Manipulating product configurations and products

Product configurations and products are flexible artifacts. You can mark often-used product configurations as favorites and then filter the product configurations you see in the product tree to show your favorites only. You can reuse configurations and products as child configurations and products in multiple or the same configurations and products. You can move a configuration or product and include it as a child in a different configuration or product. You can rename a configuration or product, and the new name is propagated to wherever the configuration or product was reused. If you no longer need a configuration or product, you can remove it.

Procedure

  1. Mark a configuration as a favorite.
    1. In the product tree, find a favorite configuration.
    2. Click the Add to Favorite Product Configurations icon, which is an empty star to the left of the configuration. The star fills with color, which signifies that this configuration is a favorite.
    3. Filter the configurations in the product tree to show only favorites by changing the Browse Products pull-down menu to Favorite Product Configurations.
  2. Reuse a child configuration or product.
    1. In the product tree, find the child configuration or product that you want to reuse, right-click it and choose Reuse.
    2. Right-click another configuration or product and click Place.

      If you reuse (or move) a product version in the same configuration, the same product version is used.

      If you move or copy and place a product from one configuration to a different configuration, the same product version might not be used. The following examples explain why this might occur.
      • A dimension called geo has values of US and Europe. A product configuration with geo=US uses a radio-3 product with geo=US dimensions. A user reuses (or copies or moves) the radio-3 product and places it in a product configuration with geo=Europe dimensions. The radio-3 product with geo=US dimensions do not match the dimensions set in the product configuration that the product is going into. Therefore, you might see a different version, say, radio-2 with geo=Europe, because the dimensions match the product configuration. The same applies working downwards through any child products.
      • A product configuration uses the wheel-2 product, which was checked out in that configuration. If a user reuses (or copies or moves) the wheel-2 product to a different product configuration, even one with the same dimensions and values as the original configuration, wheel-2 is not used. The version is not available in the new configuration, so it is displayed as an empty slot. In the case of a reuse or copy, if the user check in the wheel-2 product in the original configuration, it becomes available to the new configuration and no longer is displayed as an empty slot.
  3. Move a child configuration or a product.
    1. In the product tree, find the child configuration or the product that you want to move, right-click it and select Move.
    2. Right-click another configuration or product and click Place.

      See the description under Step 2 for a discussion of product and product configuration behavior during a move.

  4. Drag and drop a child configuration or a product.

    In the product tree, find the child configuration or product that you want to move or reuse, drag it to move it to another configuration or product or control-drag it to reuse it elsewhere.

  5. Rename a configuration or product.
    1. In the product tree, find the configuration or product that you want to rename, right-click it and select Rename.
    2. In the Rename dialog box, change the name.
  6. Remove a checked-in child product or configuration.
    1. In the product tree, find the child product or configuration that you do not want in your hierarchy, right-click it and select Remove.
    2. In the confirmation dialog box, choose to remove the child product or configuration. You can:
      • remove a non-modifiable child product.
      • remove a non-modifiable child product that has children. (The children remain in the repository.)
      • remove a configuration that is a child of a product if it is a member of baseline, or a configuration if it is a baseline.
  7. Delete a checked-out child product or configuration.
    1. In the product tree, find the child product or configuration that you do not want in your hierarchy, right-click it and select Delete.
    2. In the confirmation dialog box, choose to delete the child product or configuration. You can:
      • delete a modifiable product that has children and replace it with a different matching version. (The children remain in the repository.) If you are deleting the first product version, it will be deleted permanently without a replacement.
      • delete a top-level modifiable configuration. (The children remain in the repository.)
      • delete a configuration that is a child of a product if it is not a member of a baseline, or a configuration if it is not a baseline or a member of a baseline.

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