Variant Management Question

I am working on a project where the customer controlled some of the features in their parts using effectivity flags that point back to a table where I have to determine which feature is applied to the part I am designing (things like differing thicknesses, bending up or down on a flange) rather than rolling dash numbers. I am using variant management to manage this data, but am struggling to find a way to get the part to change based on the filter applied (for example if the part is effective on version 3 and version 4 but the flange bends up in one and down in the other). Has anyone else ran into problems like this and how have you handled them?