Back to Recipes
Reporting & Analytics

Excel: Bill of Materials

Single-level BOMs as a refreshable Excel and Power BI table

easy ~5 min setup 2 components

Overview

Single-level BOMs as a refreshable Excel and Power BI table

The single-level BOM, one row per component line: parent part and revision, the routing operation the component is consumed at, sort order, the component part, its type, quantity per, and the auto-deplete and validate flags.

Single-level means one level deep. To explode a multi-level structure, load this table once and let Power Query or a pivot walk it — the parent and component columns are the join.

Take the .xlsx link rather than .csv. Part numbers that start with a zero are common, and CSV carries no type information, so Excel would quietly turn 00124735 into 124735. The xlsx feed keeps it as text.

How to connect it

Open the script, click Connect to Excel and copy the link. In Excel, Data → From Web, paste, choose Anonymous, and Load. From then on Refresh All re-runs the query — there is no exported file to hunt down, nothing is scheduled and nothing is emailed around.

How current is it?

This table reads Plex over its ODBC reporting connection, not the live transactional system. That copy can trail production by up to about four hours, so treat the numbers as recent rather than real-time. Refreshing re-runs the query, but it re-runs it against the same reporting copy — it does not reach past it.

That is the right trade for reporting, review meetings and models. Anything that has to be accurate to the minute — shipping a container, releasing a job — belongs in Plex itself, not in a workbook.

Filters

Every input is an optional URL query parameter on the link, so one script serves a whole team: two sheets can be the same feed with different values. For example ?part_no=VALUE.

InputWhat it does
part_nosubstring match — matches either the parent or the component
max_rowskeep only the first N rows

What this installs

The Excel Data - Bill of Materials script and one saved SQL query it runs on. The SQL lives in the SQL editor, so a column you want added is an edit in one place that every workbook picks up on its next refresh. The table has 13 columns as shipped, and no row cap — a cap would truncate silently and the workbook would look complete.

What you need

One ODBC credential pointed at your Plex reporting connection. The install wizard asks for it once and applies it to the query. If you do not have one yet, create it first in Script Engine → Credentials with type odbc.

What's Included

Excel Data - Bill of Materials Script Primary
Excel Export - Bill of Materials ODBC Query

Use Cases

  • Cost a build in Excel against current component quantities
  • Trace where a component is used across parent parts
  • Check quantity-per against engineering without a Plex login
  • Feed a multi-level explosion in Power Query

Install This Recipe

Sign in to your DataMagik workspace to install this recipe.

Sign In to Install

Benefits

  • Re-queries the source on refresh instead of holding an emailed copy
  • The .xlsx feed keeps leading zeros that CSV destroys
  • One filter matches parents and components alike
  • Cached briefly, so a team-wide Refresh All costs one query

Configuration Steps

After installation, you'll configure:

  • Plex ODBC connection

Tags

excelpower bipower queryodbcplexreporting