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Prerequisites

Before linking characteristics to your control plan, ensure:
  • A Control Plan document exists (see Create a Control Plan)
  • Process Steps are defined in the control plan hierarchy
  • Equipment is assigned to relevant process steps
  • Characteristics are created in Polarion (see Create Characteristics)
The Control Plan uses a two-stage filtering pattern: Process Step → Equipment → Characteristics. This means characteristics must be pre-linked to equipment items for the dynamic filtering to work.

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Linking Workflow

diagram The queryFactory in the Control Plan Risksheet filters characteristics based on their allocatedTo relationship with the selected equipment.

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Step 1: Assign Equipment to Process Step

  1. Open your Control Plan document in Risksheet
  2. Navigate to the Process Step level (Level 1)
  3. Click on the Equipment column cell for the target process step
  4. Select one or more equipment items from the picker dropdown
The picker will show only systemElement work items of subtype equipment that are linked back to the current process step.
If expected equipment doesn’t appear in the picker, verify that:
  • The equipment work item type is systemElement
  • The equipment has allocatedTo link pointing to the process step
  • The equipment exists in your project (check Design space)
  1. In the same row as the equipment assignment, locate the Product Characteristic column (Level 2)
  2. Click the cell to activate the picker
  3. Select one or more product characteristics from the filtered list
The picker displays only characteristics of type Product Characteristic that are linked (allocatedTo) to the equipment selected in Step 1. Product characteristics represent quality attributes of the manufactured part (e.g., dimensional tolerances, surface finish, hardness).
  1. Similarly, locate the Process Characteristic column
  2. Click the cell to activate the picker
  3. Select one or more process characteristics from the filtered list
The picker displays only characteristics of type Process Characteristic that are linked to the selected equipment. Process characteristics represent parameters of the manufacturing process itself (e.g., temperature, pressure, cycle time, feed rate).

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Verification

After linking characteristics, you should see:
  • Product Characteristic column populated with linked characteristic work item IDs
  • Process Characteristic column populated with process parameter IDs
  • Each characteristic displayed as a clickable link to the work item details
  • Characteristics grouped under their respective equipment assignments

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Troubleshooting Common Issues

If the characteristic picker is empty even though characteristics exist:
  1. Verify equipment is selected first (characteristics filter depends on it)
  2. Check that characteristics have allocatedTo link to the equipment item
  3. Confirm characteristics are not filtered out by document scope constraints
If unrelated characteristics appear in the picker, check:
  • The allocatedTo links in Polarion — characteristics may be linked to wrong equipment
  • The characteristic type (Product vs Process) matches the column
  • Equipment assignment is correct for the process step

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Understanding the Dynamic Filter

The Control Plan Risksheet configuration uses this queryFactory pattern: 
queryFactory:
  from: Characteristic
  filterByBacklink:
    linkRole: allocatedTo
    column: equipment
This means:
  1. from: Characteristic — source entity type
  2. filterByBacklink — only show characteristics that link back to…
  3. linkRole: allocatedTo — …via the allocatedTo relationship…
  4. column: equipment — …to the equipment selected in the Equipment column
If this chain is broken at any point (no equipment selected, or characteristic not linked to equipment), the picker will be empty.

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Next Steps

After linking characteristics:

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See Also