Ancestry
There are several situations in which you can create copies of FMEA records for use in new locations and maintain information about the association between the source record (i.e., the original record) and the descendant records (i.e., the copies). This allows you to know when a source record is changed and, if desired, make corresponding changes to the descendant record(s). These situations include:
- Transferring a project
- Transferring functions from one FMEA to another
- Reusing FMEA actions or controls in a test plan
- Syncing a control plan with a process FMEA
When an association exists:
- The descendant record will have an icon in the analysis that indicates the status of the association.
- The source record will have a number in the Ancestry - Descendant Record(s) column in the FMEA hierarchy (if displayed on your computer) that indicates the number of descendant records that have been created from the source record. Double-clicking this number opens the View Descendants window.
- The system hierarchy item will have an icon in the Ancestry column in the system hierarchy (if displayed) that indicates the status of all associations for that item.
Association Status - Analyses
For each descendant record, an icon within the analysis indicates the status of its association with the source record. These icons are displayed in the following locations:
- For FMEAs:
- In the Ancestry - Source Record column in the FMEA hierarchy (if displayed).
- Within the record's cell in the FMEA worksheet (starting in Version 2020).
- For test plans: in the Ancestry - Source Record column in the test plan (if displayed).
- For control plans: within the record's cell in the control plan worksheet.
The icons are as follows:
- Green
indicates
that the source record has not been changed EITHER since the
descendant was created OR since the last time a change notification
for the descendant was dismissed. - Orange
indicates
that some change has been made to the source or its dependents.
This can include:
-
A change was made to any field that was transferred
from the source to the descendant.
- If the source record and the descendant record are the same record type, all record properties are transferred.
- If the record types do not match, only the description is transferred.
- An immediate dependent was added to the source (e.g., a failure was added to a source function).
- For descendant effects associated with source failures, the severity of the source failure’s effect was changed. If the source failure has more than one effect, a change to the effect with the largest severity value will trigger this status. (In projects using sub-severity ratings, only overall severity ratings are considered in the associations. Changes to sub-severity ratings will not be considered if you have not subsequently calculated overall ratings.)
-
A change was made to any field that was transferred
from the source to the descendant.
You can point to the change icon to view a tooltip that indicates the most recent change to the source record. Be aware that only the most recent change is displayed; other changes may also have occurred.
- Red
indicates that the source record
has been deleted.
Right-clicking the notification icons provides the following commands:
Dismiss notification (orange
only) resets the icon to green without making any changes. This
is useful if you have determined that it is unnecessary to update
the descendant in this particular case, but you still want notifications
of subsequent changes to the source. You can dismiss notifications
for just the selected record, the selected record and its dependents,
the entire analysis or the entire project.
Go to Source (green and orange
only) opens the project and FMEA that contain the source record,
and highlights the source record.
Update from Source (green and
orange only) opens the Update
from Source window, where you can view the changes that have
been made to the source and apply any that you deem appropriate
to the descendant. This window compares the current state of the
source record and descendant record, so it may have available
changes even when the association status icon is green, if a change
notification has previously been dismissed without making changes.
Disconnect from Source (green,
orange and red) removes the association between the descendant
and the source.
- You can remove associations for just the selected record, the selected record and its dependents, the entire analysis or the entire project.
- Select the Apply only if source does not exist check box if you want to remove only associations to deleted source records and preserve the associations to source records that still exist.
To access these commands from a worksheet view, right-click a descendant record in the worksheet and choose Ancestry.
Association Status - System Hierarchy
The status icons in the system hierarchy indicate the status
of all associations that apply to the item. If the source record
(or one of its dependents) for any descendant record included
in the item's analysis has changed, or if any source record has
been deleted, the icon will be orange . A green
icon indicates that no source records have
been changed either since their descendants were created or since
the last time a change notification for the descendants was dismissed.