About revision rules

Teamcenter's revision rules help business users configure product structure by selecting the specific item revisions. Privileged users and administrators can set up the revision rules by defining criteria for selecting specific item revisions. You can set up a revision by understanding how individual rule entries, each with specific parameters, determine which revision is loaded. Entry precedence, grouping entries for equal precedence, and how these rules enable effective management and configuration of product structures are covered below.

A revision rule sets the criteria for selecting the appropriate revision of elements in a product structure. For example, users can choose whether to load working revisions or release revisions. As a privileged user (or an administrator), you set up revision rules by defining revision rule entries. Each rule entry defines a parameter that is used for evaluating which structure configuration must be loaded. The revision rule is evaluated based on the order of precedence of the rule entries. As soon as a revision is successfully configured, the rest of the rule entries are not evaluated. Therefore, you must set the order based on your site requirement.

Rule entry types

Revision rule entry	Description	Example
Working	Used for loading the working item revision that does not have a release status. By default, the latest working revision is selected according to the date it was created. Can be made more specific by specifying an owning user and owning group.	Working( Owning User = John ) / Working( Owning Group = Project X) — to load elements John or Project X group are working on. Working( Owning User = Current ) — elements owned by the currently logged-on user. Working( Owning Group = Current ) — elements owned by the currently logged-on group.
Status	Used for loading item revisions that are released with a specific status. Can be made more specific by specifying a specific status, release date, effective date, and effective unit number.	Has Status (Production, Configured by Effective Date ) — latest revision as per effective production date. Has Status( Production, Configured by Date Released ) + Has Status( Pre-Production, Configured by Date Released) — most recently released revision in Production or Pre-Production state.
Latest	Used for loading item revisions regardless of whether they are released or not. Can be made more specific by including creation date, alphanumeric revision ID, numeric revision ID, or a combination.	Latest( Creation Date ) — latest revisions based on creation date. Latest( Numeric Rev ID) — latest revisions based on numeric revision ID (elements with non-numeric revision IDs are not loaded).
Date	Used for loading item revision with a specific date. Only used in combination with other entries.	Latest, today — latest revision as of today. Has Status( Production, Release Date = 1-Jan-2007) — latest revision in Production as of 1-Jan-2007.
Unit Number	Used in combination with the status rule entry with unit number effectivity. Used for loading item revisions with a unit number as specified by the user. Typically qualified with an end item entry since Teamcenter may manage many units.	Has Status( Production, Configured by Unit Number ) — element revisions in Production based on a specific unit number.
End item	A product, system, or module with respect to which you configure a structure by effectivity. For example, configure the structure of unit number 110 in product X400, where X400 is the end item.
Precise	Used for loading item revisions in a precise product structure.
Override	Used for overriding all item revisions available in an override folder. The revision rule will not be evaluated for these item revisions.

You can modify the order of the rule entries to change the precedence used when evaluating the revision rule. Certain rule entries can also be grouped so they are evaluated with equal precedence. In the case of status entries, you can group two or more different statuses with equal precedence. In the case of working entries, you can group different owners with equal precedence.

Example

To load recently released revisions of structure elements irrespective of whether they are in the Production or Pre-Production state, you group the status rule entry as follows:

[ Has Status( Production ), Configured by Date Released )
  Has Status( Pre-Production, Configured by Date Released )]

You can also group entries according to item type and occurrence type. Certain entries cannot be grouped together. The following are not valid combinations for grouping:

Latest
Has Status, Configured By Release Date

Has Status( TCM Released ), Configured by EffectiveDate
Has Status( Pending ), Configured by Release Date