Relationship Types and Status Values

The following table shows the types of relationships that are available.

Type Description Available Status Values
Basic

Creates an association between two items, without status.

None.

Copy

Creates a copy relationship. Future versions of Atlas will utilize Copy relationships to further support variant and re-use scenarios.

With the current version, Copy relationships behave identical to Dependent relationships and they can be used to denote items that have been derived by Copy and Paste, for example items copied from template structures.

Up-to-date, Deferred, Suspect.

Dependent

This type of relationship is designed to formally model a relationship of dependent items that need to be considered together.

Up-to-date, Deferred, Suspect.

Break down

Items related with a Break Down relationship receive special handling in tracking views. Downstream items will appear in both the Tracking tab and the Tracking Gantt as if they were hierarchically children of the upstream related items. All statuses will also roll up. There is some logical overlap between Dependent and Break down relationships but in general Dependent relationships influence items while Break down items represent the same thing as the From item(s) but on lower, more detailed level.

Up-to-date, Deferred, Suspect.

All relationships except Basic share the behavior that when the From end is updated, the status goes to Suspect.

Break Down brings the To ends into the Tracking views for the From ends.

Status Actions

Deferred
When a relationship is in this status, the available actions are Compare, Update and Remove Relationship.
Suspect
When a relationship is in this status, the available actions are Compare, Update, Defer and Remove Relationship.