Managing Applicability

• Options—A set of options and choices defined for a product identifies the features that can vary within the product family. To set this applicability, select the Assigned Item Expressions and Assigned Usage Expressions options in the Manage Applicability dialog box.

• Service Effectivity—Information such as date and serial number ranges identify product configurations that remain serviceable. To set this applicability, select All or Usage as Assignment in the Add Service Effectivity dialog box.

If you are creating content that is intended for use in Arbortext Content Delivery, PTC recommends that you set the applicability option for either parts list items or their usage, but not for both. For example, if the Assigned Item Expressions applicability is set for a parts list item, use All, not Usage, in Assignment when adding service effectivity for that item.

The reason is that by default, Arbortext Content Delivery is configured to filter applicability using the intersection logic. The filtered result includes items that met intersection requirements of all the specified service effectivities and options and choices. In Windchill, information is filtered using the union logic. The filtered result contains items with any of the specified service effectivities and options and choices. In addition to using the intersection logic, Arbortext Content Delivery rolls down effectivity to all the members of a group or section. It rolls up information element applicability to groups or sections to access the information element while navigating through the structure. The rolling mechanism may not perform correctly if the applicability option is set for both parts list item and its usage.

Based on business requirement, you can configure Arbortext Content Delivery to apply union logic when filtering using the applicability option. To set union logic as the default behavior, perform the following action:

In Arbortext Content Delivery, click Deployment Configurator > general setting > Parts Service Effectivity Merging > Parts Service Effectivity Merging Logic > Union prior to loading the content. This configuration setting is applicable on parts lists and parts only.

For more information on effectivity in Arbortext Content Delivery, see the Context Effectivity for Information Elements topic in the Arbortext Content Delivery Administration and Customization Help Center and Editing Properties of the Configurator Entities topic in the Arbortext Content Delivery Help Center.

Applicability for a parts list is assigned in two ways:

The items in the parts list will be affected when a filter based on applicability is applied to the parts list.

You can assign both types of service applicability information to the items in a parts list, when they are set up as configurable modules.

The applicability can be configured for an item with the Manage Applicability window, accessed from the Actions and shortcut menus in a parts list item’s information page.

You can also configure applicability settings for the usage of illustrations in a parts list.

In the Manage Applicability window, you can select multiple parts list items or illustrations and assign service effectivity settings to all of them in a single action.

Be aware of these notes when assigning applicability to parts list items and illustrations:

• You can set applicability for both a part and its usage in the parts list context. With an illustration, you can only set applicability for its usage in the parts list context.

• You are not permitted to select a combination of parts list items and illustrations when setting service effectivity. You can only make a multiple selection of the same type of object.

Once the applicability is set for items in a parts list, you can filter that parts list based on those settings. For more information, see Filtering on Options and Filtering on Service Effectivity.

You can view the applicability set for a parts list and its items (parts and illustrations). Navigate to the Structure tab of a parts list’s information page, and select the Applicability tab.

For more information, see The Applicability Tab.

You can view the applicability set for the parts in a BOM that is associated to a parts list. The applicability set for a BOM part applies to all uses of that part.

For more information, see Applicability for BOM Parts.

Option choices are used in expressions that can be assigned to usage links of interchangeable child parts. The option choices are then used to define which parts are included in a product configuration to meet specific product requirements. Refer to Creating and Managing Enterprise-wide Definitions for more information about options and choices.

Option sets are used when you need to create an overloaded parts list that contains parts for all available options. For example, a particular product can be available in three different colors, with unique parts representing each color. An overloaded parts list contains all three parts representing all possible options of the product.

Using option sets with Windchill Service Parts parts lists is very similar to using option sets elsewhere with Windchill. This section includes information specific to using option sets with Windchill Service Parts parts lists. For detailed information on using option sets with Windchill, refer to Using Option Sets to Organize Product Families and its related topics.

To use option sets with your parts list, you must:

Effectivity for service information provides the means by which either multiple subassemblies or multiple versions of a part, or illustrations, can be published to support a range of product configurations that remain in use.