About Content

All data are saved in separate atomic content with relations between them.

There are six kinds of content and three kinds of relationships.

The six kinds of objects are:

• Reference
• Representation
• Instance
• Representation Instance
• Port
• Connection

A reference can be reused in different contexts.

Those atomic elements are related to each other with relationships that might drive certain behaviors (completion, save, etc.).A connection connects content between them. A typical example is the Engineering Connection.

Full concurrent engineering is allowed on data. Any content can be modified independently from the others.

A relationship can be added between content without modifying them. This is true for any kind of relationships, but also for aggregation relationships.

The picture below shows a skateboard made up of references, representations, instances and representations instances as well as relationships between these contents.

The geometry contained in "Wheel_Representation" and the attributes of "Wheel R" can be modified by two different users at the same time. This means that modifying "Wheel_Representation" does not modify "Wheel R".

Instantiating "Deck R" below "Skateboard R" does not modify "Skateboard R".

All six types of objects benefit from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform features.

All six types of objects have ownership attributes (user, project, organization), a creation date, a modification date and can be searched for and open independently from each other.

Security and lock capabilities are available for these contents.

Important: Apps can create reports or generate content that contains personal data. Manage these in accordance with good personal data treatment practices.

Regarding references and representations, the following features are available: maturity and revision.

At creation time, objects are associated with a policy, which may be visible before saving the object for the first time. Certain rules are checked up front to select the correct policy, depending on user context. There may be no policies applicable to the type being saved, or a default policy:

• no policy: this could be the case when a end user uses a role that does authorize saving the created object; for example, a Reader cannot proceed with the New Catalog command, and the system returns the following type of error message:

  A Catalog cannot be created by a VPLMViewer

• default policy: in general, there is one default policy default for whatever role supporting it. For example, an Author is able perform an experiment in creating a Review. The default policy is the same whether a Author or an Contributor role.

  Specific cases exist, for instance an end user who is a Leader would be able by default to create resource content, in addition to creating personal content (as is the case for the other roles). This specific behavior is mentioned in the application documentation.

References are created in a collaborative space and organization. All objects that are created under this reference, such as instances, ports and connections, are created with the same collaborative space and organization, independently from the current user’s credentials.

Aggregating objects under a reference is only possible with objects in the same collaborative space. For more information, see Reference Library: PLM Components: Basic PLM Objects: Reference.

Inserting into a reference can be only performed by the organization in charge of the reference (parametrization extends this behavior).

Insert External Reference (from another collaborative space) can only be done on applicable Reference

Design collaborative space objects are not applicable to Standard Project. Private objects are by default not default applicable.