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Product Administration Guide > Release and Manage Customizable Products >
Releasing a Customizable Product for Use
To make a customizable product available to users, you must release it. Releasing a customizable product creates a new version of it and makes this version available for use. Releasing a version also refreshes the work space. When you release a product, the system refreshes it in the current work space first, and then releases the refreshed instance. This means that all released versions contain the most recent information, such as class structure, available at the time of release. You cannot modify or delete a released version of a customizable product. Before you release a customizable product, you can set an effective date. When you release the product, it becomes available to users on the effective date. This lets you release several versions of a customizable product and have them become available based on dates. To identify which version of a customizable product to use, the system begins with the most recently released version. If it cannot be used because the effective date has not arrived, the system looks at the previous version. This process continues until the system finds a version it can use (one with no effective date, or an effective date that has passed). Table 19 shows how effective dates and versions work together. In the examples, the effective dates are in the future unless specified:
Table 19. How Effective Dates and Versions Work Together
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Customizable product A has no released versions. You release version 1 without an effective date. |
Version 1 is available to users immediately. |
Product A has version 1, which does not have an effective date. You release
version 2 with an effective date. |
Prior to the effective date, users receive version 1. On the effective date, users receive version 2. |
Product A has version 1, which has an effective date. You release version 2, which has no effective date. |
Version 2 is available to users immediately. Version 1 is superseded and will never be available to users. |
Product A has two released versions. Version 1 has an effective date of June 1. Version 2 has an effective date of July 1. The current date is May 1. |
On June 1, the user receives version 1. On July 1, the user receives version 2. |
Product A has two released versions. Both version 1 and version 2 have the same effective date. |
On the effective date, the user receives version 2. |
Product A contains customizable product B. Product A has no effective date and no released versions. Product B has version 1, which does not have an effective date and version 2, which does have an effective date. You release product A. |
Before the product B effective date, the user receives version 1 of product A, and version 1 of product B. On the product B effective date, the user receives version 1 of product A and version 2 of product B. |
These behaviors apply to in-process quotes, existing quotes, and new quotes. When users open an in-process or existing quote, they receive a message if there is a conflict because of a new version of the product. When remote users synchronize databases, they receive all released versions of a customizable product not already on the local machine, including those versions with effective dates. Effective dates work on the local machine as described above. Observe the following guidelines when using effective dates for customizable products:
- Carefully coordinate configuration rules that have effective dates with the effective date of the customizable product. If you know that you must release a new version of the product because of time-sensitive configuration rules, consider using a version effective date rather than effective dates on configuration rules.
- If you want to release two versions such that the second version supersedes the first version on an effective date, be sure to fully analyze the possible business impacts of the new version on in-process, and existing quotes.
- The effective date cannot be modified after a version is released. Instead, you can release a new version with a different effective date.
To release a customizable product
- Navigate to Product Administration.
- Select and lock the desired customizable product.
- To specify an effective-date, enter a date in the Required Start Date field of the Work Space record.
- Save the record.
- In Lock/Unlock Product, click Release New Version to release a new version of the product.
A new record appears in the Versions list. Its version number displays in the Version field. The Required State Date field becomes read-only.
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