About Impact Graphs

Impact graphs show the relationship of the input and output to the simulation process or simulation activity and allow you to view the impact of changes. For example, if you change a file that you marked as an input to a simulation activity, the impact graph shows that the activity and its output are now out of date. If you mark those outputs as inputs to a second simulation activity, the impact graph shows that the input, the activity, and its output are all out of date.

Similarly, if you change a simulation entity, the impact graph shows the entity as being out of date. For example,

If you add a simulation activity to a simulation process, the simulation process will be out of date.
If you change the connector that a simulation activity is using, the simulation activity will be out of date.
If you change a download rule that a simulation activity is using, the simulation activity will be out of date.

Impact graphs allow you to view all of the activities that you have to run to bring your simulation process, simulation activities, or documents back up-to-date. You can also update your simulation incrementally by executing each activity sequentially. You can use the impact graph to view the status of the simulation after each activity has completed.

You can view the impact graph for a simulation or a simulation activity. The simulation process or simulation activity that you select is the root, which the impact graph displays in a darker color than the other entities. The impact graph displays all of the inputs and outputs relative to the root; inputs appear to the left of the root and outputs appear to the right. The figure below shows the impact graph for a simulation process (the root). The three simulation activities to the left of the simulation process appear as inputs to the process. The data category containing a folder and a document to the right are outputs from the process.

If a folder contains an object created by another 3DEXPERIENCE app (such as a material, a part, or an engineering document) and the object is used by a simulation process or activity, you must click Check Input Relationships to determine if the object has been modified and the relationship is out of date. If the object has been modified, the impact graph shows that the simulation process or activity, and its output, are now out of date.

If you have a complex hierarchy of folders and documents stored inside data categories, the impact graph can become unwieldy and hard to navigate. To simplify the impact graph, you can choose to exclude data categories and folders from the display. The documents stored in the folders and data categories appear as input to the simulation processes and activities.

Note: If your simulation process or simulation activity is in the Proposed state of a simulation process or simulation activity (Controlled) policy, Process Composer assumes it is still under development and never displays an entity as being out of date. Process Composer displays the correct out-of-date state only when the simulation and its simulation activities have been promoted to the In Process state. See About Policies for more information.

Colors and Symbols in an Impact Graph

The table below lists the color coding of the entities in an impact graph. Entities that are up-to-date are colored blue; entities that are out of date are colored pink.


Entity Color	Meaning
	Entity is up-to-date
	Entity is out of date
	Root entity is up-to-date
	Root entity is out of date

The following table lists the symbols that describe an entity:


Icon	Entity
	Simulation
	Simulation activity
	Non-versioned document
	Versioned document
	Folder

The alert symbols indicate that a simulation entity is out of date; clicking the symbol inside the colored box forces the entity to become up-to-date. However, if the entity is a simulation activity, you must run the activity to bring it up-to-date.

A data category or a simulation folder is shown as out of date if anything it contains is out of date. Similarly, simulation documents (versioned or non-versioned) are marked out of date if you modify the file stored in the document. If you force a data category or a simulation folder to become up to date, Process Composer forces everything inside that category or folder to become up-to-date.

The plus symbol indicates that you can expand the impact graph to reveal more entities that are used for input or output. The minus symbol indicates that you can collapse an entity to simplify the appearance of the graph. Empty data categories and folders do not appear in an impact graph.