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	Configurable Settings

Rating Scales

To edit a rating scale from the Project Properties window, click the Edit icon at the right side of any of the rating scale drop-down lists on the Configurable Settings page (i.e., Severity Scale, Occurrence Scale, Detection Scale, Severity Class or Failure Probability).

To add or edit a rating scale from the Profiles/Library Manager, click the Add or Edit button on the Severity, Occurrence or Detection page. The window also will be displayed when you double-click one of the scales displayed on these pages.

A rating scale determines the ratings that will be available for either of the risk assessment methods supported by the software: Risk Priority Numbers and Criticality Analysis.

Each rating scale is identified by a name (required) and short description (optional). In addition, you can define any number of rating values for the scale (e.g., five-point scale, ten-point scale, etc.), as described next:

Value specifies the numerical rating that will be applied to the record. Each value must be unique within the scale and the values can be whole numbers or decimals. The software will order the numbers from smallest to greatest when you save the scale.
Description specifies the short text description that will be associated with the numerical rating in the drop-down lists within the interface (e.g., when you click inside the Severity column in the FMEA worksheet, when you select the Failure Probability in the Failure Properties window, etc.).
Criteria 1 and Criteria 2 specify longer text descriptions of the criteria that can be used to determine whether the rating will be assigned to a particular issue. This information will be visible when the user clicks the Select Existing icon at the right side of the drop-down list for each rating scale in an FMEA.

If you are working with an Occurrence or Failure Probability scale, this window will also display a Quantitative Value column and, at the bottom of the window, a Treat Quantitative Values area. These settings apply if you want to use the qualitative rating assigned to a record to set that record's quantitative probability of failure model. The model can then be used for reliability or criticality calculations in the FMRA. See Using Rating Scales in the FMRA.

The Copy Existing button allows you to select another Xfmea library and copy selected settings to replace the ones in the current window.

Clear All clears all entries and selections made in the window.

Spelling checks the spelling of the text fields within the window.

When you have accessed the window from the Profiles/Library Manager, the status bar at the bottom of the window displays the date/time of the last change to the rating scale and the user who made the change.