About Revisions, Branches, and Duplicates

Revisions, branches, and duplicates show the evolution of an object from its creation to its final version, with different levels of traceability and have an impact on object structures.

You can create structures by creating parent-child relationships between objects. Lifecycle operations on the parent can impact the child object, or only its usage in the structure. For example, duplicating an object might cause a child object to be duplicated, or the same child object might become a child in the duplicate of its parent.

Note: If the type of object follows the instance-reference model, the object is a reference, and its usage in a structure is an instance.

For more information about specific behaviors of lifecycle commands for different object types, see Reference Library: PLM Components.

This page discusses:

Revision Families
Revisions and Branches
Duplicates
Relation Management
Propagation

Revision Families

Creating an object (from scratch or with the Duplicate command) creates a revision family. Then, you can revise this object to keep traces of its evolution. A revision family is a group of objects with the same origination. It is composed of all the revisions of the initial object, in all branches.

The following commands let you manage objects and revision families:

Commands that create a new revision family:
- New ... commands (for example, New Product or New Requirement)
  Note: The diagrams in this page use the icon to indicate that an object was created with a New ... command.
- Duplicate
Commands that create objects within the same revision family:
- New Revision
- New Branch
- New Revision From

The Revision Explorer displays the content of the revision family of the selected object. You can also choose to display the associated revision families created from duplicates of these revisions and branches, or hide them. This maintains the traceability to the initial object. For more information, see Exploring Revisions, Duplicates and Branches with the Revision Explorer.

Revisions and Branches

Revisions

Revisions allow you to capture a particular evolution of an object during its lifecycle. The object you created with the New or Duplicate command is the initial revision of the revision family. Any revision of this object represents an evolution of the object along the same branch. When creating a revision, the content is copied from the selected object. You can modify it afterward.

The following diagram shows the initial branch of revisions:

P1 A is the initial revision of the family, and all other objects are revisions created along the same branch.

If you create a revision of an object that has children, its direct children are inserted under the new revision. Child objects are not revised.

Note: If you select a filtered object, all its children are inserted under the new revision, regardless of the filter.

By default, you can create a new revision from any revision. Administrators can modify this behavior and allow the creation of revisions from the latest revision only. For more information, see Configuring Lifecycle and Collaboration Commands.

Branches

Revision families are organized in branches. Branches are subsets of revisions in the revision family that are intended for a specific purpose (for example, a design alternative or a fix). The New Branch command creates a revision of the selected object in a branch, within the same revision family. The content of this revision is copied from the selected object. Then, the next revisions of this revision are created within this branch.

You may need to create additional branches, for example to study an alternative design. Starting a new design involves creating the required objects. Using a previous design as a starting point facilitates this process.

Important: Creating branches instead of duplicating content improves traceability:

If you replace an object of a structure with a revision from the same or from another branch, the connections can be moved to the new object, because the objects are part of the same revision family.
When you compare a structure with one of its revisions created with the New Revision From command, if you replace a child object with an unrelated one:
- If you used a revision or a branch to create the revision, the compare status of the child object is Replaced.
- If you used a duplicate to create the revision, the compare status of the child object is Right-only.
For more information, see Merging Branches with New Revision From and Social and Collaborative | Structured Collaboration & Collaborative Content | Compare | Comparing the Structure of Objects.

The following diagram shows a revision family with several branches (in orange), with P1 A as the initial object:

1: The revision family, containing all the revisions and branches of the initial object.
2: The initial P1 branch.
3: Derivative P2, P3, P4, and P5 branches. The P2 and P3 branches might represent alternative studies, the P4 branch represents another version of the object, and the P5 branch might represent a fix of the P4 branch.

If you create a branch of an object with children, its direct children are inserted under the new branch. Branches of child objects are not created.

Notes:

If you create a branch of an object and any of its children at the same time, the new branches of these children are inserted under the new branch of the parent object.
If you select a filtered object, all its children are inserted under the new branch, regardless of the filter.
Effectivities are copied and connected to the initial model dictionary.

Merging Branches with New Revision From

You can merge branches with the New Revision From command. For example, when an alternative design is completed, you can merge it with the initial branch of the family. You create a new revision of the selected structure, integrating changes from another structure.

With the New Revision From command, you can use the following objects to create the new revision:

Any revision of the selected object, in any branch of the revision family
Any revision of any duplicate of the selected object

The following diagram shows the integration of a branch into the initial one (in orange):

A new revision of P1 D (selected revision) is created in the P1 branch, using the content of P3 B. Therefore, P1 and P3 branches are merged.

The New Revision From command allows you to also revise the child objects of the selected object. You can specify which child objects of the structure you want to revise, reuse, exclude, or insert as new in the resulting structure:

To be revised: Creates a revision of the child object in the selected structure, using the content of the corresponding object in the source structure. This new revision is inserted in the resulting structure.
You can select this option if:
- The object in the source structure and the object in the selected structure are linked by revision or branch operations.
- The object in the source structure and the object in the selected structure are identical.
Note: You can select the Reuse option instead.
To be reused: Inserts the child object present in the source structure in the resulting structure.
To be inserted as new: Creates a branch of the child object present in the source structure. This branch is inserted in the resulting structure.
Note: You can select the Reuse option instead to reuse the object in the source structure instead of creating a branch.

Duplicates

A duplicate is a copy of an object. While revisions and branches are evolutions of the same object, the Duplicate command creates an object, and copies its content from the selected object. Therefore, it enables you to create a new revision family based on an existing object.

Important:

If you replace an object of a structure with a duplicate, connections cannot be moved to the new object because the two objects are not part of the same revision family.
When you compare a structure with one of its revisions created with the New Revision From command, if you replace a child object with an unrelated one:
- If you used a revision or a branch to create the revision, the compare status of the child object is Replaced.
- If you used a duplicate to create the revision, the compare status of the child object is Right-only.
For more information, see Merging Branches with New Revision From and Social and Collaborative | Structured Collaboration & Collaborative Content | Compare | Comparing the Structure of Objects.

The following diagram shows two revision families related by a duplicate operation:

1: The revision family created with the New command, that created P1 A (initial object of the revision family)
2: The revision family created with the Duplicate command, that created P4 A (initial object of this revision family) based on P1 B.

If you duplicate an object that has children:

By default, its direct children are inserted under the duplicate. Child objects are not duplicated.
If you select the Include Structural Objects option, all its child objects are also duplicated, and these duplicates are inserted under the parent's duplicate.
If you duplicate the object and any of its child objects at the same time, the duplicates of these selected child objects are inserted under the parent's duplicate.

The Duplicate Advanced command lets you specify the action for each child object:

Duplicate: Creates a duplicate of the child object, and inserts it in the resulting structure.
Reuse: Inserts the same child object in the resulting structure.
Exclude: Does not insert the child object in the resulting structure.
Important: This option is only available for children. It is not available for attachments such as documents.

Important: The Advanced Duplicate option is only available for physical product, functional, logical, and PPR structures.

Notes:

Aggregated objects (for example, a 3D part and its representation) are duplicated together. For more information, see Reference Library: PLM Components: Basic PLM Objects.
If you duplicate a filtered object with the Duplicate command, all its children are inserted under the duplicate, regardless of the filter. To duplicate a filtered object, use the Duplicate Advanced command.
If you duplicate an object with configuration information (effectivities), this configuration information is kept on the duplicate, unless you cleared the Keep configuration option in the Advanced Duplicate command.

Relation Management

Relations (for example associativity links, implement links, geometric links, or assembly connections) are all managed in the same way when creating revisions, branches, and duplicates.

If you select all connected objects at the same time, the connection is moved to the new objects. Otherwise, the new revision, branch, or duplicate remains connected to the former object.

Note: When duplicating content with advanced options, if you select either the Reuse or Exclude option for a child object, the duplicate of the parent object remains connected to this former object.

You can use the Relations command to view all the relations of an object. For more information, see Relations.

Propagation

The following table describes whether the different elements are propagated to revisions, branches, and duplicates of an object.


	New	New Revision	New Branch	New Revision From	Duplicate
Title	New	Same as the selected revision*	By default, same as the selected revision. You can modify it when you create the branch.	Same as the selected revision	By default, same as the selected revision. You can modify it when you create the duplicate.
Name	New	Same as the selected revision*	New	Same as the selected revision	New
Collaborative Space and Organization For more information, see Access to Content in Collaborative Spaces and Moving Objects to Another Collaborative Space or Organization.	Current credentials	Same as the selected revision*	Current credentials	Same as the selected revision	Current credentials
Sharing For more information, see Sharing Objects with Other Users.	None	Same as the selected revision*	None	Same as the selected revision	None
Subscriptions For more information, see Subscriptions.	None	Same as the selected revision*	None	Same as the selected revision	None

*In case of intermediate revisions, everything is copied from the direct ancestor of the revision. For more information, see Revisions.

Contrary to new objects, new branches, or duplicates, you cannot choose the collaborative space and organization of new revisions. When you create a revision, it automatically uses the same collaborative space and organization of the revised object. This keeps all the revisions of the object in a same branch shared with the same people. However, the owner of the new revision is the one used for the session.

Recommendation: Keep the same collaborative space and organization for all the revisions of a branch, even if you can move the new revision afterward.