Creating a product

Teams use products defined in the products tree as a portal to find information relevant to their product across the lifecycle.

Before you begin

The top of a product tree must be a product configuration.

About this task

Create a product to represent the work the team is focused on. A product can be as large as a car or as small as a mechanical heart valve. In this example, the product tree starts at the product level, such as Automated Meter Reader.

This image is an example of the products tree.

The product manager or team lead might then add child products (for example, Handheld Reader, Reader Probe), under Automated Meter Reader to further organize the product. The product manager or team lead might add a group of child products from other models, such as Current Measurement, Voltage Measurement, and Tampering Measurement. In this example, the child products are all measurements. The measurements could be grouped under a configuration called Measurement or could be placed individually as products under Automated Meter Reader. If placed as products, the dimensions and values for the products must match the dimensions and values set on the parent configuration.

Further, product trees can be organized at multiple levels, for example, by model or by year. Meter Reader might be one of several meter readers that resides in a group of products called Model Year 2017. The products can also be reused as child products to populate other products. For example, the Measurement product could be a child product of several groups of products, such as Model Year 2015, Model Year 2016, and Model Year 2017.

You can add a child product to a product or configuration as many times as you need to add it. See Reusing products and configurations.

Procedure

  1. In the main menu, click Products > Create Product.
  2. In the Create Product dialog box, enter the name of the product you are creating.

    Hover over Product Name to read details about product names.

    Products can use dimension and value pairs to express variations in your products based on those dimensions and values. A dimension describes how a product or product branch is unique by defining its aspects. A dimension consists of a name, such as geo, and a value, such as uk. For example, if your product is a speedometer created in the United States, you could create a variant of the speedometer product for the United Kingdom.

    When you set dimension and value pairs for a product or product branch, the pairs determine whether or not the parent configuration gathers it as a child product. Each dimension and value pair must be unique, but you can add as many pairs as you need to products.

    Read about the behavior of dimensions in the Create Product dialog box, in Dimensions hover help.

  3. Optional: Add an existing product or configuration to the focus product by right-clicking over the focus product and selecting Add Product or Configuration.

    Set the search scope to the appropriate scope. Enter a keyword to search for a product, then select a product or configuration from the results, and click Add. The selected product or configuration is added as a child of the focus product.


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