Updating workspaces by specifying a different base snapshot

To obtain the most recent changes that are contained in a snapshot of another workspace, you must rebase your workspace. For example, in a collaborative development environment, you typically rebase your workspace to accept all the changes from a workspace that is shared by a team.

Before you begin

  • You should be familiar with project areas, configuration spaces, snapshots, workspaces, and change sets, which are described in Management of shared resources.
  • You must be logged in to a project, and the project must contain a snapshot and a workspace. A snapshot is a read-only set of resources and their versions that are part of a configuration space at a specific point in time.
  • If change sets are associated with this workspace and you want to preserve those changes, you must share those change sets before you start the rebase operation.
  • This content applies to version 4.0.3 or later. In the Configuration Management application, you must have permission to merge configurations. For more information about setting permissions, see the link to the related task at the end of this topic.

About this task

Important: To prevent the rebase operation from overwriting resources in your workspace, consider taking a snapshot of your workspace before you rebase. Alternatively, you can create a workspace based on your current workspace, and then rebase the new workspace.

If the snapshot that you are rebasing to contains a newer version of a resource than what is in the workspace, you must accept the newer version of the resource into your workspace. If your workspace contains a newer version than what is in the snapshot that you are rebasing to, you can choose which version to keep in your workspace. After you rebase, the workspace cannot contain an older version of the resource than what is in the snapshot that you rebased to.

The following diagram shows a graph of two resources and indicates which snapshots contain versions of the resource.

Image that shows a graph for each of two resources described in the preceding paragraph.

Consider the following scenario: You are using Workspace A, and Snapshot 1 is its base snapshot. After changing Resource 1 and then sharing your changes, you decide to rebase Workspace A so that the base snapshot is Snapshot 2. Based on the diagram, the following table shows the contents of each snapshot and the workspace before and after the rebasing operation.

Snapshot 1: Base snapshot of Workspace A Snapshot 2 Before rebasing, the base snapshot is Snapshot 1 After rebasing, the base snapshot is Snapshot 2
Resource 1 - v 1.1 Resource 1 - v 1.2 Resource 1 - v 1.1.1 (you have updated Resource 1 and shared your changes, resulting in v 1.1.1 in this workspace) Resource 1 - v 1.2

To be consistent with other workspaces whose base snapshot is Snapshot 2, you must accept the more recent version from Snapshot 2.

Resource 2 - v 1.1 Resource 2 - v 1.1.1 Resource 2 - v 1.1 Resource 2 - v 1.1.1

Procedure

  1. From a lifecycle management product, complete one of the following steps:
    • If you are working in the workspace whose contents you want to replace: on the toolbar, click Current Configuration Context > Open Current Configuration.
    • From a project dashboard, on the toolbar, click Current Configuration Context > Explore Configurations; then, click the workspace to rebase.
  2. In the Configuration Management application, from any tab in the workspace editor, click the Rebase icon in the upper right of the workspace editor.
  3. On the Rebase Workspace Configuration page, select a snapshot to rebase to, and click Update.
    Note: The list of snapshots includes only the snapshots that use this workspace's flow target as their workspace.
  4. On the Update Resources page, differences between the base snapshot and the current workspace (target) are highlighted in the Base and Target panes. Specify whether to copy each change into the updated workspace:
    1. In the Target pane, click a delta, which is highlighted in green. In the Base and Target pane, notice the elements that now are outlined in red.
    2. Accept the changes you want to keep: To accept the change from the base snapshot, in the Base pane, click the Apply the change to the merged result icon. To accept the change from the current workspace, in the Target pane, click the Apply the change to the merged result icon.
  5. The Result pane shows the current contents of the workspace as you merge the configurations. When you are finished, click the Share merged result icon. The results are shared to the configuration that you selected to rebase.
  6. Click Finish. On the Rebase Workspace Configuration page, notice that the Base Snapshot field now specifies the snapshot that you selected in step 3.
  7. Optional: Complete one of the following steps:
    • To return to the Configuration Explorer view, in the breadcrumb trail in the upper-left corner of the page, click Configurations.
    • To return to the lifecycle management product, select the appropriate option from the Home Menu icon near the upper-left corner of the page. Then, to work in the updated workspace, select or search for the workspace by using the Current Configuration Context menu.

Results

Older versions of resources in the workspace are replaced with the newer version that you select from the snapshot.

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