What are Assembly Groups

When you have a project comprised of several parts, just the part's name may not give you a good indication of where or how the piece is used. For example, assume we have a bookcase that contains 76 parts. Which parts are for the frame? Which are for the drawers? How about the doors? This is where Assembly Groups help.

Assembly Groups allow you to organize your parts into groups, making it easier for you to visualize your project. Using the example above, we can create an assembly group for Frame, one for Drawers and a final one for Doors. When parts are added or modified, we can assign each piece to a group. Of the 76 parts used in the project, the Frame group would have 34 parts, Drawers having 18 parts, and Doors have 24 parts.

Assembly Groups are not only useful for the parts list. When you look at each of the cut lists, assembly groups will color-code each part, making it a breeze to see where the parts are used.

Create

Tap on the Groups button

To add a new group:

Tap the Add New Group button
Enter the group name
Tap on the checkmark button

If there are not any parts in an Assembly Group, the group will not be shown on the screen.

Collapsing Groups

Tap on the arrow button

The contents of the group are now hidden. Tap on the arrow again to show the items

Filter Groups

There are situations where you not only want to hide groups from the parts screen but also to be hidden when creating a cut list. To achieve this functionality, tap on the “Filter” button and select the groups to hide.

Select the group(s) to filter

The contents of the group are now hidden. Tap on the arrow again to show the items

Project Parts

Add a part

Tap and the "New" button

Enter details for the part and press Add. Once the part is saved, Offcuts will clear the commonly unique fields (description, length and width), allowing you to enter another part. When you're done, tap on the Close button.

Edit a part

To change an existing part, either double tap on the part

Or swipe right and select Edit

When you tap on the “Save” button, a message will be displayed saying the part has been saved. You can either close the popup by tapping on the “Close” button or edit another part by tapping on the “Next” or “Previous” button.

Bulk Edit/Delete

Long tap on a part (tap and hold)

You'll know you are in bulk edit/delete mode with the screen's title bar is gray with two buttons.

To exit bulk mode, just tap on the arrow on the top left side of the screen or the Close button on the top right.

Single tap on each part to you want to edit/delete. Multiple parts can be selected at once.

To delete selected parts, just tap on the the Delete button

When you edit multiple parts, the description cannot be changed as this must remain unique. If the selected parts share the same values, the dialogue will show the shared values. If the values are different, the edit controls will be blank. In this example, Length and Width aren't shown as the values are different for each part.

In this example, we want the selected parts to use plywood that's .75 inches thick and to ignore the grain pattern.

The three parts now reflect the changes we've made. A faster way of editing/delete of multiple parts.

Duplicating parts

Swipe right on the part you want to copy and select Duplicate

Copy of the part is created

Deleting parts

Swipe right on the part you want to delete and select Delete

Sorting Columns

Tap on the column heading to sort. Tap multiple times for ascending, descending or natural order

Renumber Parts

In the following example, the parts aren't in sequential order.

Tap on "Arrange" then the reorder button

Parts are now ordered sequentially based on the assembly group

Reorder Parts

Offcuts provides you with the ability to reorder where parts are in the list by dragging and dropping parts within groups and to other groups.

To reorder parts, tap on “Arrange” and then the “Reorder” button.

You will know you are in Reorder mode with the screen's title bar is gray with a Close button on the right side.

To reorder a part, long tap (tap and hold) until an outline of the part is displayed.

Now just drag the part to the new location within the group or to another group. Once complete, tap the Close button.

What is Ignore Grain?

Not all parts in your project need to follow the grain pattern. By Selecting Ignore Grain, you allow Offcuts to try and rotate the part when it generates a cutting list. The result may produce a more optimized layout, minimize waste.

What is the warning icon and why are the length and width red?

You can get the warning icon and red text when Offcuts can't find any material in the inventory large enough to cut from.

Check the inventory tab, make sure the material still exists, and add a large enough size to cut the parts from.