Create and merge editions

Create a product edition in Advanced Product Designer

About this task

By default, all product lines can define product model properties for the base product line. When you use the Base edition, changes made to product model properties, such availability criteria or minimum or maximum values, are made in the base product line. For example, you have a user-entered limit that is a coverage term. You set the default minimum to 1,000 and maximum to 100,000 in the base edition.

If you add an edition, you can make changes to product model properties for that edition. Added editions do not inherit from previous editions.

Procedure

  1. Go to the Editions tab.
  2. Click Create Edition.
  3. In the Add New Edition dialog, enter values for Edition Name, Edition Description, Effective Date, Expiration Date, Edition Identifier, and Segment Details.
  4. Click Create to add the edition.

View edition content in Advanced Product Designer

You can display a tree view of edition content and search for elements and attributes. For example, you can search for a rule and then click the link to display the rule's properties.

Procedure

  1. Go to the Editions tab for a product, and click ... next to the name of the product edition.
  2. Click View Edition Content.
    If the edition has 1000 rules or fewer, a tree view of the edition appears in Edition Content View. If the edition has more than 1000 rules, the edition may be too large to visualize. In Visualize Edition Content, click Return to Editions or Visualize Anyway. If you choose Visualize Anyway, your browser may time out.
  3. Click Expand all.
  4. In Search, type the search string and press Enter.
  5. Click a rule to display its properties.

Compare editions in Advanced Product Designer

You can compare two editions and view the additions, modifications, and deletions. One example of a modification is adding or removing a rule. An added rule is highlighted in green and a deleted rule is highlighted in red.

About this task

In Edition Comparison, icons represent the number of changes in an edition relative to a reference edition. For example:
  • The green icon Edition comparison additions. indicates that two elements have been added.
  • The blue icon Edition comparison modifications. indicates that six elements have been modified.
  • The red icon Edition comparison deletions. indicates that one element has been deleted.

For a demonstration, watch this video:

Procedure

  1. Select the Editions tab.
  2. Select the two editions you want to compare.
    The Reference edition is the one that appears first in the list of editions. The other edition is the Comparison edition.
  3. Select Compare Selected.
    Edition Comparison displays the results of the comparison.
  4. In Edition Comparison, select Expand all.
    There may be a slight delay while APD expands the tree.
  5. To show only added, removed, or modified items, choose the appropriate item from the Show All drop-down menu.
  6. To search the edition comparison tree, type a string in Search.
  7. To include common properties in the edition comparison tree, select Include Common Properties.

Merge editions in Advanced Product Designer

If a product has too many editions, reduce the number of editions by merging two editions into one.

About this task

Note: When you attach a product line to a multi-line product, the mono-line product's editions are copied to the multi-line product. For this reason, the number of editions in a multi-line product can become quite large. Do not merge these editions, however, as doing so makes it impossible to detach the mono-line product from the multi-line product. For more information see Detach a product line from a multi-line product.
When you merge two editions:
  • Rules are only applied to elements that do not already have rules.
  • All segment values are included.
  • The earliest effective date and the latest expiration date are used.
  • The name and identifier for the merged edition are taken from the name and identifier for the higher priority edition.
  • You can choose which edition has higher priority.
  • By default, the lower priority edition is deleted after merging, unless it is the base edition.
For example, consider two editions, Edition 1 and Edition 2, where Edition 1 has higher priority. Edition 1 has the following characteristics:
  • Segment value: MA
  • Effective date: January 1, 2023
  • Expiration date: February 1, 2023
  • Edition name: Edition 1
  • Edition identifier: Edition1Identifier
Edition 2 has the following characteristics:
  • Segment values: CA, TX, AL, NY
  • Effective date: February 5, 2023
  • Expiration date: December 1, 2023
  • Edition name: Edition 2
  • Edition identifier: Edition2Identifier
The merged edition will have the following characteristics:
  • Segment values: MA, CA, TX, AL, NY
  • Effective date: January 1, 2023
  • Expiration date: December 1, 2023
  • Edition name: Edition 1
  • Edition identifier: Edition1Identifier

Procedure

  1. On the Editions screen, select the two editions you want to merge.
    The first edition you select has higher priority.
  2. Click Merge Selected.
  3. In Merge Editions, if you do not want to delete the second edition after merging, click Keep the original second edition after merge.
  4. If you want to change the priority of the two editions, click Swap Order.
    Information about the merged edition appears in Resulting Edition.
  5. Click Merge.
    The merged edition appears on the Editions screen with the name of the higher priority edition.

Delete a product edition in Advanced Product Designer

Procedure

  1. Go to the Editions tab for a product, and click ... next to the name of the product edition.
  2. Click Delete Edition.

Clone a product edition in Advanced Product Designer

Procedure

  1. Go to the Editions tab for a product, and click ... next to the name of the product edition.
  2. Click Clone Edition Details.