Qualifying Alternate Products

You must qualify a proposed alternate product before using it to replace a primary product in an assembly. You can qualify the alternate product with or without a change action (CA) and the product can be configured or unconfigured.

Required Responsibility:

  • Baseline: Leader

This task shows you how to:

Before you begin:
  • The primary product must include one or more alternate products in the proposed qualification status. The status appears in the Alternate Qualification Status column.
  • The primary product and proposed alternate product must both be in the Released maturity state.
  • If the parent product is unconfigured, it must be in the Released maturity state. If the parent is configured, the In Work maturity state is allowed.

Qualify an Alternate Product without Change Management

You can qualify a proposed alternate product without a CA only if the alternate product was added without a CA.

  1. Open the product that has the alternate product assigned to it or has a child in which the alternate product is assigned.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • To open the list of alternate products assigned to the open product, ensure that nothing in the child product list is selected.
    • To open the list of alternate products for a child product, select the child in the list.
  3. Click Information and select the Alternate tab.
  4. Select one or more proposed alternate items.
  5. In the tab toolbar, click Qualify.

    Note: If your administrator has specified that change management is enforced for authoring, the Qualify command is not available. You must use a CA to qualify the alternate product.

The selected alternate items are qualified. The Alternate Qualification Status column displays the qualified status.

Qualify an Alternate Product with Change Management

You can qualify a proposed alternate product that is in the proposed status regardless of whether the alternate product was added to the primary product with or without using a CA.

Note: The Qualify and Obsolete commands are not available for alternate products tracked under change management. The alternate product becomes qualified or obsolete when the CA is approved and promoted to Completed.

If an alternate product was added to the primary product using a CA, you must use that same CA to qualify the alternate product.

If the alternate product was added to the primary product without a CA, you can (or might be required to) use a CA to qualify the alternate product.

  1. Open the product that has the alternate product assigned to it or has a child in which the alternate product is assigned.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • To open the list of alternate products assigned to the open product, ensure that nothing in the child products list is selected.
    • To open the list of alternate products for a child product, select the child in the list.
  3. Click Information and select the Alternate tab.
  4. Select the alternate product in the list.
  5. Click in the alternate product's identity card and select Alternate Properties.
  6. Select the Change tab and then do one of the following:.
    • If a CA is not attached, follow these steps to attach a CA:
      1. Close the Properties dialog box.
      2. In the Alternate tab toolbar, select Add to Change, and search for a CA. Make note of the CA that you attach.
    • If a CA is attached, make note of the CA listed in the Change Required field and close the Properties dialog box.
  7. To promote the CA to the Completed state, open the CA in Change Management and ensure that all approvers approve the CA.

    Note: The CA is completed only after all Approvers approve the CA.

    If the Alternate tab shows that the alternate product is still in the Proposed state, close and reopen the tab.