Spares: Documents, Attachments & Photos

L2L has added another complementary document association. Now, in addition to Machines, Lines, Checklists, Products, Dispatches, etc., you can also directly associate Documents with Spare Parts. The ability to associate documents with your Spare Parts is a powerful tool as well as a tremendous time saver for your Technicians, Parts Crib attendants, buyers, and shop floor associates. 

Being able to attach documents or attachments to spare parts, like manufacturing drawings, specifications, and potential replacement and warranty information, provides critical details quickly, right at your fingertips. The possibilities for spare parts fabricated in-house are just as invaluable. 

Anyone who has ever worked with Spare Parts knows all too well that part numbers can change, due to new vendors or updated naming conventions, specifications can be tightened, and materials may require substitution. Attaching documents to Spare Parts can save you time, money, and costly mistakes. 

Best of all, these associations are really easy to make. A couple of clicks and you are good to go. Once you have associated documents with your spare parts, they will appear in the document section of an open dispatch when a spare part request is made. This will be helpful for the technician to read on how to install the part for example. 

Go to Inventory Control and find the spare part with which you wish to associate a document. Clicking on the part number link will open the Part Detail page. At this point, you have several options located near the bottom of the Part Detail page of every Spare Part:  

1. You can Add or Edit associated Documents using the Add/Edit Documents hyperlink 

2. You can REMOVE any previously associated Documents 

3. You can add Attachments by clicking on the ATTACH button.  This will save one or more docs, files, etc to the part. An example could be a Specs Certification sheet for the part.

Photos are a good way to add another level of identification to a spare part. These can be a great way for a person to identify the part needed for a repair, especially parts like tooling that may not have a manufactures number on the item. 

To do this you must first have Inventory Manager rights in the spares system setup. Also, another thing to keep in mind is that the part must be set up first in the system in order to add the photo.

Hint: You can click on the image to enlarge it for better viewing. 

For more on how to add, replace or remove an image (Photo), please refer to our manual for Spares Inventory Control section under part detail page. 

Customers often ask how to make it possible for their non-Administrator Team members to view the Part Images they have uploaded in Spares. Team members can view Images on Spare Parts when searching for Parts as well as when viewing the Bills Of Material (BOM).  

Within a Dispatch, click on the 'Request Spares' button. If an Image has been uploaded and attached, the Part Number will be highlighted in GREEN type as shown in the screenshot below.  Notice the 'View Image' if you hover over the Part Number.  

Click on the Part Number and a new window will open with the Image of the Part.  

You can also View Image(s) following the same procedure under SPARES => REQUEST SPARES from the Spares Menu.  

Happy Spares Image Viewing!  

The implementation for this feature is as follows:

1. An API call is made to */billofmaterials/set_image_begin
   • This call only initiates the process. We will return an upload URL that can then be used to upload the image. After uploading the image, you must then call set_image_finish API to complete this process. 
   • This call requires a .jpg or .jpeg, etc.
   • You can find information on how to submit this call in the API Documentation in Dispatch.
2. A response is returned from this initial API call with the upload URL.
   • A signed PUT URL is used to upload the image file. This URL will expire 10 minutes after signed.
   • The PUT URL along with the selection of the file image, is used to upload the image. Include the contents of the image as the body of the request to the PUT URL provided by set_image_begin.
     • In Postman, this is done by selecting 'Body', then 'Binary' and choosing the file name from Step 1.
3. A final call is made to *billofmaterials/set_image_finish/ using the Site and part number.
   • You can find information on how to submit this call in the API Documentation in Dispatch.

This must be done for each new image uploaded. 

Note: Must limit the file size of the uploaded file. Recommended max file size: 2MB

1. 1. A 12 Megapixel JPEG image exported at 90% quality is ~2MB

   2. A 12 Megapixel JPEG image exported at 80% quality is ~1.1MB

   3. A 12 Megapixel JPEG image exported at 70% quality is ~755KB