Ok, thanks for the help.
Well I want others than the design department to use the spreadsheet when they customize orders.
The support department can have the spreadsheet as an excel with all the options as I have specified is possible, then they can save the excel and send it to the design department. We take the spreadsheet and copy it into the basic model and swish....we have the complete arrangement settled and drawings generated. This will speed up this companys design time a lot.


Thanks again
Best regards,
Emil Pettersson

Josh, how do you export an iAssembly table to an external spreadsheet?

Candy, thanks for the reply and Josh, sorry I didn't read your post a bit better, I haven't properlly explained what I need to do.

What I want to do is have an external spreadsheet, that is linked to my iAssembly, in the same way that a parameters file is linked to a part file; so that I can drive my iAssembly without having to copy and paste the data spreadsheet into the embedded spreadsheet. Is this possible?

If I just do a save as on the iassembly spreadsheet, I have the correct format, but the file isn't linked to the assembly model.

Hi Candy,

I thought that it isn't possible,

That is a shame, is it likely in a future release?

It would allow me to control our inventor models entirelly from an excel spreadsheet. I have component geometry and position in the assembly all controlled by a spreadsheet controlled skeletal model, but I cant include/exclude for different configurations from the speadsheet....

This isn't exactly what you said in your first post. Who is doing the "driving", a CAD operator or a salesman?










there are opposing workflows here (unfortunately). I have experimented with trying to merge the iAssemblies and skeletal modelling techniques with limited success. IF all you want to do is (un)suppress components, then this is possible. However, there are some limitations to this approach. The #1 limitation to skeletal modelling is that your master skeleton can only have one state. Therefore if you change the state to match customer A requirements, then change it to match customer B requirements, you have changed customer A's design. Not such a big deal if the project is done, but if you are concurrently working on customer A and B, then it is a big mess.






The iAssembly way would have you copy the data into the spreadsheet (the first time). This is actually a good thing. First, it allows you to define a part number for that configuration. So if you have rows for customer A and customer B, you can easily switch between the two. Also, if you have a predetermined product line, it is easy to distribute this spreadsheet to the sales team so they aren't directly editing the CAD files (probably a good thing except for very small companies).





This is an interesting topic, and I'd like to hash out any ideas/thoughts/experiments on this matter as I am not entirely satisfied with either the skeletal modelling or iAssemblies. If someone could develop a unified theory/practice for this, Inventor users everywhere would rejoice!

I have worked for a time now with iAssemblies, iParts, spreadsheets, excel and websites and have made a website where anyone can make an arrangement of the company products. This information is then saved in an excel document and is then sent to the design department. For the design department I have made an assembly controlled by parameters in an exceldocument. The designer open this assembly and change the the source of the excel document - the same that was sent from the webpage. And swoosh....the assembly is updated and the 2D drawings connected to it.
The arrangements gets its specific partnumber and is saved in Vault and in a database. So when you make an "order" in the web page it is checked if the configuration is made before. If it is made before you get the message that the order already exists and the drawings are available in the archive.

It works nicely, but it took me a while to do all this. Now all I have to do is to make a description of the workflow and how all is built up, this will be the hard part :)

Problems still to solve:
-When new components are added to the configuration, the conditions are changed if the one that should add the component does not know where to put in all the conditions and is not fully aware of how the models and conditions are set it will take a very long time to and will risk the entire model condition.
-convince all the conservative colleagues that this will save time and reduce the ammount of work that frequently recurs in the design department. The time can be spent on development instead of making drawings all day long.

I love this programme, although it have its flaws.
//Emil

I'm currently studying for a degree in Engineering whilst working full time as a Product Engineer. For my final year project (Dissertation) I’m creating a product assembly that is externally driven through our standalone product selection package.

It sounds to me like we are trying to achieve the same goal. So far i have managed to get inventor to update from an external spreadsheet whilst changing the assembly parameters and iparts creating a number of product model possibilities.

Does this sound like the kinder thing that you are trying to achieve? If so then maybe we could share information or discus problems that we are having?

Are you talking about iparts or iassembly. because iassemblys does not really require any dimensional changes apart from the constraints? If so then there really should not be a problem updating the table via excel. you just need to make sure that the information on sheet1 remains constant.

I have sheet metal parts that have 200 extensions, bends in deferent directs and some times not required and each part updates fine.

Most of my iassembly change the ipart extension or suppress parts, but i have not found any problems with the constraints when i have used them. have you search for a Service Patch, that might help?

it is possibly to link an external spreadsheet to drive assemblies. the project that i'm working on allows me to check the information on a spreadsheet that is independent to inventor then when the inventor assembly is opened the iassembly updates from the external spreadsheet, infact the same spreadsheet is link to two inventor assemblies that is driven by the same data.

This is achieved by inserting a worksheet into the excel spreadsheet, the new inserted sheadsheet (sheet2) then acts as a linkage to sheet1 (of which inventor relies upon to update the assembly). therefore all of the linking and excel calculations to the external spreadsheet is done through sheet2. sheet1 is then a direct copy of sheet2.

The only thing to watch out for is that the external spreadsheet must be opened after the inventor spreadsheet in order to be able to link to the external spreadsheet.

I'm yet to find another way.

Hope this helps.

Tom