The Asset page shows the latest version of an asset by default. The buttons and menus in the toolbar at the top of the page contains:

Links to other, related, assets in the asset management system are shown in the Related Assets section. Click on a link to open the corresponding Asset page for the related asset. The section is hidden if there are no related assets.

Click Edit to make changes to the asset. The Asset page is shown with various input fields for updating its data, similar to when adding a new asset. You can change the title, description, and thumbnail image and caption of the asset, as well as add or remove linked model versions and attached files. None of the changes made on the page are stored in the database until you click Save, in which case all changes are saved collectively as a new asset version. Click Cancel to return the page to its read mode with all data restored as it was before the edit began.

Click Add Row below the Model versions table to add a new table row for a linked model version. You search for model versions in the database by writing search terms in the Search or paste field of the added table row — you can write both plain search words as well as any number of filter expressions using the Model Manager search syntax. Plain search words will match on the titles, descriptions, tags, and filenames of models. You can also add a wildcard asterisk (*) to match, for example, the beginning of titles.

The search result automatically updates — with a slight delay — as you type in the input field. Click a model version in the search result to select it for the link. You can also add a link by pasting the location string identifier for a model version in the Search or paste field from your computer’s clipboard — see the Copy Location to Clipboard button on The Model Page.

Click Advanced Search in the lower left corner of the search result to open the Add to Asset dialog. The dialog shows the search result in a paginated table. Unlike the Search or paste field inside a table row, you must press Enter or click the magnifying glass in the Search field to trigger a new search.

Click on a table row to show more details about that model version. You can also click View Model Version to open the Model page for the model version in a new browser window. Click an Add button to close the dialog and add the corresponding model version as a link on the asset. Click Cancel to close the dialog without selecting any model version.

To replace an existing link on the asset, click the Replace button next to the title of the model version. To remove the link altogether, click the Clear button.

You can attach files to the asset by uploading them from your computer. Click the Add Row button under the Attachments table. In the added table row, either drag and drop a file to the dotted rectangular area or click the text Click here to upload to browse for a file. You can also drag and drop multiple files, or select multiple files in the browse dialog. One file will be added to the current table row while additional rows will be appended to the table for the other files.

Examples of files that are suitable as attachments are word documents, presentations, notes, slides, and other supplementary files that are related to your simulation project, but are not directly used for simulations. MPH files and data files are better stored separately as version-controlled items in repositories. Only items stored in repositories may be accessed from the COMSOL Desktop. You can add links to versions of such items on the asset via a Model version picker attribute and a File version picker attribute.

You can add links to other assets in the asset management system as a way of relating them to the current asset. To edit the current collection of relations, select Related in the list opened via the Edit button on the Asset page to open the Related Assets page.

The Related Assets page shows the currently related assets in the top table, with columns for the identifier and the title of each asset. Click Delete to delete a relation.

The related assets appear as links in the Related Assets section. Click a link to navigate to the corresponding Asset page for that asset.

You control who can set permissions on assets via ownerships — every asset has an owner, which is one of the Users in the database. Except for administrators, only the owner can change an asset’s permissions. The user that creates an asset is automatically set as its initial owner.

You can transfer the ownership of an asset to another user if you own the asset or are an administrator. Select Owner in the list opened via the Edit button. In the opened dialog, the Current owner field shows the username of the user that currently owns the asset. Under New Owner, select the user to transfer ownership to. Click Save.

You can change permissions for an asset if you own the asset or are an administrator. Granting permissions to users and groups enables you to control, for example, who can view the asset or make changes to the asset. All available permissions for an asset are listed in Table 4-1.

To set permissions, select Permissions in the list opened via the Edit button. In the Permissions list in the opened dialog:

Click Save to save the new permissions for the asset.

You can access older versions of an asset via the Asset Versions page. Click Versions on the Asset page to show a table with all versions listed in chronological order, with the latest version shown at the top.

Click on a version in the Title column to see how the asset looked in that version. To restore the asset from an older version, click Restore Version. The older version will be automatically resaved as a new latest version.

You can compare two versions of an asset by selecting their checkboxes in the table and clicking the Compare button. The Asset Comparison page is opened with a comparison between the versions’ data fields — see Comparing Asset Versions.

You can see the result of comparing two versions of an asset on the Asset Comparison page. You can reach this page via one of the following:

The Asset Comparison page shows the before and after values of all fields that have changed between the two versions, with the before value indicated by a minus sign and a red color highlighting, and the after value by a plus sign and a green color highlighting. Some field types also use strikethroughs and underlines to indicate before and after, respectively. Fields that have the same value in both versions are hidden on the page.

Select the Show detailed text changes checkbox for text fields to show individual changes made to words and sentences inside paragraphs — removed words have red strikethroughs and added words have green underlines. Entire paragraphs deemed either completely removed or completely added are indicated by a left-aligned red or green horizontal line with a minus or plus sign, respectively. Clear the checkbox to see the before and after texts in their entirety.

Select the Only show modified rows checkbox above table-valued fields to hide those table rows that are the same in the two versions — both when it comes to the row’s position and the row’s cell values. Clear the checkbox to see all table rows.

Click Delete on the Asset page to delete the asset. The asset will still be present in the database but no longer show up in search results by default. To restore a previously deleted asset, click Restore.

Select Delete Permanently in the list opened via the toggle button next to the Delete button to permanently delete the asset and all its versions.