Working with Bill of Material Explosions in AX Reporting

By Jeremy Dobler | August 26, 2015

In the AX reporting world, working with Bill of Materials (BOM) can be very difficult as an item itself can be belong to many other BOMs. Recursive calls are necessary to complete this task, and can be very difficult to execute as there are many factors to consider, including circular references. I will tell you about an object contained in AX that will assist you in this task.

The object is a class named BOMHierarchyReport, this class extends logic contained in BOMHierarchy. There are four main entry points to assist you with BOM iterations depending on your needs:

  • ItemConsitsOf - this will take a selected item and traverse down the BOM structure
  • ItemPartOf - this will take a selected item and traverse up the BOM structure
  • BOMConsistsOf - this will take a selected BOM id and traverse down the BOM structure
  • BOMPartOf - this will take a selected BOM id and traverse up the BOM structure

There are required methods that you will need to implement in your report Data Provider class, including:

  • parmInsertFlag - which is an get and set Boolean method that the process will tell you if the record should be inserted or if it is a duplicate (circular reference).
  • parmSearchInterval - which is an get and set Boolean method containing the value if a data filter for the BOM is being used.
  • parmSearchIntervalBOM - which is an get and set Boolean method containing the value if a data filter for the BOM lines is being used.
  • parmShow - which is an get and set BOMBOMVersion enum method, which contains the value of what type of items to gather: BOM, BOMVersion, ect.
  • parmVersionSelect - which is an get and set BOMRouteVersionSelectAll enum method of what version of BOMs to select, Active, Selected, All, ect.
  • sendDataToTmpTable - this is the most important method, as it will be accessed every time a Item, BOM, or BOMVersion is found in the main entry points of the BOMHierarchyReport class.

Below is a code snip it of the sendDataToTmpTable method. You can see in the case statement that the BOMHierarchyReport entry point (itemConsistsOf), is only accessed when the passed record is a InventTable record. The itemConsistsOf method will then access this sendDataToTmpTable method any time it finds a record while traversing through the BOM structure.

private void sendDataToTmpTable(Common _record)
{
    InventItemGroupItem itemGroup;
    switch (_record.TableId)
    {
        case tableNum(InventTable):
            inventTable = _record;
            bomParent   = null;
            bom         = null;

            bomHierarchyReport.itemConsistOf(inventTable.ItemId, '', maxLevel, fromDate, toDate);
            break;

        case tableNum(BOMVersion):
            bomParent = bom;
            break;

        case tableNum(BOM):
            bom = _record;
	    this.insertIntoTmpTable();
            break;

        default:
            error(Error::wrongUseOfFunction(funcName()));
    }
}

Depending on the data you want to capture, the inserted can be handled through the case statement, which in the case below is only the BOM record.


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