Windchill ESI allows publishing both standalone and assigned option sets when ESI Options and Variants is installed. A standalone option set can be published either in the object-centric mode, or via a Change Notice or a promotion request. In order to be able to publish an option set that is assigned to a business object or to its context, a certain distribution target attribute needs to be set. Regardless of the type, when publishing an option set, the associated choices, their options, rules and all the relevant associations (including the one between the business object and the option set) are published as well. While a standalone option set is published to all the associated distribution targets, an assigned option set is published only to those distribution targets that the holding business object (say, a part) is published to.

An option set may have the following objects related to it – options, choices, rules and the relevant associations. Windchill ESI services make use of certain renderers for processing an option set and its related objects, all of which extend the class BasicESIRenderer. OptionSet will also get published with local choice rule when it is part of change process and OptionSet attribute "Manage Local Rule Changes Independently from the Option Set" set to ‘Yes’ These render classes are described in the Option Set Classes section of this document.