In some cases, it may become necessary to create a temporary or permanent variant of the model.

For a temporary variant, a private sandbox can be created from any frozen trunk version of the model and its rights changed to give other users access as necessary. After the variant is complete, the changes can be differenced for review and reconciled back into the trunk. This may be used, for example, to fix a bug in a released product without introducing changes made for the next release.

For a permanent variant, any model version (including a sandbox) can be cloned. From Model Explorer, right-click a model or sandbox, point to Clone, and then click the desired command.

The clone may be versioned and sandboxed as necessary, but will take more disk space and time to create than a sandbox. Any Packages which are shared between the original model and the clone can be kept up to date using Component Sharing Wizard. If a Package needs to be modified in both models, it can be shared via a sandbox so that changes can be reconciled. This may be used to create multiple variant models from the same base.

This document does not cover the variability modeling features of Modeler. Variability modeling allows you to choose variability options for a model and then generate a product model based on the options you have chosen. For more information about variability modeling, see the Modeler Help.