Once you have identified your requirements, create a matrix showing how your sample content should be used in the output. Create some sample variant content - just enough to test with.
Test your plan by filtering and publishing the book and comparing the results to the matrix to ensure your approach is successful. Once you see that your requirements have been met, create the variant objects and apply your criteria to your production content.
For example, the following matrix was used to test variants for regular and branched software releases. The branched releases have the letters A or B appended to the release number. Comparisons were made between the expected results, the content in the filtered book, and the content in the published output.
The first release for the sample content included the X1000 topics only. The second release included some updates to the X1000 topics and the introduction of the X2001 topics. The third and fourth releases were special branched builds. The fifth release introduced the X3001 content. Some content changes were made in the sixth and seventh releases.
Release update key