Versioning and Promoting

ItemTypes in the Product Engineering application are versionable. Versionable Items keep a history of changes by storing a new generation of the item each time a change is made.

Every Item in Aras Innovator can be promoted through a defined Life Cycle, which is a series of states that an Item traverses during its existence. Most ItemTypes in the Product Engineering application have their own unique default Life Cycle.

In this section, the term Item refers to a versionable Item with a Life Cycle.

The sequence of Claim, Save, and Unclaim actions results in the creation of a new generation of the Item. When an Item reaches the Released state in its Life Cycle, no further changes can be made to the Released revision. Any further changes to the Item require it to be revised to create a new revision in the Preliminary state.

The Item versions dialog displays all versions of an Item. To access this dialog, either:

• In the Item Search Grid, right-click the Item and click Navigate → Versions.

Open the Item, on the Item toolbar, click Navigate



→ Versions.

To examine details specific to an old version of an Item, double-click on the corresponding row in the Item versions dialog.

To view where an old version of an Item is used, right-click the old version in the Item versions dialog and click Where Used.

To delete a version of an Item, a user must have Delete permission rights granted for the current Life Cycle state of the Item. For details on access rights, refer to section 3. Permissions. This subsection assumes the user has Delete rights.

To delete an old version of an Item:

1. Go to the Item versions dialog for the Item.
2. Double-click on the version of the Item to be deleted to open it.

On the Item toolbar, click More



→ Delete → Purge This Version. A confirmation dialog appears.

In the confirmation dialog, click Purge to delete the specific version of the Item.

It is also possible to delete the current version of an Item using the Purge This Version action, which can be accessed from the Item view or through the context menu in the Item Search Grid.

The Product Engineering application can track changes made to an Item at both the item and property levels, including who made the change and when. By default, the following actions result in the creation of a history record: Add, Update, Promote, Reset or Set Default Lifecycle State, and Delete.

To view the history of an Item, access the Item History dialog:

1. Open the Item.

On the Item toolbar, click Navigate



→ History.

The Item History dialog shows a grid of changes including time stamps, Identities, Actions, Comments, Item states, Revisions, and Generations.

Items can be released and/or revised either via change processes or manually. The change management processes can automatically release the Items where Life Cycles are automatically controlled by Workflows if these Items are in the affected items list. If an item has never been released or revised via a change process, it is possible to release and revise it manually. This section describes the manual process. For details on the release and revise features with change management, refer to Section 13. Change Management.

Manual release and revise features are available only when all the following criteria are true:

• No generations of the Item have been previously released or revised via a change process.
• The Item is not claimed.
• The user performing the action is the Assigned Creator of the Item.

In the default Item Life Cycle, the Assigned Creator can manually promote an Item to its next life cycle state if the requirements for manual release and revision are met, and if there is a state available.

An Item can be promoted from either the Item view or its context menu in the Items Search Grid.

To promote an Item using its view:

1. Open the Item.

On the Item toolbar, click Promote



.

In the promotion dialog, select the desired state to promote the Item to by either:

1. Double-clicking the state to which the item should be promoted.
2. Clicking the state to promote to and then clicking Promote to Selected State.

To promote an Item using its context menu:

2. Go to the Items Search Grid.
3. Right-click the Item and then click Promote.



In the promotion dialog, select the desired state to promote the Item to by either:

1. Double-clicking the state to which the item should be promoted.
2. Clicking the state to promote to and then clicking Promote to Selected State.

In addition to the manual promotion feature, you can release an Item in one action. In the default Item Life Cycle, the Assigned Creator can manually promote an Item to the Released state if the requirements for manual release are met by using either the Item view or its context menu in the Items Search Grid.

To release an Item using its view:

1. Open the Item.

On the Item toolbar, click More



→ Manual Release.

The promoted Item gets the Released value in the State field. The plus button also appears in the Revision field for manual revision.



To release an Item using its context menu:

2. Go to the Items Search Grid.
3. Right-click the Item and then click More Manual Release.

The Assigned Creator can manually create a new major revision of an Item if the above-mentioned requirements for manual revision are met and if the Item is in the Released state either from the Item view or from the Item’s context menu in the Items Search Grid.

To revise an Item manually using its view:

1. Open the Item.
2. Use one of the following options:

On the Item toolbar, click More



→ Create New Revision.

Click the + button next to the Revision field and select OK in the confirmation prompt.



The revised Item gets the new major value in the Revision field and the Preliminary state. Under Revision, the plus button disappears.



Use the following procedure to revise an Item using its context menu:

3. Go to the Items Search Grid.
4. Right-click the Item, and then click More Create New Revision.