Keep versions of a bill of materials

When you change a recipe, last quarter’s batch should still be explainable. Each bill of materials has an effective window, so the old version stays on record as a true description of how the thing used to be made.

The three states

Every version is one of these, worked out from its dates:

Active: it covers today. A product has exactly one active version at a time.
Scheduled: it starts in the future.
Historical: it ended in the past.

These are not the same as archived. A superseded version is not archived: it stays readable, and you will want it the next time a batch from that period is questioned. Archived is a separate state, for a version you removed from view.

Make a new version

Open Production → Bill of Materials and click Add bill of materials.
Choose the same output as the existing one and fill it in.
Click Create BOM version.

Creating a version closes the previous active one. In the list, a version’s Effective from and Effective to show when each applies. On a card, Effective from and Effective to can be edited under Specification. Leave Effective to empty while the version is the current one.

An end date cannot be before the start date. Clearing the end date of a historical version reopens it, which is refused while another version is active.

Use the Status filter on the list to show only Active, Scheduled or Historical versions. By default every version is listed.

Review changes before they apply

If your workspace requires approval for specification changes, a change to a product’s materials, batch size or a new version waits for a reviewer. Administrators set this in Settings → Approval policies (Specification change). The card reads Staged for approval until then. Production orders already running are not affected.

Copy a bill of materials to other products

Select exactly one specification in the list.
Choose Copy to products.
Pick the products and confirm.

A product that already had a specification keeps it as a historical version.

Archive and restore

Archiving a version does not affect production orders that reference it, but new runs of that product will need an active bill of materials. Restore it from the same list with Show archived.