Introduction
In May of 2023, I posted a blog you can access here on the current state of revisioning formats that were available at that time to span the revision methods requested by Design, Manufacturing and ERP departments – a challenging area in PLM systems where all these parties come together on a common product structure.
In 26xFD03 we introduced a new format for revision schemes on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform called Primary and Secondary -Governed. Before we get into the details of this newest format, it is important to review the fundamentals as well as the existing formats that are available.
Fundamentals
In the prior post, you will note that I mentioned both revisions and versions. Technically, the concept of versioning is unique to PDM environments and does not adequately support all aspects of product lifecycle management. Subsequently, the platform utilizes a “revision-based model” and is the core mechanism for managing the evolution of design and engineering data throughout its lifecycle. This schema allows teams to create controlled revisions of objects—such as CAD parts, drawings, simulation objects, documents, or enterprise items—so that changes can be tracked, reviewed, and rolled back while maintaining a clear history of what was modified and when.
Key aspects of revisions include:
- Controlled Revision Management – Each time a user “creates a revision,” the platform stores a new revision of the object while preserving the previous one, enabling traceability and auditability.
- Integration with lifecycle and maturity – Revisions are tied to the object’s lifecycle maturity state (e.g., In Work, Released, Obsolete) and maturity attributes, ensuring that only appropriate revisions progress through defined states.
- Primary vs. secondary revisions – The platform distinguishes between primary (often major) and secondary (“informal design evolution” tracking) revisions, allowing organizations to define naming schemes and migration rules that match their change‑control processes.
- Branching and duplication – Besides simple linear revisions, users can create branches (such as studies, derivatives revisions of the same item, propositions) or duplicate objects with reuse options to distinguish from a new branch supporting complex workflows such as simulation updates or variant management.
- Migration and administration – Tools such as the 3DEXPERIENCE Transition Assistant (3DTA) provide options to migrate all revisions (primary/secondary) naming behavior during data migrations.
In summary, revisions are the platform’s built‑in change‑control feature that lets you create, manage, and track successive versions of any controlled object, integrating with lifecycle, maturity, branching, and duplication capabilities to support reliable product development and collaboration.
Existing Formats
As noted in the prior post, we have two existing revision formats:
Primary - This revisioning format scheme is the option that displays only the primary revision (e.g., A, B, C…). With this scheme, the primary revision increments every time a new revision is created, regardless of the object’s maturity state (In Work, Frozen, Released, etc.).
Primary and Secondary – This option offers you the ability to bring the PLM and PDM world closer together. It maintains the values of the Primary environment mentioned, with the expanded capability to track Informal design evolutions made by one or more stakeholders during a design evolution. Since all increments are revisions, filtering and the related access would be through the maturity states of the individual revisions.
Primary and secondary for 3DEXPERIENCE content with SOLIDWORKS master – This scheme behaves like the Primary and Secondary scheme, but the secondary number appears before a minor‑revision number. This is a legacy scheme retained for customers upgrading from older SOLIDWORKS FD07 environments.
New Enhancement in R2026x FD03
In this release, we introduce a fourth format called “Primary and Secondary -Governed”, available in the Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center app:
To improve the efficiency to better differentiate the informal design evolutions from formal finalized designs the … new option Primary and Secondary - Governed revision format adds a secondary revision ID to the revision number, like the Primary and Secondary – Basic format, but removes the secondary ID when released to identify the formal revision. and changes the maturity of prior revision to Obsolete to identify the valid informal design evolution.
Summary
Companies can continue to employ any of the existing formats. There is no impact on existing capabilities, especially the Primary and Secondary choice for revision format which is renamed as Primary and Secondary - Basic but has an unchanged behavior from prior releases. The new format provides a cleaner release revision and it will only be possible to release the latest secondary revision, since previous intermediate revisions will be automatically set as Obsolete based on two fundamental rules:
Released states will be identified by a different revision number format (primary only),
It will only be possible to release the latest secondary revision, and previous intermediate revisions will be automatically set as Obsolete.
In closing, I suggest you take a look at the What’s New for 26xFD03 in the wiki pages to see a video of the new format in action.
