Active Variants

Objective: To learn how to activate variants.

Difficulty: Easy

In this article:

1. How active variants are used
2. How to activate variants in an assembly
3. Pro Tips

Active variants are the easiest way to pre-approve variants for use in an assembly. Activating variants includes them in assembly exports, giving you and your team alternate variant sourcing options when needed. 

How active variants are used

Active variants are variants that have been pre-approved to be swapped with a primary component or product in a specific assembly. Activating a variant for a particular assembly identifies it as an alternative that is cleared for use, eliminating the administrative legwork that would otherwise be required for documentation and certification management of the assembly.

If sourcing complications arise with the distributor of the primary source of a component within an assembly, an active variant can quickly be looped in. This empowers contract manufacturers to substitute another item if needed. Additionally, documentation associated with active variants is conveniently included in assembly exports, saving time from exporting these separately from the assembly and better informing the recipients of the export as to the available variant options. 

The main difference between a variant and an active variant of a primary component is that the latter (a) has prior authorization for a specific assembly swap and (b) will be included in assembly exports whereas the former does not have either functionality. If a primary component has available variants, these will not be included in an export of the assembly; only primary and active variants will be shown. 

How to activate variants in an assembly

Please follow the instructions below to activate a variant:

1. Within your Duro desktop, navigate to an assembly. 
2. Click on the Assembly tab. 
3. Find the component or product to which activated variants need to be set, and click on the Variants icon located in the Name column of the assembly table. 
4. In the Component Variants window that populates, check on the box in the Active column.
5. Click Save.

Pro Tips

In order to be activated, variants must have an equal or greater status value as the primary component. The check box for a variant in a lower status value will be grayed out and unable to be selected in the Component Variants window of the assembly table. Once activated, variants will have a solid blue check box under the Active Column. 

Examples of active and inactive variants

In the below image, Variants 1 through 3 are active, but Variant 4 is not active since it has a status of Design.