About Design Variants

Design variants represent market variability. Design variants are top-level variants and option groups used to define the variability for a logical feature. Design options are the variant values and options associated with the design variants.

The number of design variants and corresponding design conditions control the total number of possible model version variations or combinations. Rules evaluate design variant/design condition selections to determine the set of parts to include in the corresponding EBOM. Design conditions are selected when creating a product configuration.

When a design variant is added to a logical feature, it is inherited upward by the immediate parent logical features and the context model version. When a design variant is removed or inactivated, it is removed or inactivated from all immediate parent logical features as long as no other lowest level logical feature refers to it.

Note: If you manually add a variant or option group to a model version and then add it as a design variant to a logical feature, that variant or option group will be retained in the model version context even if the design variant is removed.

See Also
Logical Features Page
Design Variants Category for a Logical Feature
Design Variants List for a Logical Feature
Adding a Design Variant to a Logical Feature

You can determine the effectivity of a design variant for a logical feature in every level of the feature structure as either Active or Inactive:

  • The Active or Inactive status of a design variant is applied to all immediate parent logical features.
  • If the status of a design variant is changed to Inactive for a low level logical feature and the status of the same design variant for a higher level logical feature is changed back to Active, the design variant is added to the context model version.
  • The status of a design variant can be set manually or by the system through inheritance. Setting the status manually overrides any status set through inheritance or any status that could be set through future inheritance.
  • If two lowest level logical features refer to the same design variant, then the Inactive status on one will not be inherited at any parent levels.
  • Design variants for children that are added under a leaf-level logical feature are not programmatically rolled down. Such design variants are considered user-defined conditions, and are therefore not altered in the replace and merge process.