Introduction to Variant Templates

ABA has been designed to deal with sets of drawings produced from a template, which then need a few minor variations from the original template. For example, a template for producing piping general arrangement may be satisfactory for 95% of drawings, but needs an additional isometric view to clarify some details on the remaining 5%. This is treated as a variant of the original rather than a new template.

The original template is known as the ‘master’ and the template with minor changes is known as the ‘variant’. There can be only one master but several variants.

The master/variant process works as follows:

• New drawings always use the master template.

• Variants can only be selected from the existing drawing list on the Process Drawings form.

• The M or V1, V2¼ annotations indicate whether a drawing uses the master or variant template, in the list of selected drawings.

• It is not possible to make a variant revert to a master in the application.