What is the difference between As-Built and Latest in a SOLIDWORKS PDM BOM?

The dividing factor between SOLIDWORKS PDM As-Built vs Latest in a Bill of Materials is a Check-in of the selected assembly.

As-Built vs Latest

The As Built option will show the BOM for a referenced file at the time that the assembly is checked in whereas the Latest option shows the BOM for a referenced assembly, which reflects the latest versions of all referenced files.

If you check out an assembly, make a change, and then check the assembly back into the vault — PDM will update the referenced BOM to reflect the latest changes.

Confused?  Me too, let’s look at an example.

As-built vs latest

I’ve got an assembly I created ParentAssem.SLDASM then added a sub-assembly SubAssem.SLDASM (which contains SubAssemPart.SLDPRT)  to it and checked it in (version 1).

SOLIDWORKS Assembly Checked In

Then I modified SubAssem to add a new part within it SubAssemNewPart.SLDPRT.  Notice SubAssem.SLDASM goes to version 2.

Assembly revised as version 2

Now let’s look at the difference between the As-Built and Latest ParentAssem.SLDASM. First As-built;

As-Built Assembly

Next Latest;

Latest Assembly

Notice that SubAssemNewPart.SLDPRT appears in Latest because it was added after ParentAssem was checked in.