Purpose

The tool is created with the aim of comparing the Order Export between different versions of CET. The tool will highlight the differences in calculation data from the Order Export tool in the Calculation dialog so that the changes in the Bill of Materials can be quickly identified. Various export formats are supported based on the extension installed in CET.

Export order for current drawing

This tool will create an Order Export of the Main article view for the current active drawing based on the 'Export Format' selected from the dropdown.

Workflow

1. Load the drawing you wish to create an Order Export for.
2. Select the desired Export Format from the dropdown.

   

3. Click on 'Export order for current drawing'.
4. Select the save location of the results in the 'Browse for Folder' dialog.

   

5. The save location of the Order Export will get automatically opened once the export is completed.

Test on Multiple Drawings

The Order Export Test also allow for multiple drawings to be tested by using the same Article View Settings. In order to start the comparison test, references need to be created in the previous version.

Creating References

1. Create an Article View Settings (.cmclc) from the Calculation dialog. You may specify the columns, groupings, sorting, summary and Filter of the article view from the View Settings dialog.

   

2. Click on 'Create References' and select the folder with the drawings and Article View Settings.

   

3. The Order Export Test, Create References dialog will open and it will automatically try to detect the required files from the selected location in Step 2.

   

   • Calculation Settings - This is the Article View Setting(.cmclc) created from Step 1
   • Core Settings - Contains for instance the setting for distance unit in the Control Panel that is to be used during the export
   • Runtime Settings - Contains for instance the setting for language in the Control Panel that is to be used during the export
     You may use the 'Save Core Settings' and 'Save Runtime Settings' button to store the files in the drawing location.
     
   • Reference directory - The save location of the created Order Export references for the selected drawings

   Click on ‘Create References’ at the bottom right of the dialog to start creating the Order Export references.
   
   

4. The drawings will get loaded automatically into CET and a progress bar will appear at the bottom of the drawing view.

   

   A message dialog will then appear to indicate that the references has been created successfully. 

   

   The Order Export will have the same name as the drawing file.
   If you decide to edit or add more drawings to the file location and create the references again, the tool will first check if a reference file of the similar name already exist in the Reference Directory. If a reference file already exist in the directory, a warning message on overwriting the existing files will appear.

   

   • OK – New reference files will be created for ALL drawings
   • Cancel – The operation is aborted, and no reference is created
   This check is to prevent old reference files from being overwritten by mistake.

Batch Testing

1. Click on 'Start Batch Test' in the same or a newer version of CET.

   

2. Choose the folder that contain the drawings and the reference files.

   

   The Order Export Test dialog will open and it will automatically try to detect the required files.

   If the Core and Runtime settings files are in the same file location, all directories will be automatically filled when the dialog is opened. Else you may browse from the dialog to select those preference files that were used when the references were created.

   

   If the Runtime and Core settings are not specified, the test will run using the current CET’s

    

3. Click on “Run Test” to navigate to the following dialog.

   

4. In the Oder Export Test dialog, the names of the drawings in the selected folder will be listed out.
   You can then choose to run the comparison test using 2 options. 
   • Run a specific drawing by clicking the button. 
     
   • Run all drawings by clicking the ‘Run all tests’ button at the bottom of the dialog.
     

   For each test that is run, the dialog will change the status from ‘untested’ to ‘running’ and finish with either ‘ok’ or ‘failed’.

   

   • ok - No differences has been found between the reference and the current export
   • failed - One or more differences has been detected between the reference and the current export. A 'Diff' and 'Accept' button is then shown on the same row as the failing result. 

   

    

5. You can then verify the differences between the reference and the current Order Export by clicking on the 'Diff' button.

   

   This will open another program called the Perforce P4Merge which is a free software that is not part of CET. It will display the reference file on the left and the newly generated order export on the right with the differences highlighted.

   

   You may also load the drawing and investigate the differences by clicking on the button.

   

   In cases where the differences found are intended (eg an update to the Part Number or Pricing) you may want to update the references to avoid future false failures. This can be done by clicking the ‘Accept’ button in the drawing's header row in the dialog. 

   

   This will replace the drawing's reference with the current order export created by the Order Export tool.

   

   The selected drawing's Status will also return to 'untested' where you may choose to rerun the test based on the new reference using the button. 

   

    

6. When a difference has been found which is caused by an error (not an intentional change) you may want to file an error report to your development team. You may get the necessary files by clicking the 'Save Failed Tests' button at the bottom of the dialog.

   

   A 'Browse for Folder' dialog will appear for you to specify the save location of the necessary files.

   

   The files needed to reproduce the differences will then be stored in the specified location.

   

   This includes the Article view settings, Core Settings, Runtime Settings, drawing file and the order exports. The order exports created during the test will have an additional suffix '.new' before the '.txt' format.

   In some cases, a screenshot of the differences viewed in the Perforce P4Merge program could also be useful for the developers.

File & Folder Organization

It is advisable to keep all files used by the Order Export test in the same folder. This is so that the tool is able to automatically detect all files needed to be used to run the test without having to manually search for each required file.

• Drawings
• Reference files
• Article view settings
• Core and runtime settings files