How to Add a Note to a Routing Step in EDGEBIC

To add a note to a routing step in EDGEBIC by User Solutions you type into the step's Description field, in the grid column or the Designer Properties panel. The note persists with the routing and travels with each job's frozen copy, so it reaches the floor with the operation. It is documentation only, and the scheduler ignores it completely.

This is the smallest routing edit there is, and the one most likely to save the next planner a phone call. For where a step sits in the whole recipe, see the bill of routing explained.

Before You Start

• Decide whether the note belongs to one operation or the whole routing. Per-operation goes in the step's Description. Routing-wide goes in a canvas annotation.
• Keep it a note, not a spec of record. Plain notes are not version controlled, so anything formal is better referenced than pasted.
• Have the routing open and saving cleanly, so the note save is unambiguous.

Adding the Note to a Step

In the grid:

1. Open the BOR tab and select the routing in Data Grid mode.
2. Find the step's row and click into the Description column.
3. Type the note. A cut-length, a fixture number, a quality caution, or an ECN reference are all typical.
4. Click Update Standard BOR to save.

In the Designer:

1. Open the routing in Designer mode and select the node.
2. In the Properties panel on the right, find Description / Note: and type the note.
3. Click Update to save.

Both write the same field. The grid is faster for several rows at once, and the Designer is better when you want to see which node you are annotating.

Keep a step note to per-operation context. A cut-length tolerance on the saw step, a fixture number on the mill step, a first-article caution on inspection: these belong on the operation they describe, because they travel with it. What a step note is not is a place for the whole routing's story. A remark about why the routing takes the shape it does, or a customer preference that colors several steps, is better placed where it reads as standalone context, which is the canvas annotation covered next.

Adding a Canvas Annotation Instead

When the remark is about the routing rather than one step, use a free-floating annotation.

1. In Designer mode, click Add annotation + on the toolbar. A sticky note drops onto the canvas.
2. Type the remark: "waiting on tooling quote," a customer preference, a reason a step exists.
3. Right-click the note later for Edit or Delete.
4. Click Update to save it with the routing.

Annotations are documentation the scheduler ignores, exactly like step notes. The only difference is scope: an annotation is not tied to one operation.

What Changes When You Save

The value of a note is that it travels. A step Description saved on the standard routing is copied into every job's frozen routing when that job is scheduled, so the operator reading the traveler sees the same context the planner wrote.

This travel behavior is the same mechanism that protects a note against later routing churn. Because each job carries a frozen copy of the routing it was scheduled with, a note that was on the routing when a job was scheduled stays with that job even if the standard routing is edited afterward. The reverse is also true: a note added to the standard after a job was scheduled does not appear on that job unless you deliberately adopt the change. That is worth remembering when a shop-floor instruction changes. Updating the standard fixes it for future jobs, and pushing it to a running job is a separate, per-job decision.

On the Scheduled Job BOR tab you can go further and put a note onto one job's copy only, without touching the standard at all. That is the right home for a note that applies to a single order and no other: a one-off customer instruction, a note about a substitute material used just this once. The note lives on that job's routing copy, saved with the job's own update, and it never reaches the product's standard routing or any other order.

How to Check It Worked

Read the note back where you typed it: the Description column in the grid, or Description / Note: in the Designer Properties panel. If it is blank, the save did not take.

Confirm the header totals did not move. Estimated Hour per unit = and Setup Time = are numbers, and a note is not, so an unchanged total is the correct outcome. A total that moved means you typed into a timing cell by mistake.

For a note meant to reach the floor, open a scheduled job's own routing on the Scheduled Job BOR tab and confirm the note carried into that job's copy. That is the surface the shop actually reads.

Common Mistakes

Typing the note into a timing cell. The Description column sits beside the hours and setup columns. A number that lands in Hours Required or Setup Time (hrs) changes the plan, which a note never should. Watch the header totals as a guard.

Using a step note for routing-wide context. Overloading one operation's Description with a remark about the whole routing hides it from the steps it actually concerns. A canvas annotation is the right home for routing-wide notes.

Pasting a formal spec that changes. Notes are not version controlled. Reference an ECN number rather than the full spec, so the note points at the controlled document instead of drifting out of date.

Expecting a standard-routing note on a live job that predates it. Notes travel with the job's frozen copy taken at scheduling time. A note added to the standard after a job was scheduled does not appear on that job unless you adopt the change, the same way any routing edit behaves. See editing a live job's routing safely.

Next Steps

Notes pair naturally with the edits they explain: changing the hours on a routing step and adding setup time to a routing step. The full task library is at the EDGEBIC how-to hub, and the platform overview is at EDGEBIC.