Danijel Kovac

if we have a modular frame that could be loaded with a host of different types of cards, eg: Crestron DM-MD16x16 and load it with 2x DMC-HD and 1x DMC-DVI and the output cards to be DMC-CATO and 1x DMC-CATO-HD;
Now, a schematic shape in Visio should be 1 block but with the right inputs & outputs according to the cards used in the frame? At the moment I get the frame with its default i/o and then the cards as separate blocks each with their own i/o's. The painful way is to create a new product and custom ise it according to the cards I intend to use........any ideas?

grichards

In my experience, there's really no perfect solution to this.

i would vote against creating the single product with the custom I/O. It begins to clutter your MMPD Catalog with configurations that may never be used again, and doesn't accurately reflect the separate items that need to be ordered and accounted for on your reports (Crestron DM is an exception for now since they are preloading DM cards, but generally this wont be the case for modular systems )

You could create the frame with it's default I/O in your MMPD Catalog then, after you add it to the project, change the spec on the project copy to get the I/O you want on a single shape (just be sure NOT to save back to the master table). Then add your i/o cards to the project but leave them off of the drawing.

another suggestion, and what i would probably do, is add the frame and cards with their default I/O to the drawing. Edit their component IDs so they indicate the relationship (i.e. Frame is DM-001, card 1 is DM-001-C1, card 2 is DM-001-C2, ...). This way you're only creating the products once in MMPD, there's less editing at the project level (its faster to edit component ID than the IO spec), you get an accurate inventory of the separate components/SKUS, any connection schedules you generate out of a report mostly make sense, if you swap a card or two half way down the design its less error prone. You don't get a single visio block, but can you group schematic shapes in visio without any issues?

just my two cents.

DM is super cool stuff isn't it?
have you done a few DM systems? PM me if you care to dialog about it

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ChristianB

Here is a posted feature request to D-tools on this matter:

Dynamic Shape

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Danijel Kovac

Grichards, your 2 cents is worth a dollar!
Thanks for the link ChristianB, hopefully this will be available in the next sp!