About Features

Features are the vehicle for capturing and managing engineering attributes of the product. To represent certain features of a product with enough details to define them for product development, they require feature-specific attributes. These attributes describe the requirements of the feature. Some features, in addition to having special attributes, may have special behavior, such as access control or release process.

Related Topics
Working with Logical Features
Working with Manufacturing Features
Working with Configuration Features

Features are heavily classified or subtyped. Feature classifications represent the conceptual elements of a product. Feature classification is based on the kind of product that a company develops. Feature classification for a product is decided at the company level.

Features can be broadly classified as configuration features or logical structures:

  • Configuration features include configuration features, which represent higher-level marketing features, and configuration options, which represent the actual choices defined under the configuration feature.
  • Logical structures include logical features and manufacturing features:
    • Logical features include software features.
    • Manufacturing features define how the product is to be manufactured.

At creation time, it may not be possible to classify a feature as a configuration, logical, or manufacturing feature because such classifications can depend upon the context in which the feature is used. Features are classified when they are added in the context of another product or feature.

Many complex products include other products that can be selected as options or used to describe the product-to-product dependency structure. For example, a product such as a car may have an optional keyless entry system but in reality, it is a product purchased from an outside manufacturer. So for this type of scenario, existing products in the database can also be added as features or subfeatures of a product.

All types of features can have the following lifecycle states:

  • Preliminary— A user who is assigned the role of Product Manager or System Engineer can create or delete features that are in this state.
  • Review—A user who is assigned the role of Product Manager, System Engineer, or Marketing Manager can modify features that are in this state.
  • Release—There is no role that is authorized to modify features that are in this state. A user who is assigned the role of Product Manager or System Engineer can revise features that are in this state.
  • Obsolete—There is no role that is authorized to modify features that are in this state. A user who is assigned the role of Product Manager or System Engineer can revise features that are in this state.

For more information on lifecycles, see Working with Lifecycles.