Topic: the missing link

[Fish]

Hey guys & gals hope all is well with everyone.  The company I work for has a huge database listing all there pieces and parts in MS Access.  After our plan is finished I generate a bom in access, physically counting all these items from the plan I drew.  This is what I want to do.  I want to link a block item in cad to access.  I thought I could make a block in cad using the pre-established product code name in our access database as its name.  Upon creating all the blocks for the drawing and linking them to access, I then could have a bom generated in access for me without physically counting each piece.  Is this possible or do I need a different approach?  Please be kind, my knowledge of VBA is next to nothing.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Arizona]

I want to link a block item in cad to access. 

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What exactly are you linking?
 

I thought I could make a block in cad using the pre-established product code name in our access database as its name.  Upon creating all the blocks for the drawing and linking them to access, I then could have a bom generated in access for me without physically counting each piece.  Is this possible or do I need a different approach?  Please be kind, my knowledge of VBA is next to nothing.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I would suggest a slightly different approach. Once you have placed the blocks in the drawing, you can scan the drawing for block references (with attributes if you want) and have the output go to a access database, excel spreadsheet or whatever. A manaul process of this is done with attribute extraction.

[Fish]

Thanks for the feedback, you would use the export attribute information in the express tools?  Could this be done with just blocks with specific names?  Would this count the blocks for a total sum or would it list them individually?

Thanks

[Arizona]

You could use the attribute extractor (and you should walk through that process just for educational purposes) it is easy to use. And will provide you what your looking for with some additional manipulation.
Or if you are looking to learn VBA you could code the same thing.

[Krushert]

Hey guys & gals hope all is well with everyone.  The company I work for has a huge database listing all there pieces and parts in MS Access.  After our plan is finished I generate a bom in access, physically counting all these items from the plan I drew.  This is what I want to do.  I want to link a block item in cad to access.  I thought I could make a block in cad using the pre-established product code name in our access database as its name.  Upon creating all the blocks for the drawing and linking them to access, I then could have a bom generated in access for me without physically counting each piece.  Is this possible or do I need a different approach?  Please be kind, my knowledge of VBA is next to nothing.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I know what Fish wants. 
My last company that I work for had this but the company used Microstation.  And they pulled it from Syteline, an ERP software.  YOu built the BOM in the ERP software and then you went Microstation and mashed a function key that was configured to import and create the BOM (inculding line work and Data. 
Very very very very Slick.  Did I tell how slick It was.

Some information

*  All part data was stored in the ERP software.
*  The user would querry and/or create a part and its descrption in Access and SQL (I know nothing about Access except as ready-only user).  Access would feed the data of the newly created part to the ERP.
*  The user would enter the BOM P/N and Quanity in the ERP software.
*  The user would open cad file for the assembly and hit the function key to import the BOM.

How to do this with and Autodesk product and Access.  I have no freaking clue.   Sorry Fish

Can"t Feilds read data from Access???

[Fish]

What I really need is to generate a bill of material in access, but what would be great is for access to be linked to the drawing so it could count the blocks(with attributes if needed) automatically from the drawing.  Is that possible?  I've been playing around with the dbconnect command and actually have tested my connection which is fine but I can't seem to grasp the attribute to database link.

[MickD]

What I have done in the past was to have a db that was saved in the same folder as the main drawing (3d model in our case), this avoided having one great huge db that held data for all current projects. All it contained was 1 table (a flat data file) and I would delete all existing records if any, loop through the model extracting all of my tagged items (I used xdata but blocknames would be just as good) and feed it to the db adding a record for each item.

You could prefix your blocks with say a 3 letter pattern (eg. ABC -PART-09123) that would make iterating the drg db a bit easier.
Basically, once you have written your data out you can produce any types of reports or queries as required, we used to use a simple query to produce a parts list in a drawing given an assembly name/s say and write it to a acad table. I could dig up some C# code if you want but .net is a different animal than vb/a but you can see how to use queries etc to write your data in/out.