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
- Mark a configuration as a favorite.
- In the product tree, find a favorite configuration.
- 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.
- Filter the configurations in the product tree to show
only favorites by changing the Browse Products pull-down
menu to Favorite Product Configurations.
- Reuse a child configuration or product.
- In the product tree, find the child configuration or
product that you want to reuse, right-click it and choose Reuse.
- 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.
- Move a child configuration or a
product.
- In the product tree, find the child configuration or
the product that you want to move, right-click it and select Move.
- 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.
- 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.
- Rename a configuration or product.
- In the product tree, find the configuration or product
that you want to rename, right-click it and select Rename.
- In the Rename dialog box, change
the name.
- Remove a checked-in child product or configuration.
- In the product tree, find the child product or configuration that you do not want in your
hierarchy, right-click it and select Remove.
- 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.
- Delete a checked-out child product or configuration.
- In the product tree, find the child product or configuration that you do not want in your
hierarchy, right-click it and select Delete.
- 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.