Editing Inclusion Rule Properties

This task shows you how to edit a complex or simple inclusion rule. An inclusion rule for a feature or part can be either complex or simple:

  • A complex inclusion rule is based on marketing and logical features, or is included for a feature with no design variants.
  • A simple inclusion rule for a part is based completely on the design conditions chosen for its design variants. When a new part is added to a GBOM part table, you define a simple inclusion rule for it by selecting its design conditions.

In the Edit Inclusion Rule page for a part family, you can click the Add Feature/Option Pairs button to open the Search page and search for both features and products. For the inclusion rule on other types of objects, the Search page allows only feature searches.

If the search is performed for products, the Search page by default shows the context feature, if present. Thus the search results page contains all the products that meet the search criteria and are related to the context feature.

After selecting the corresponding products/features in the search results page, all the feature option pairs under the selected products/features at all levels are added in the Edit Inclusion Rule page.

You can edit inclusion rules from either view mode or edit mode of the Product Features page or the GBOM Part Table.

  • In view mode, when you click the link in the Rule Type column, one of the two Edit Inclusion Rule form opens, depending on the complexity of the rule.
  • In edit mode, you can edit only simple inclusion rules by using in-cell editing on the individual design conditions.
  • When you are in edit mode, clicking any link in the Rule Type column opens a read-only text box with the rule expression.

Related Topics
About GBOMs
Viewing a GBOM Part Table
Generating a General Bill of Materials

Edit Simple Inclusion Rule

This section describes how to edit a Simple Inclusion Rule.

  1. To edit a simple inclusion rule, do one of the following:

    • Access the Logical Features page for a product.
    • Access the GBOM Part Table for a feature.

  2. Click Simple Inclusion in the Rule Type column. The Edit Simple Inclusion Rule page opens and is populated with the pre-existing values for the rule.



  3. From each of the design variant drop-down menus, select a design condition.

    You can select a dash (-) to remove the design condition.

    A simple inclusion rule for a part is based completely on the design conditions chosen for its design variants.

  4. Click Done to update the rule. A validity check is performed before the rule updates.

Edit Complex Inclusion Rule

This section describes how to edit a Complex Inclusion Rule.

  1. To edit a complex inclusion rule, do one of the following:

    • Access the Logical Structures page for a product. Click the Configuration or Logical tab depending on the type of feature you are working with.
    • Access the GBOM Part Table for a feature.

  2. Click Inclusion in the Rule Type column for the part or feature you want to edit. The Edit Complex Inclusion Rule page opens and is populated with the pre-existing values for the rule.



  3. Click to search for and select additional source objects for the rule. Only one object from the search results can be selected at a time. This object is added to Context drop-down list. You can search for and select an object to add to the list as many times as needed. Each object remains in the list.

  4. The feature structure of the object selected from the Context drop-down list is shown. Select filter criteria for the feature structure:

    1. From the Context drop-down list, select the object to display it's feature structure.
    2. From the Level drop-down list, select a number from 1 through 10 to show associated features or select All to show features for all possible levels.
    3. From the Feature drop-down list, select the type of features you want to show: marketing, technical or manufacturing.The default is All.
    4. Click Filter. The feature structure refreshes to show the items that meet your criteria.

  5. Check the Insert with Feature and Option box if you want features to insert in the expression fields in full context.

  6. Select one or more features from the source object's feature structure and click in the Left Expression field. The feature is added to the left expression.

    Each time the rule is modified, the Completed Rule field is updated.

  7. Click any of the following buttons to form the left expression:

    1. Click one of the boolean operators: , , . Use and to form the boolean expression.
    2. Click to remove an item from the expression
    3. Click or to navigate through the expression
    4. Click to remove a feature.
    5. Click to remove option.
    6. Click to clear the expression.

  8. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until the required expression is formed.

  9. Select the Comparison operator from the drop-down list: Inclusion or Exclusion.

  10. Click Done to update the rule. A validity check is performed before the rule is displayed in the Completed Rule text box.

    If you clear the complete expression that is set on the complex rule, then the rule type will change from complex to simple. The next time you click on the Inclusion Rule link, it will open up the simple inclusion rule editor.