When you perform the procedure described in Refreshing Fault Equivalence Data for the Active FMEA Worksheet Record, to preserve the integrity of your FMEA data, only the data at the lowest level of the fault equivalence key and higher FMEA data levels is refreshed. For example, if the key consists of fields at the item level, and the data that is pulled in from the FMEA Fault Equivalence file is at the mode level, a window opens, indicating that data at levels lower than the item level is not refreshed.

For data that is at the same level or higher than the key, there can be only one record that was pulled into the FMEA Worksheet table from the FMEA Fault Equivalence file, which is the one that matched the key. However, for data at levels lower than the key, multiple records might have been pulled into the FMEA Worksheet table. No way of mapping these records back to the originals in the FMEA Fault Equivalence file exist.

If all existing child records from the FMEA Worksheet table are deleted and new child records from the FMEA Fault Equivalence file are inserted, you lose any manually modified data or manually inserted child records. Rather than modify or delete records erroneously, this process updates only the FMEA data at the lowest level of the fault equivalence key and higher data levels.