Create and publish a version of an existing specification in a Published state so that you can offer an improved version of it to your customers in your product catalog.

Before you begin

Before you can create a version of a specification, an initial base version of the specification must exist and already be published. The information that you supply for a new version is the same as what you entered for an initial base version, but with some important differences. To learn more, see Create and publish product specifications.

Role required: sn_prd_pm.product-catalog_manager

About this task

You create versions of service and resource specifications in the same manner as you do a resource specification.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to All > Product Catalog Management > Product Specifications.
  2. In the Product Specifications list, select the product specification that you want to create a version for.
  3. On the form, select Create New Version and then fill in the fields.
    Creating a version of a specification is similar to how you created its initial version. The following table explains the differences.
    Table 1. Product specification form
    FieldDescription
    Name Name of the new product specification. If the name of the item for the new version differs from the previous version, you can enter a new name. For example, if the name of the item is SD-WAN Security, override it if you want a new name for the new version.
    Version
    Version number that is assigned to a specification:
    • When you create the initial version, 1 appears in this field, and can't be changed.
    • When you create subsequent versions of the specification, the next incremental number appears in this field after you click Create New Version. For example, 4 appears in this field if 3 was the previous version number.
    Display Name
    Displayed name that appears for the specification in the Now Platform when this version of the specification is in effect.
    • When you create the initial, or base version of the specification (for example, version 1), you must enter free-form text, which is usually the name of the specification, into the field.
    • When you create versions of the specification, a system-assigned concatenation of the specification name and its current version number appears, but can be overwritten. For example, SD-WAN Edge Device v2 appears in this field when:
      • SD-WAN Edge Device is the name of the specification.
      • Version 2 is the current version of the specification.
    Initial Version

    Name of the base version of the specification that appears but can't be changed.
    Previous Version
    Name of the previous version of the specification. For example:
    • When you create the initial version of the specification (for example, version 1), this field is empty.
    • When you create a version (version 2) with a slightly different name, the name of the specification at its initial creation appears here.
    • When you create a subsequent version (version 3), the name of the specification as it was at version 2 appears here.
    You can't change this field.
    Note: For information about the remaining field descriptions, see Product catalog forms.
  4. To reflect the engineering changes that were made to the physical product, update the specification relationships, decomposition rules, quantity mappings, and attribute propagation rules as follows:
    1. To update the characteristics and characteristic options that are associated with your specification, use the Specification Characteristics related list. To learn more, see Create specification relationships and decomposition rules.
    2. To update the specification relationships and accompanying decomposition rules, use the Specification Relationships related list. To learn more, see Create specification relationships and decomposition rules.
    3. To update attribute mappings, use the Attribute Mappings related list. To learn more, see Defining mappings for attribute value propagation to domain orders.
    4. To create a product offering from the specification, navigate to the Product Offerings related list.
  5. When you finish creating the specification version, do one of the following actions.
    ActionDescription
    Publish Publish the draft specification so that you can use it in a product catalog.
    • The specification state changes from Draft to Published.
    • After you publish a specification, you can't change or delete it, unless you create a version for it.
    Update Update the specification with the new data that you added, but don’t publish it for use in a product catalog.
    Copy Copy the data in this specification so that you can create a specification from it.

    For example, you can use the Copy function if you want to create a base version specification that is similar to SD-WAN Edge Device v2, but with a separate version track.

    When you use the Copy function, it creates a base version specification, and sets the values in these fields:
    • Version: 1 (base version)
    • Initial Version: SD-WAN Edge Device v2
    • Previous Version: Empty
    Note: To learn more about the validations that are performed when you publish a new specification version, and how to resolve any reported errors, see the section about validations in Creating and publishing new specification versions.