This comprehensive system has been developed especially for commercial metal roofing enterprises dealing with hundreds or thousands of variables with flashing and trim combinations. The purpose of an Assembly Group is to link a Flashing Assembly Group to a specific profile of roofing or wall cladding panel system so that the required trims and accessories are automatically associated with that panel.

It is recommended that you study the article on Flashing Assemblies, before you embark on Assembly Groups.

Assembly Manager operates in 2 different modes: 'Non-Commercial' (regular mode) or 'Commercial' mode with full Assembly Manager capability.

These modes can be determined by selecting "Commercial Mode" under Set-Up > Preferences > System Preferences. It is advised that you do not select 'Commercial' mode if it is not required, as it does create a lot of extra work to maintain and may be totally unnecessary in most situations. It also assumes that you have a well-defined product inventory system, so all individual parts and accessories are clearly identifiable.
Note: the ability to associate a flashing assembly group with a particular panel type is only available when Commercial mode is turned on in System Preferences.

In Non-Commercial Mode, the software operates as standard Flashing Assemblies. Assemblies are stored in the EdgeAss.CSV file and displayed on the dialog box.
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Assembly Groups, Types, Nominal Lengths, PDF File and Rules are all disabled in non-commercial mode. Modify/New allows you to modify an existing assembly name or add a new assembly.

Selecting [OK] saves the current assemblies list to the file EdgeAss.CSV.

In Commercial mode, the assemblies are assumed to be complex with many components (typically > 500). Assemblies are stored in a binary format (non man-readable) for faster software access. Assemblies are grouped according to Assembly Groups that must first be set up to define the binary files that assemblies can then be stored within.

To create an Assembly group:

The creation of an Assembly Group allows you to link individual Flashing Assemblies to a specific group of roofing or wall cladding panels when they are defined. This link may be made after panels have been defined and 'Commercial' mode enabled.

In Commercial mode, roof and wall panels can be assigned to a specific Assembly Group:

If you have no intention of using Assembly Groups for a specific panel profile, then you do not have to select an Assembly Group when you define your new panel.

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Alternately, the linkages between panels and Assembly Groups are stored outside the software in a file called SgroupLink.CSV. This file can be modified manually in a text editor or Excel, although care must be taken to use the correct product code from the panel and the index of the Assembly Group. The product codes are the 'glue' that hold this whole system together. Hence the need to have a solid inventory system in place already with every discrete product having its own unique product code.

In commercial mode, the Assembly Manager takes on extra functionality providing for Assembly Groups.
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Rules can be created for Assemblies that allow the software to automatically swap parts in or out of an assembly, based on very specific decisions made during a project setup.

For example, let's assume we have 5 different valley flashings, with the following product codes:

If we were to define an Assembly that used this flashing category, we would need to take into account all of the different valley flashing options of gauge and finish and create many separate flashing definitions to cover these. Instead, Roof Wizard allows us to define a flashing with variable values that might include universal variables that look like this – VALLEY@@% – where the @@ symbols are used to replace the product gauge at selection time, and the % symbol to be replaced by the material selected.

This allows the product code for the correct flashing to be substantially simplified and automatically built up by the software to match the panel system selected.

This process presumes that your product codes are organised in an orderly way. If the product codes in your organisation are not organised in a sequential way as shown in our example, you will struggle to use the rules to reduce the number of assemblies you need to define. The product code structure you implement for trim and flashing items is key to the success of the Assembly Manager in managing huge component product lists.

Example Rules can be set up similar to the following examples:

The first rule tells the software to replace any instance of @@ in the Assembly Product Codes with the value of 22, when the gauge is 22. The second rule tells the software to replace any instance of % in the Assembly Product Codes with G if the finish of the product is set to "Galvalume Plus":

There is no practical limit to the number of rules that you can set. This makes for a very powerful tool to manage even the most complex roof and wall trim systems automatically.

When setting up your assembly groups, start with a couple of simple examples and test each setup on a "standard test job" that you are very familiar with, to ensure that you have done it correctly before you launch yourself at the entire product list in your company. Your "standard test job" should be roof geometry that is as simple as you can make it that includes all the most usual features you see on a roof. If the result is correct on this job, then it will be correct on a full-blown job.