Base and Child Alternatives

There are two kinds of alternatives: Base alternatives and Child alternatives. Base alternatives contain local data for all elements in your system. Child alternatives inherit data from base alternatives, or even other child alternatives, and contain data for one or more elements in your system. The data within an alternative consists of data inherited from its parent, and the data altered specifically by you (local data).

Remember that all data inherited from the base alternative are changed when the base alternative changes. Only local data specific to a child alternative remain unchanged.