We have our Toolbox that we have been using for several years now. When we use a configuration we add part number and some custom properties to it so that we have that information for next time. (We have custom properties for Manufacturer, Manufacturer Part No, Material & Unit of Measure.)

We have now gone through and decided what sizes and lengths are preferred for us to use. i.e. when possible use a #10-32x1.5” 18-8 SST socket head cap screw rather than a #10-24x1.25 or square head or such. We don’t want to remove the possibility for a non-preferred size, type or length as they may still be used if needed, but when possible we want our users to select a preferred fastener (benefits bulk purchase, stock, etc)

I have defined the list of preferred fasteners and can do a bulk import into the Toolbox editor, but I’m not sure how best to configure. i.e.

• if I add Preferred as a custom property and enable a new configuration name for each value, then we lose all of our current configurations that are in use and I suspect we would then have lots of assemblies with missing fasteners. Not acceptable.
• If I add preferred, but don’t enable new configurations, then to my knowledge, the users don’t have a means to filter/search for preferred fasteners and I have no idea how the automatic fastener assembly would work.
• Another idea is to create a new toolbox folder (i.e. AIT Preferred as a copy of parts of ANSI Inch, ANSI Metric and ISO). But then if a user needs to swap between a preferred and non-preferred fastener, they would (I think) lose the benefits of using a Toolbox part. Plus I would have to remove the preferred sizes from the default TB so that the configuration names are not duplicated.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

~Dan

SW2013 SP4