Duplicating Objects with Advanced Options

You can duplicate a structure and choose to duplicate, reuse, or exclude each child object.

Compared to the Duplicate command, the Duplicate Advanced command provides options that give you more control over the resulting duplicated structure. No further save actions required.

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

Required access roles: Contributor, Author, Leader, Owner. For more information, see Collaborative Lifecycle Access to Content.

This task shows you how to:

Before you begin:
  • Select all connected objects together to duplicate the connections and move them to the new objects. Otherwise, the new objects will remain connected to the initial object. For more information, see Relation Management.
  • For functional and logical structures, select the With flows and types option in Me > Preferences > App Preferences > Social and Collaborative > Global Design Management > System Finder > Expand.
  • You might not be able to use the Duplicate Advanced command with large structures or structures that cannot be fully expanded, depending on the complexity of the structure or your network.

    To duplicate large structures, you can duplicate substructures separately, or filter the structure before duplicating it.

    To verify the size of the selected structure, use the Data Analyzer command. For more information, see Analyzing the Content of a Structure.

See Also
About Revisions, Branches, and Duplicates

Duplicate Objects with Advanced Options

The Duplicate Advanced command is available from a navigation tab, an authoring tab, a search result tab, or a Folder tab.

Note: The command is not available from some authoring tabs such as, for example, Functional and Logical tabs.

  1. Explore a structure, apply filters, and remove branches until you have the content you want to duplicate.

    From a search result or a Folder tab, you can select multiple objects to duplicate.

  2. From the Lifecycle section of the action bar, click Duplicate Advanced .

    The Duplicate Advanced dialog box appears.

    The Summary section displays the number of duplicated objects, and the size (in KB) of the representations to be duplicated (if any) that are transferred to the vault.

    If you selected several objects, all the content to be duplicated is displayed as well as all required content automatically added to the scope (for example, the representation of a 3D part).

    Note: If you selected a filtered object, only the child objects that are not filtered are displayed and will be part of the duplicate.

    A B.I. Essentials section also appears, showing the status of each element of the modified structure:



    		To be inserted as new


    		To be reused
    To be excluded
    Notes:

  3. To modify the duplication status for the selected objects, in the tree or in the 3D area, select an object and select the required option: Duplicate , Reuse , or Exclude .

    For more information, see Duplicates.

    The Duplicate, Reuse, and Exclude options apply to the selected object and its children.

    Important: If you modify the duplication option applied to a child that is used several times in the structure, the option for all the occurrences of that child are modified accordingly.
    Tip: You can select the Exclude or Reuse options for the root, and then select the Duplicate option for specific nodes. This enables you to define a small subset of the structure as Duplicate in a more efficient manner. The option you specify for the root is used as the default one the next time you start the Duplicate Advanced command.
  4. To define global duplication options, in the Duplicate Options panel, specify the options of your choice:
    OptionDescription
    Duplication String Lets you define the title prefix of the duplicated objects.

    The default usage of this string is defined in the Business Logic. For more information about the User-defined duplication string option, see the Duplication section in Identification.

    Duplicate as Branch Creates branches instead of duplicates.

    If you select this option, branches are created for all the objects. Thus, replacing the original content by the duplicated content is easier if you need to move the connections.

    Note: This option is only available if the New Branch command is available.

    Optimize Reuse Activates or deactivates the PLMAuthoringDefaultPropagationScope business logic.
    Note: By default, this option is selected and the business logic is activated.

    This command uses the PLMAuthoringDefaultPropagationScope business logic to define if objects are excluded from the operation. By default, objects that are not in the same collaborative space as their root context are excluded from the scope of the operation, and are reused. The root context is, for each object, the parent of the highest level among the selected objects. For more information, see Installation and Setup | 3DEXPERIENCE Platform | 3DEXPERIENCE Configuration and Customization | Behavior | Data Setup | List of Resource Set IDs | Infrastructure Business Logics | Business Logic Implementations | Operation Propagation (PLMAuthoringDefaultPropagationScope).
    Keep Configuration Keeps configuration information (effectivities) on duplicated objects.

    By default, this option is selected.

    Note: This option only appears if you have a Configuration Engineer license.
    Keep Lock Status Keeps the lock status of the source object for duplicated objects.
    Keep Owner Keeps the same owner as the source object for duplicated objects, in the same collaborative space and organization.
    Keep Organization Keeps the same organization as the source objects for the duplicated objects.
    Note: To specify both the owner and organization of source objects as the owner and organization of duplicated objects, select the Keep Owner option.
  5. To modify the attributes of the to-be-duplicated structure, in the Lifecycle section in the action bar, click Attributes or Sheet Editor.

    For more information, see Using Attributes or Using Attributes with the Sheet Editor in Collaborative Lifecycle.

    Notes:
    • Initial values take into account the default values of data setup, and Business Logic execution.
    • You can modify attribute values only for objects with the Duplicate duplication option.
    • If you modified attributes but did not save them, and you request a refresh, then you are asked whether you want to save the modifications. To refresh the attributes with the values corresponding to the most recent save, click No.
    • If you modify attributes in another tab while you are modifying attributes in the Attributes dialog box, the Refresh command turns red. Click it to refresh the values.
    • If you modify attributes in another tab while you are modifying attributes in the Sheet Editor dialog box, then the values in the sheet editor are automatically refreshed.
    • When you start the Duplicate Advanced command from a navigation tab, the duplicated content has default names and attribute values that you cannot modify because the attribute editing is disabled by the read-only mode.

  6. Click OK.

    Depending on the type of the initial tab, a new navigation tab or a new authoring tab appears, and shows the duplicated objects. Multiple tabs can be displayed if you initially selected unconnected objects.

    Note: After a successful duplication, the result is displayed unexpanded. You can use the Expand or Expand All command to expand it.

Specify Default Options in Administration Mode

Administrators can use the Duplicate Advanced command to define default options, and freeze the selected options to impose the chosen defaults.

  1. To set the CATReferenceSettingPath environement variable and connect to the 3DEXPERIENCE in administration mode, follow Steps 1 to 6 in Installation and Setup: Install: 3DEXPERIENCE Platform: Installing 3DEXPERIENCE Platform Services for the First Time: Installing Services One-by-One: Native Apps: Configuring the Software: Configuring Settings: Locking Settings.
  2. Explore any product structure and click Duplicate Advanced as described above.
    The Options dialog appears with padlocks associated with each of the options.
  3. Select the options that you want to be selected by default.
  4. To make the default option mandatory, click the padlocks of this option.
    The padlocks of the option changes to . This option value is frozen, and users will not be able to modify it.
  5. In the Duplicate Advanced dialog box, click OK to confirm.

All users using the Duplicate Advanced command afterward have these options as defaults.

Note: Frozen options are grayed out.