Set the validation mode

Set the validation mode The Order mode or the Overlay mode is used to configure and analyze the variant configuration. This can set the validation model for the current session. Procedure Find and open the product to be configured and choose Details > Variant Configuration. Click to view the Settings panel. In the VALIDATION MODE section of the Settings panel, choose a mode from the drop-down list. Order (default profile) This mode is intended for a user who wants to quickly arrive at a 100% BOM. You can use a 100% BOM to create a prototype, perform simulations, compute the price, calculate the weight of the product, or visualize the structure. Overlay This mode does not expect you to specify the complete configuration. It is intended for developing a new product or making changes to an existing product. For more information about these modes, see Different modes to analyze configurations. The validation severity, expansion severity, and selection behavior settings are updated based on the selected mode. These settings are defined by your administrator and are therefore, unavailable and read-only. Click Apply. All user selections are retained, but the system selections and violations are cleared. Tip Once you change tabs or otherwise start a new session, the validation mode settings will return to the defaults. A saved variant stores this setting information, however, so loading the appropriate SVR is a quick way to return to your desired settings. The individual settings that make up each mode definition are defined by your administrator and are read-only. If you change from one mode to the other, the settings change to reflect the selected mode. When applied, all user selections are retained, but the system selections and violations are cleared. Choosing the validation mode sets the severity for reporting and expansion in order to control how the solver behaves and how violations are reported. When a mode is selected, the definition of that mode is shown, including its validation severity, expansion severity, and its selection behavior. These settings determine how strictly you want to evaluate the constraints in the system. The Validation Severity applies when the configuration is validated and is always higher than the expansion severity. The Expansion Severity is relevant when an order is expanded by clicking Apply System Selections, and the user wants to communicate the severity level to the solver. (Not applicable for Order mode by default.) The Selection Behavior consists of a checkbox which determines whether multiple selections for a single select family will be considered valid or not (in manual mode, where single select families are represented with check boxes for each feature). Note The Selection Behavior setting is ignored in guided mode. (Not applicable for Order mode by default.) The Apply Constraints check box, if selected, determines if all constraints should be considered while applying the variant expression on the content. If deselected, only user selections are applied. (Not applicable for Overlay mode by default.) The Explicit Configuration check box, if selected, returns only BOM lines where the features have been explicitly selected in Order mode. This leads to a configuration that is 100% or less. Conversely, if the Overlay mode is selected, the Explicit Configuration check box is not selected by default. This leads to a configuration that is more than 100%, for example, a 120% BOM. This happens unless a complete configuration is specified that results in a 100% BOM. For more information, see Example: Solve behavior using explicit configuration. The Allow Validation Rules to Expand check box, if selected, determines if validation rules should participate during criteria expansion. If deselected, only violations, if present, are reported. The system selection, based on validation rules, does not occur in the expanded criteria. By default, this check box is selected. Example When the validation severity is set to Error (as it is for both Order and Overlay modes), the configuration is considered invalid only when the Error severity rules are in conflict. When there are conflicts between Warning and Information constraints, the configuration is considered valid. Engineering BOM Management ─ Usage, 2606 Unpublished work. © 2026 Siemens