Editing Lifecycles

Administrator users can edit lifecycles.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
About Lifecycles

Open a Maturity Graph

  1. Open the Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center widget. For more information, see Widgets to Configure Content and Business Rules.
  2. In the menu in the left pane, click Maturity Graph.
    The app lists all the available content types that allow you to edit the maturity graph.
  3. Click the name of the needed content type.

You can click About to view the content types managed by this maturity graph, and the list of operations allowed. Modify Topology means the ability to add or delete states and transitions.

Rename States

You can rename the names of states to meet your company's needs. Some maturity graphs do not allow renaming states, such as X-CAD Design.

For more information, see About Changing State Names.

For the B.I. Essentials design state, if you rename a state for one maturity graph, that changes the name of that state for all maturity graphs that use the same states. For example, the design state for Engineering Definition and Engineering Evaluation content is In Work. If you change the Engineering Definition state to In Progress, the Engineering Evaluation state is also changed.

When an Administrator opens the Maturity Graph dialog box, the app detects the language preference from the user's preferences and uses that language to display state names. If the same user connects from a browser with a different language preference, the state names show using the original language, not the current language preference.

You can enter the new state name in any language, however, new states names will not be translated into other languages.

  1. Click the box for the state you want to rename.
  2. Edit the state name as required.

    You can use spaces and underscores in state names, but no other special characters are allowed.

  3. If finished making lifecycle edits for this content type, save and deploy your edits. For more information, see Save Lifecycle Edits.
  4. Reload the cache. For more information, see Reload the Server Cache.
  5. Any users with open browsers need to close and reopen the browser before they can see the new state names.

Remove States

You can remove any state that does not have a lock on it. Make sure you understand the consequences of removing states. If any content currently exists in the state your are deleting, users can no longer promote or demote that content, and any triggers associated with the state become inactive.

For more information, see About Removing States.

  1. Click the box of the state you want to remove. In the action bar at the top-right, click .
    The app removes the box for that state and all incoming and outgoing transitions. At minimum, you need to connect the states that preceded and followed the state that you removed.
  2. Add a transition to connect the preceding and following states of the removed state. For more information, see Edit Transitions.
  3. If finished making lifecycle edits for this content type, save and deploy your edits. For more information, see Save Lifecycle Edits.

Restore States

If you previously deleted a state, you can restore that state.

  1. In the action bar at the top-right, click . Select the state you want to restore and click OK.
  2. Add a transition to connect the preceding and following states of the restored state. For more information, see Edit Transitions.
  3. If finished making lifecycle edits for this content type, save and deploy your edits. For more information, see Save Lifecycle Edits.

Edit Transitions

If you remove or restore a state, you need to make sure all states are connected properly in the maturity graph. You can also add additional transitions between states that do not already have a transition.

When removing or restoring states, or removing or adding transitions, every state except the first must have at least one transition pointing to it from another state. Also, every state except the last must have at least one transition pointing from it to the next state. A state can have more than one transition to it or from it depending on the defined business processes. For example, a Frozen state can have a transition to a prior state if it requires more work, plus a transition to the next state when it is ready for review.

  1. To add a transition, click an unused green connector dot on the "from" state. The connector dot turns yellow. Drag to draw the transition to an unused green connector dot on the "to" state.
    The app prevents you from creating transitions between certain states, such as from Obsolete to Create in the Development Part lifecycle. If you try to create an invalid transition, the app does not create the transition and displays a message.
  2. To remove a transition, select the transition. In the action bar at the top-right, click .
  3. To rename a transition, click in the name text box and edit as needed.
  4. If finished making lifecycle edits for this content type, save and deploy your edits. For more information, see Save Lifecycle Edits.

Add Transition Controls

You can add controls to transitions that determine if a promotion or demotion should be allowed between the 2 states. For some maturity graphs such as (Development Part and Production Part), the transition rule can be based on the lifecycle states of child and related content.

  1. To define a transition control for a maturity graph that manages content that uses the instance-reference data model, click the required promote or demote transition. The transition turns orange.

    To define a transition control for a maturity graph that manages content that uses the entity-relationship data model (such as requirements or documents), select the promote transition between the two states. Select this transition even if you want to add a demote control.

  2. In the action bar at the top-right, click .
  3. For content that uses the entity-relationship data model, choose Promote or Demote as the Action. Not all maturity graphs allow demotions. If you do not see Action, that maturity graph only supports promoting objects between the 2 states or the maturity graph manages content that uses the instance-reference data model.
  4. From the Object Type list, select the content type for the promotion rule. The list includes the content types governed by the current lifecycle. Some lifecycles might only govern a single type of content.
  5. From the Rule list, select the type of control to add. You only see the rules allowed for the content type.

    Rule Name Description
    Unconditional Reject Prevents all promotions from the source to the target state.

    In earlier releases, this rule exempted Change Actions from being rejected so that all promotions EXCEPT those managed by Change Actions were rejected. To implement that promotion method, use the Require Change Action for maturity state changes rule instead of this one.
    Require Change Action for maturity state changes Prevents all promotions except when the content is promoted by a Change Action. To use a Change Action to manage the promotions for the content, the content must be added to the Proposed Items page for a Change Action.
    Ignore Inherited Control Rules Prevents promotion controls inherited from a parent from executing. Child types (type extensions) normally inherit the promotion control from the parent type. If you select any promotion control for a child type, the parent controls are not executed. If you do not want to specify a specific promotion control on the child type but do not want the parent control to execute, you can select this promotion control.

    For example, Manufacturing Resource inherits from Physical Product:

    • To implement different promotion rules for Manufacturing Resource, select the needed rule for Manufacturing Resource and the Physical Product control will not execute.
    • To disable the Physical Product controls from executing for Manufacturing Resource without specifying a specific promotion control, select Ignore Inherited Control Rules.
    Reject On Contributor Prevents the Contributor from promoting the content between these states.

    This transition control does not take into account the role hierarchy. It only affects users with the Contributor access role.

    Reject On Author Prevents the Author from promoting the content between these states.

    This transition control does not take into account the role hierarchy. It only affects users with the Author access role.

    Reject on Leader Prevents a Leader from demoting the content between these states.

    Organizations could assign people performing the design task to the Leader or Author access role. By default, a Leader can demote content in the Frozen state. If the person assigned to the Leader role, however, performs design tasks, you can configure the transition to prevent that user from demoting frozen content.

    This transition control does not take into account the role hierarchy. It only affects users with the Leader access role.

    Reject On Standard Data Prevents the promotion if the Standard collaborative space owns the content.
    Reject If Attributes(s) not Valuated Checks that values for added attributes that use the string or real data type and are defined as mandatory contain appropriate values. For string attributes, the attribute can contain any string. For real attributes, the attribute must contain a valid real value other than 0.0.
    Reject if any of the Governed Children is not on Target State Checks that child content is at the required state as listed in the table. If at least one child component is not at the target state, promotion is denied. Children defined as Proposed Solutions are included in the check and must also be in the target state.

    State Parent Promoted To States Allowed for All Child Content
    In Work In Work, Frozen, or Released
    Frozen Frozen or Released
    Released Released
    Obsolete Obsolete

    This transition control does not apply for a demotion transition.

    Reject if Newer Released Revision Exists Prevents content from being promoted to Released if a higher revision has already been released. You can add this rule to the transition between any state and the Released state.

    There could be multiple revisions of the content in process at the same time. When configured with this rule, if a part has Rev A, Rev B, and Rev C in process and Rev C is promoted to Released, then Rev A and Rev B cannot be released (because a higher, newer revision has been released). Rev D would not have this restriction because Rev C is an earlier release.

    This rule only applies to revisions on the same branch. When content is branched, this rule only looks for released content on the same branch as the content being promoted. Any content on other branches, regardless the released revisions, are not evaluated.

    Reject if the associated Release Snapshot template is in obsolete state Available for the Engineering Definition maturity graph only, prevents physical product from being promoted if the associated release snapshot template is in the Obsolete state. You can add this rule to the transition between any two states. However, it is recommended to add this rule to transition between the In Work state and the Frozen state.
    Reject if any of the Logical implemented entities is not on target state Available for the Engineering Definition maturity graph only, prevents physical product from being promoted if any of the implemented logical references are in the target state.

    If you use this rule:

    • When promoting a physical product from the In Work state to the Frozen state, if all the implemented logical references are in the Frozen or the Released state, the physical product is promoted.
    • When promoting a physical product from the In Work or the Frozen state to the Released state, if all the implemented logical references are in the Released state, the physical product is promoted.

  6. For the "Reject if any of the Governed Children is not on Target State" rule, define which child objects the rule should apply to in Consider box (in the Additional Info column in the list of current controls).

    You can choose:

    • All Children Types
    • A specific child type (the app lists the available types for the current content type)

    You cannot add this rule to the same transition twice where one rule specific "All Children Types", and the other rule specifies a specific content type.

  7. Click OK.

    You can define as many transition controls as needed, and you can define multiple controls for a single transition.

  8. If finished making lifecycle edits for this content type, save and deploy your edits. For more information, see Save Lifecycle Edits.

When a person promotes the content, if the transition control rejects the promotion, the app displays a message indicating why the promotion failed.

Save Lifecycle Edits

After making all required lifecycle edits for a content type, you need to save and deploy those changes. You only need to perform these when you have finished making the required changes to all content types.

  1. Click Apply.
  2. Download updated CATNls files and install them on client computes. For more information, see Download Localization Files.