Linked materials can be very helpful to organize a library of materials that can be combined together in various ways to make up a variety of products. To learn the basics of linked materials, click here.
For all users of linked materials, we highly encourage enabling the summary row in your account. Follow the instructions here.
Import Links to Existing Materials
In your import, you can reference an existing material with the column Part Name, and Toxnot will automatically use your existing material as a linked material in your new inventory. A unique record in Toxnot is defined by 4 different identifiers - Part Name, Description, Supplier, and Plant. While not all 4 of these are required, any unique combination of these will result in new material. If you want to reference an existing material to update, make sure these 4 attributes match, OR use the "compare existing materials solely on part name" setting during the import process.
If an existing material cannot be found, Toxnot will simply add the row as usual in your new product or material.
Import a Product and Extract Materials as Linked Materials
Another way to take advantage of the linked materials functionality is to import your BOM using the "Extract and link material" import option. There is a template for this type of import that can be found here.
This option will automatically generate linked materials out of the materials your new product contains, which is a great time-saver if you don't already have these materials in your library and expect to reuse them in the future.
Extract and Link mode will identify existing materials by the Material Name and Part Name columns, and use links to those materials rather than creating a new material.
In the example import below, Toxnot would create four linked materials in the new product:
Powder Coat, containing two substances.
Frame, containing Aluminum and Powder Coat. Aluminum is a single substance row, and does not itself become a linked material.
Seat, containing Frame
Chair, containing Seat
In this particular import, we are looking to import the lowest level materials in the bill of materials. Because of that, it is important to go into the "Advanced Options" and select "Extract materials from lowest-level rows". You would not select this button if you wanted to import only the top level rows as a material.
Once you import this into Toxnot, it be displayed as below, with each of the materials linked to the material it is part of.
This import option can be applied to all import modes, including product, product library, material and material library.