Video Tutorial
Starting a merge
Go to your Catalog.
Select the two items you want to merge.
A new menu called Other Options will appear, click it, then choose Materials Merge.
This takes you to the Materials Merge screen.
Building the final merged item
On the Materials Merge screen, you'll see three columns: the two materials you're merging on the right, and the final merged material building on the left.
For each attribute, pick which version you want to keep. As you select, the left-hand side updates in real time to show what your final item will look like.
Once you're happy with it, click Next.
Reviewing locations and variants
The next screen shows you everywhere the merged material exists, along with its variants.
At this step, keep in mind you're merging two or more materials that each have their own variant, usually called "Single."
When you merge, you need to decide whether to keep just one of those Single variants, or keep both.
If you keep both, they can't share the same name, so you'll need to rename one of them.
So the right way to handle this step is:
1. Decide whether to continue with a single variant or with both/more.
2. If you're going with a single variant, select them and click "Merge Variants."
3. If you're keeping both, rename one of them and click Next.
If you do "Merge Variants," you'll then need to decide what to do with the quantities, whether to add them together or keep just one, and the same goes for the min/max values.
If you continue with both (or multiple) variants, the quantities and min/max values stay unchanged.
When it looks right, click Next.
Confirming the merge
You'll land on a confirmation screen with a full summary of the changes.
Need to fix something on the item itself? Click Edit to go back to the main Materials Merge screen.
Need to change the variants? You can do that from here too.
When everything checks out, click Merge to combine the two items.
After the merge
Once the items are merged, you can click into the item and see the merge reflected in its activity feed.
A few things to keep in mind
It also merges in your FSM. When you merge items in Ply, the change carries over to your FSM as well. Depending on the case, this may create an active item or move the item altogether, so make sure the FSM behavior fits how you want things set up before you merge.
Items already on existing jobs are safe. If a merged item is already on an existing job, that information is retained. The item, its price, and any other attributes stay locked in as-is on the FSM-synced invoice item, so merging won't cause any issues for jobs that already used it.
Still have questions?