Variant Management Access to Content

The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a collaborative environment for managing your business processes based on defined responsibilities and content lifecycles that provide secure access to content.

This page discusses:

Content Categories

Depending on your responsibility, you can create and manage the following types of content with Variant Management.

Content Type Category

Variability Rule (Matrix Rule and Expression Rule)

Manufacturing Plan

Product Configuration

Definition

Configuration Option (Option and Variant Value)

Logical Feature

Perpetual Resource (Option Group and Variant)

Authoring Resource Management
The content that you can access and the tasks that you can perform depend on your responsibilities. For more information, see 3DEXPERIENCE Platform: Content Categories.

Variant Management also uses content types from Product Line Management. For information on those content categories, see the Product Line Management User's Guide: Content Categories.

Responsibilities

Variant Management uses the 3DEXPERIENCE platform 3DSpace baseline responsibilities that your business administrator assigns to you.

The following table describes the permissions for design task responsibilities.

Responsibility Permissions
Reader The ability to view any content requires at least the Reader role. A user with this role can view all model version information such as model versions, product configurations, and so on.
Leader The ability to author any content requires the Leader role. A user with this role can:
  • Assigns the parts and GBOM parts for a model version and each of its options.
  • Applies part rules to define what constitutes a valid configuration of the model version.
  • Tests the model version's structure and its rules prior to its release.
  • Defines and maintains manufacturing plans and their process steps.
  • Ensures that product line, model, and model version marketing information (Marketing Text, Marketing Name, and images) are properly defined and managed.
  • Defines new product lines, models, and model versions.
  • Defines the variants and options for a model version, including pricing.
  • Specifies some marketing-related rules for the model version.
  • Defines configuration rules for the model version and logical features.
  • Creates product configurations to perform what-if analyses.
  • Generates and validates the BOM for product configurations.
  • Tests the model version's structure and its rules prior to its release.
  • Defines a portfolio of model versions and variability with configurations based on specific customer and market requirements.
  • Creates model version revisions.
  • Assigns the parts and GBOM parts for a model version and each of its options.
  • Applies part rules to define what constitutes a valid configuration of the model version.
  • Tests the model version's structure and its rules prior to its release.
  • Generates EBOMs, if parts are owned by other users.
  • Defines a portfolio of model versions and features with configurations based on specific customer and market requirements.
  • Creates product configurations to perform what-if analyses.
  • Generates and validates the BOM for product configurations.
  • Connects logical features to the model version and GBOM parts.
  • Defines rules for model versions and logical features.
  • Sets up test cases to be executed by Quality Engineering.
Note: Access to the Product Line and Variant Management menus in the top bar is available to users with the Leader role, but not to users with the Leader (Restricted) role.

If your company chose to use app-specific responsibilities instead of the baseline responsibilities, the following table shows how the responsibilities map to each other.

BaselineResponsibility App-specific Access Responsibility Description
Reader Global User Can view all model version information such as model versions, features, product configurations, and so on.
Leader Design Engineer Does one or more of the following:
  • Assigns the parts and GBOM parts for a model version and each of its options.
  • Applies part rules to define what constitutes a valid configuration of the model version.
  • Tests the model version's structure and its rules prior to its release.
Senior Design Engineer Does one or more of the following:
  • Creates model version revisions and versions.
  • Assigns the parts and GBOM parts for a model version and each of its options.
  • Applies part rules to define what constitutes a valid configuration of the model version.
  • Tests the model version's structure and its rules prior to its release.
  • Generates EBOMs, if parts are owned by other users.
System Engineer Does one or more of the following:
  • Defines a portfolio of model versions and features with configurations based on specific customer and market requirements.
  • Creates product configurations to perform what-if analyses.
  • Generates and validates the BOM for product configurations.
  • Connects logical features to the model version and GBOM parts.
  • Defines rules for model versions and logical features.
  • Sets up test cases to be executed by Quality Engineering.
The responsibilities provide hierarchical access. For example, the Leader or System Engineer responsibility includes all access that the Reader or Global User responsibility has, plus additional specific access.

Your business administrator can configure rules that change the default access behavior.

On premises only: Your business administrator can change the default responsibilities that control your access to commands, content, and collaborative spaces. Companies can also implement additional customized responsibilities.

This guide describes the default behavior when describing access to content or commands.

Your access to content or commands is determined by more than your responsibility. The current collaborative space, your organization, the current lifecycle state of the content, the app you are using, and other customizations all affect whether you can access content or commands. You might have access to some content or commands only under certain conditions.

For more information, see 3DEXPERIENCE Platform: Responsibilities.

Content Lifecycle

For information about the lifecycles for content managed by Variant Management, see Content Lifecycles