Product request details - 1. Overview

By default, a product request opens at its Overview tab which contains three vertical blocks:

• Request details
• Attachments
• Tasks

Request details

The screenshot below shows this section in a newly created request. At this point, only the Title field is filled in.

Under the title, you can enter some free text in the Description field that may facilitate the communication between the planning and development departments.

Next, clicking the calendar icon under the Due date label, you may add a deadline for processing the request. If the request is not released by the due date, a red warning will appear on this row.

A product request is meaningless without specifying the item that it focuses on. This can be an existing item, that you want to base your product on, or a new item can be also created. If you click the Choose existing item button, you can select your item from a dropdown list.

If the item you need is not specified in the ERP database that you are working with, click + Add new item. Doing so will take you to the Create item page.

If the assigned item already has a bill of materials or operation plan, the information is added to the appropriate tabs of the product request. These lists only provide a starting point and can be modified as required.

To remove an assigned item, click the options (°°°) icon beside it.

If an item that is used in a product request is removed from your ERP system, all related data is automatically deleted from the request. More specifically, the item, the bill of materials, the operation plan, the cost calculation and the release notes are deleted, however, the request's title, description, due date, status, attachment(s) and task(s) are preserved.

It is strongly recommended not to have more than one open product request for any given item. Build will warn you, when you try to assign an item to a product request that is already assigned to another open request. If multiple requests are open for the same item, the details of the item are overwritten in your ERP system during the release process.

Multiple open requests for the same item are not blocked and can be used, if there is a special business case to support this option. Such an example can be when a quick update is immediately required for the product, while a longer product development is in progress. You may also need multiple requests for the same item if a change only affects the older version of the product, but will not be valid for the new version.

When you start developing a new item that is based on another item, we recommend the following process:

1. Create a new item;
2. Assign the new item to the product request;
3. Copy the bill of materials of the old item into your request to speed up the item development process.

Attachments

In this section of the Overview tab, you can add files, such as documents or images to your product request.

Hit Add attachment to upload a file. You can download an attachment by clicking its link (filename) or by selecting the Download option from the options (°°°) menu that appears when you hover over the filename. The options menu also allows you to delete an attachment.

The Download all button at the bottom of the section initiates the download of each file sequentially.

The maximum allowed file size of an attachment is 5 MB.

Attachments are not transferred to your ERP system upon product release.

Tasks

You can also add short text notes to your product request. You can use these notes to specify a task list. As you complete a task, you can simply tick the checkbox beside it to flag it as done. Build will display these tasks in strikethrough font.

Create a task with the Add task button. Doing so will open a text field that can take up to 140 characters. The screenshot below shows a completed task, one that is still to do and a new one just being added.

To delete a task, click the options (°°°) button that appears beside the task when you hover over it.

Tasks are related to the product request only and are not transferred to your ERP system upon product release.