Combining Altium BOM items and updating parameters

Question

I'm having a hard time working with Altium's BOM management - here's my issue: I'm using general components like the shown 0402 capacitor part used in hundreds of places across the schematic. In these, there are issues with individual parameters (incomplete description, etc) on some of these parts. Ideally I'd like to group these parts together and update their parameters together, because it would literally take a week of copying and pasting to do this one by one with the schematic sheet.

The ActiveBOM seems like a good way to organize this, but I'm running into problems. I cannot seem to update any of the parameters in the parts listed without finding each one in the schematic. In the screenshot shown below, some of the descriptions of the same type of part are incomplete and show up as different parts entirely, despite being grouped by part number.

I clearly am working in a way that Altium has not intended. Can anybody point me in the right direction for cleaning up my BOM?

Answer 1

Look in to using the Update Parameters From Database (found in the tools menu, keyboard shortcut T D) which is equivalent to Orcad's Include file technique. This requires Microsoft Office to be installed. If you don't have Office installed, then install the Microsoft Access Database Engine Redistributable. This technique is fine for individuals, but much harder to maintain for many users. Refer to Altium's online manuals to implement this.

You create an Excel database file with the parts you are using. Altium will field match certain fields like library reference and value and stuff the parameters of your choice (perhaps footprint, description, manufacturer part number, manufacturer, and your company part number) to each schematic part.

An example of an Excel spreadsheet.
Library reference and value are part of the component parameters in your schematic that you entered.
The rest of the items (footprint, description, Mfgr_pn, Manufacturer, Company_pn) are stuffed in to the matching parts using the Update Parameters from Database tool.

\begin{array} {|r|r|}\hline Library Reference & Value & Footprint & Description & Mfg\_PN & Manufacturer & Company\_PN \\ \hline R0402 & 10.0 & R0402 & RESISTOR, 10.0, 1\% & ERJ2RKF10R0X & PANASONIC & 110010R0 \\ \hline LT3094 & LT3094 & LCC12.3X3mm & NEG \;REGULATOR & LT3094EDD & ANALOG DEVICES & 22000124 \\ \hline \end{array}