| abstract |
A versioned-data management system (VDMSMS) is provided with a method for determining candidates for promotion in association with a user task. The VDMS maintains a list of parts changed as a result of a user task, referred to as a promote group. Before performing any changes the user informs the VDMS which user task is to be associated with the changes. All parts subsequently changed are automatically placed by the VDMS in the promote group associated with the given user task. When the parts associated with a user task for a given variant level are promoted, an iterative process is performed to determine the complete set of parts that must be promoted in support of the requested promote. Initially the set includes those parts in the promote group at the given variant level. Then all the other promote groups are searched to determine whether they contain any of the parts at the given variant level that are already in this set. For any that do, the parts in those promote groups for the given variant level are added to the set of parts to be promoted. |