Product Instances

Product Instances

An instance is one physical item you actually built and shipped. The product describes the model. The instance describes the individual unit sitting on a customer's floor, identified by its serial number.

Registering instances is optional. If you only want to publish your product range, you can stop at the product. Register instances when a customer needs data about their unit, such as its build date or the firmware it left the factory with.

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What an instance inherits

An instance carries almost nothing of its own. It inherits all product level data automatically: the manufacturer, the nameplate, technical specifications, documents and certifications.

Only these fields belong to the unit itself:

• Serial number
• Year of construction and date of manufacture
• Country of origin
• Hardware, firmware and software versions
• Its own web address and facility identifier
• Any documents that apply to this unit alone

Change something on the product and every instance follows. You never update units one by one.

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The instances list

Every registered unit appears in a table on the product's Instances section.

Column	Shows
Serial Number	The unit's serial number. You can sort by it.
Status	Whether this unit can be published, and whether the published copy is still current. Hover it for the full text. See below.
Manufacture Date	Month and year, for example Mar 2025. You can sort by it.
Hardware	The hardware version this unit actually has, whether inherited or overridden.
Firmware	The firmware version.
Software	The software version.
Country	Where it was made.

Each row has four actions.

Action	What it does
Edit	Opens the full edit page for this unit.
Documents	Opens a dialog for this unit's documents. You see the ones inherited from the product and can add or remove documents that belong to this serial only.
Export or publish	Opens a menu. Download AASX and Download JSON save this one unit as a file, including its serial number. Publish to BaSyx sends it straight to your repository. The publish option only appears when a BaSyx server is configured.
Delete	Removes the unit. It also removes any documents owned only by this unit. Shared library documents stay in place.

The status badge

Badge	Meaning	What to do
🟠 Not ready	Either the product is missing a required field, or this unit has no serial number. Either way the file would not be valid.	Fix what the tooltip names. A product level problem is fixed on the product, not here.
🔵 Exportable	The unit is complete and can be exported. It has not been published yet.	Nothing, unless you want it in BaSyx.
🟢 Published	It is in BaSyx and it matches your current data.	Nothing.
🔴 Out of sync	You changed the unit after publishing, so the copy customers see is old.	Publish it again.

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Registering an instance

Open the product, go to Instances, and click Register New Instance. If you have none yet, the button reads Register First Instance.

This opens a full page headed Add Instance, the same page you use to edit later. A line at the top reminds you which product this unit belongs to, and a read only Inherited from Product Type panel shows the Product Type, Order Code and Family so you know you are under the right product.

Identity

Field		What to enter
Serial Number	*	The unique number you gave this unit, for example SN-2024-00421. This is the only required field.
Year of Construction		A four digit year, for example 2025. It accepts 1900 up to next year.
Date of Manufacture		The date the unit was finished. You cannot pick a date in the future.
Country of Origin		Where this unit was actually made. Leave it empty to inherit the product's country. Fill it in only when a batch was built somewhere else.
URI of the Product		A full web address that identifies this exact unit, for example https://your-domain.com/Model-1234/Serial-5678. Leave it blank and the app generates an identifier for you.
Unique Facility Identifier		Identifies the factory that built the unit, for example 987654321. This is used by the EU ESPR Digital Product Passport rules. Leave it empty if you do not have one.

Version information

Field	What to enter
Hardware Version	The physical hardware revision.
Firmware Version	The embedded firmware revision.
Software Version	The application software revision.

Leave a version box empty to inherit the product's default. The box shows you what it will inherit, for example "Inherited: 3.0.1", and the help text underneath confirms it will inherit that value. Type something in and the help text changes to say you are overriding it.

This is how you record that one batch shipped with newer firmware without touching the product or any other unit.

Saving

Finish with Save Instance. If you are entering a whole production run, use Save and add another instead. It saves this unit and opens a fresh blank form, so you do not go back to the list between units. Cancel leaves without saving.

You cannot attach documents while adding. The page tells you to save the unit first, because a document is tied to the unit and the unit does not exist until you save it.

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Editing an instance

Click Edit on a row. It opens the same page, now headed Edit Instance, with all the fields filled in.

On the right there is a small Instance Info panel that summarises the unit at a glance: its serial number, its product type, and whether a technical template is assigned. It is read only. It is there so you can confirm you are on the right unit while you edit.

Save with Update Instance, or leave with Cancel.

Documents on the edit page

Once the unit exists, the edit page shows a Documents section with two parts.

Inherited from Type lists the documents that came from the product, such as the manual and the datasheet. Each row shows the file, its title, its status and a marker saying it is inherited. They are read only here. Remove them on the product if you no longer want them.

Instance-Only Documents is where you add files that belong to this unit alone, such as a test report, a calibration certificate or an inspection record tied to one serial number. When there are none, the section shows a short empty message. Each document you add shows its file, title and status, plus a chip saying whether it is Owned by this unit or Shared from the library. The bin icon removes it.

Two buttons add documents:

• Add from Library picks an existing document out of the Documents library. It stays shared, so it is not copied.
• Upload Document uploads a new file that belongs to this unit only.

The Documents button on the instances list opens the same set of documents in a dialog, so you can manage them without opening the full edit page.

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What an instance needs before you can publish it

Two things. The product it belongs to must be valid, and the unit must have a serial number. If either is missing, the status badge reads Not ready and the file would be missing a mandatory field.

Everything else is optional, although a unit with no build date and no versions is not telling a customer much.

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Tips

• Register a unit at the point you ship it, not in a batch months later. The build date and firmware version are easy to look up on the day and hard to reconstruct afterwards.
• Use Save and add another for a production run. It is far quicker than saving each unit and coming back to the list.
• Leave version fields empty unless the unit really differs. Inheriting is the point. An overridden value that matches the product default is just something else to keep in step later.
• Keep serial numbers consistent. They are how a customer finds their unit in your data, and how you find it again when they call.

For technical users

Each instance is exported as an asset with AssetKind = Instance, while the product is AssetKind = Type.

Instance specific fields populate the Nameplate submodel (IDTA 02006-3-0): SerialNumber, YearOfConstruction, DateOfManufacture, CountryOfOrigin, URIOfTheProduct and UniqueFacilityIdentifier. Version fields resolve at export time, so an empty instance field falls back to the product value rather than exporting as empty.

Instance level documents and type level documents are merged into one HandoverDocumentation submodel (IDTA 02004-2-0) in the exported file.