Batches are used in Microvellum and allow you to release parts to manufacturing in groupings of parts that you specify at the rate desired. It is not within the scope of this knowledge base article to fully explain the details of 'batching,' only how it affects the reports and labels.
It's straightforward to configure your reports for 'batching,' just follow the three steps below, noting the requirements.
Reports or labels must have the "Is Batch Report" property set in the "Report Setup" screen accessed by clicking the "Edit Data Source" button within the Setup Reports command.
Product parts in a work order can be processed to separate batches. Assume you have a work order with five products. All of the products have a quantity of one, except for #3.01, with a quantity of three. You could select parts for item numbers 1.01 and 1.02 and process them to batch "B1," parts for item numbers 2.01 and 2.02 and process them to batch "B2," parts for item number 3.01 (qty 3) and process to batch "B3." The processing station for each successive part selection must be specified and then cleared from the parts list before processing the next group of parts to a different batch. (It does not make a difference which parts (rows) are highlighted during processing. The important thing is which parts have a processing station specified that determines what is processed to any particular batch.)
Open the report/label and select the batch from the list. If multiple batches have not been processed, the select batch box will not display. Multiple batches may be selected by holding down the Shift key when making multiple selections. Only the optimized sheets for the selected batches will be populated to the PlacedSheets and OptmizationResults work order tables. The Parts table is not modified by the batch functionality.
Setting the "Is Batch Report" property set in the "Report Setup" screen is generally the only modification needed to transform the report into a batch style report or label.