOM.dwg file and click Open.

  5. Click Save As and save the block in the same folder with a new name, for example HEADER-BOM-PESO.dwg.

  6. Repeat steps 2 to 5 for the Detail block: open LINE-BOM.dwg and save it as LINE-BOM-PESO.dwg.

    New blocks HEADER-BOM-PESO.dwg and LINE-BOM-PESO.dwg open in ARES Electrical

ARES Electrical now has the new blocks available for editing, with the same content as the originals.

📖INFO: QCCFG represents the ARES Electrical configuration folder, C:\ProgramData\AE\ELECTRICALDB\QCCfg. The address in the Value column does not show the .dwg extension, but the block file is a regular drawing.

💡TIP: You can also open and save the report blocks from the Ribbon:

  • To open a block: on the Manage tab, Settings panel, click Edit Control…

  • To save the block with a new name: select the block entities and, in the same drop-down button, click New Control…

💡TIP: Also create a new configuration for the list. In the Bill of Materials Settings window, click Save as… and enter a name, for example LISTA DE MATERIAIS PESO. This way, the default configuration remains available when generating the list.

⚠️WARNING: Do not change the default blocks of ARES Electrical. Changes to these blocks affect all lists that use them and may be lost in software updates.

Customizing the Blocks

Editing the Header Block

In the Header block, we will adjust the date and the time and add the Weight column.

  1. Open the new Header block, for example HEADER-BOM-PESO.dwg.

  2. At the top of the header, find the DATE / DATA and HOUR / HORA attributes, and double-click the date attribute.

    Date and time attributes at the top of the Header block

  3. In the Edit BlockAttribute dialog box, check the fields:

    • Name – identification of the attribute, for example VARIABLE-1-8.

    • Caption – text that appears before the value in the report, for example fecha:. Change it to Date:.

    • Value – property that ARES Electrical uses to fill in the attribute. For the date, the property is data.

  4. Click OK.

    Edit BlockAttribute dialog box for the date attribute, with the data property

  5. Double-click the time attribute and check the fields in the same way: Caption Hour: and Value hora. Click OK.

    Edit BlockAttribute dialog box for the time attribute, with the hora property

  6. Create the space for a new column in the header table, for example between DESCRIPTION and PART NUMBER.

  7. In the new column, write the title PESO (KG), with the same text style as the other columns.

    Header block with the new PESO (KG) column

  8. Save and close the block.

ARES Electrical now shows the header with the date, the time and the new PESO (KG) column.

📖INFO: The button next to the Value field opens the Field window, which inserts a drawing field into the attribute. Choose the Category, for example Date and Time, the field Name and the Format. The Preview area shows the result, and Field expression shows the code that will be saved in the attribute.

Button next to the Value field in the Edit BlockAttribute dialog box

Field window with the Category, Name and Format lists

📖INFO: The date and the time in the header are filled in automatically when the list is generated. This makes it easy to know whether the printed list is up to date.

📖INFO: Always create attributes in UPPERCASE, such as VARIABLE and TP_KG, so that they work correctly.

Editing the Detail Block

In the Detail block, we will add the attribute that shows the weight of each part.

Unlike the Header, the Detail block has no fixed lines or texts: it is made only of the attributes of one line of the list, one for each column. When you open the block, each attribute appears with the text VARIABLE.

  1. Open the new Detail block, for example LINE-BOM-PESO.dwg.

    Detail block LINE-BOM-PESO.dwg open, with the VARIABLE attributes of each column

  2. Copy an existing attribute, for example the quantity attribute, and paste it in the position of the PESO (KG) column, aligned with the column title in the Header.

  3. Double-click the copied attribute.

  4. In the Edit BlockAttribute dialog box, fill in the fields:

    • Name – VARIABLE.

    • Caption – KG, the weight unit.

    • Value – TP_KG, the property that ARES Electrical uses to fill in the weight of each part.

  5. Click OK.

    Edit BlockAttribute dialog box for the weight attribute, with the PESO property

  6. Save and close the block.

ARES Electrical now fills in the new column with the weight of each catalog part.

💡TIP: To align the new attribute with the Header column, use the same X coordinates in both blocks. The insertion point of both blocks is the same, so an attribute at the same X position is placed under the column title.

📖INFO: The weight only appears in the list for catalog parts that have the TP_KG custom property filled in. Parts without this information have the column blank. Catalog part setup is explained in Chapter 6 – Library Configuration.

Updating the Block Addresses

After creating and editing the new blocks, indicate in the configuration that they must be used instead of the originals.

  1. Open the Bill of Materials Settings window and select the new configuration, for example LISTA DE MATERIAIS PESO.

  2. Click the Drawings tab.

  3. In the Header line, click the Value column and change the address to the new block: QCCFG\DRAWINGS\ANSI\HEADER-BOM-PESO.

  4. In the Detail line, click the Value column and change the address to the new block: QCCFG\DRAWINGS\ANSI\LINE-BOM-PESO.

  5. If the list also shows accessories, update the Accessory drawing line in the same way.

  6. Make sure the addresses of all blocks are correct and click Apply and then OK.

    LISTA DE MATERIAIS PESO configuration with the new blocks in the Header and the Detail

ARES Electrical now generates the bill of materials with the new blocks.

⚠️WARNING: If the address of a block is wrong or the file has been moved, ARES Electrical cannot generate the list with this configuration. Keep the blocks in a fixed folder, preferably shared with the whole team.

Generating the Updated Lists

With the blocks and the configuration updated, generate the bill of materials again:

  1. On the Reports tab, go to the Bill of Materials panel.

  2. Click Bill of Materials: Table…

  3. Select the new configuration, for example LISTA DE MATERIAIS PESO.

  4. Confirm.

ARES Electrical generates the bill of materials with the date, the time and the new PESO (KG) column, and updates the report folder in the Pages Palette.

Bill of materials generated with the date, the time and the PESO (KG) column filled in

📖INFO: If ARES Electrical does not ask for the template when generating the list, set the template in Electrical Settings → Project → Default list template.

📖INFO: Whenever you change a configuration or a block, generate the reports again so that the project pages show the new configuration.

Key Points

  • Each list is built from a configuration, and the Drawings tab defines the blocks used: Header, Detail, Accessory drawing, Footer and Totalizing.

  • The Header appears at the top of each page; the Detail is repeated for each item and uses properties to fill in each column.

  • Create new blocks and new configurations from the existing ones with Save As, without changing the defaults.

  • When you add a column, such as Weight, change both blocks and keep the columns aligned.

  • Update the block addresses on the Drawings tab and generate the lists again.

Still have questions?

Feel free to contact our support team at [email protected].

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