Terminology

The following terminology is used in the Polarion VARIANTS documentation.

Polarion VARIANTS Glossary

Features	Components of a product, whether they are hardware, software, or other functionality needed. When capitalized in documentation, Work Items of type "Feature".
Feature Model	Describes every possible feature of a product line. It is where a company can model their product line by decomposing all products to see what they have in common and what parts differ. Then, they assign functionality to features.
Master Specification	A Polarion Document containing all possible artifacts of one or more types for a Product Line, for example, all Requirements or all Test Cases. Each artifact is linked to one or more Features in the Feature Model. A Variant Specification contains a subset of the artifacts from a Master Specification. Master Specifications can be as granular as needed. For example, you can have Master Specifications for Functional, Non-functional, and System Requirements.
Product Line	Also called product family, it is the collection of all products a company produces. The different products may have some common components that must be in every product and some components that differ from product to product.
Relation	Links between Features that denote additional relationships depending on the link type. For example: requires: Feature1 requires another Feature to be selected, which is not already made sure of by the parent-child relationship. This is done by linking it with special link type to the required Feature. conflicts: Feature1 requires another feature to be not selected.
Restriction	A property of Work Items in a Master Specification that sets certain restriction(s) or limits on the item's inclusion in Variants. Specified in pvSCL (the restriction language of the Pure Systems back end), for example: Feature1 AND Not(Feature2).
Validation	Checks by the Polarion VARIANTS back end to ensure that variants contain only valid assets and information. There are two types of Validation checks: Feature Model validation: Checks for errors in the construction of the Feature Model, such as inclusion of contradictory Features or failure to include a Feature from a group from which at least one selection is required. Restriction validation: Checks the correctness of Restrictions set in Work Item properties linking the item to one or more Features.
Variation Type	A property of a Feature that describes the Feature's inclusion in product specifications. A feature can have one of four Variation Types: Mandatory feature: A Feature that must be included in every product of the Product Line, or if a subfeature, must be included if its parent Feature is included. Optional feature: Independent Feature that can be, but does not have to be, included in variants. Alternative feature: Feature is one in a group, of which exactly one (and not more) must be included if the parent is included. Or feature: Feature is one of a group, at least one of which must be included if the parent is included.
Variant	When capitalized, a Work Item type in Polarion VARIANTS that collects Features and assets from Master Specifications to fully describe a specific product in the Product Line. When not capitalized, denotes one specific product in a Product Line, for example, "Model ABC is a variant of the WeatherStation product line".
Variant Description Model (VDM)	Assets, such as Requirements and Test Cases, that are mapped to Features that collectively make up a Variant
Variant Specification	A specification Document generated from a Variant and comprised of commonalities and variations from the Feature Model and Master Specification.