New Collaboration Options for the BOM Tool

Created: October 27, 2017
Updated: July 1, 2024

It's now very easy to share your BOM with colleagues, or keep a BOM private for your eyes only. We've added two new components to the BOM Tool. In the upper-right corner, you'll see a new "omniscient eye" icon and also a bigger Share button.

If you hover over the eye, you'll see how many people are currently viewing the BOM. This feature (and the rest of the BOM Tool, in fact) uses the excellent Firebase platform to keep track of when a web browser opens and closes the BOM. Firebase makes this kind of event-based functionality easy to implement.

Clicking the Share button will reveal new options in the BOM Sharing box.

Screen Shot 2015-08-21 at 10.48.14 AM

At the top, you can enable or disable BOM sharing entirely by clicking on the checkbox. If BOM sharing is disabled, only you will be able to view and edit your BOM. Any other user will see this screen when visiting your BOM's URL:

Screen Shot 2015-08-21 at 10.44.29 AM

If you'd like to allow your colleagues to edit a BOM that you've created, you can give them the new "view or edit" URL.

Screen Shot 2015-08-21 at 10.48.17 AM

If your colleagues use this longer URL to view your BOM, they'll be able to make changes to it. Other people using the regular "view" URL will not be able to make edits.

Finally, the BOM Tool's "Share via email" feature now allows you to select the type of link that will be shared—"view" or "view or edit."

Screen Shot 2015-08-21 at 10.50.42 AM

As always, let us know what you think! Use the "Talk to Us!" widget at the bottom of any page to give us your feedback.

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