Versioning of governance artifacts

Use the Versions side panel in the artifact view to track historical changes of the artifacts, schedule new versions to be published in the future, and restore or archive previous versions.

The following artifact types can be versioned:

  • Business terms
  • Policies
  • Governance rules
  • Classifications
  • Data classes
  • Reference data sets

When you edit an artifact and want to publish its draft, you can:

  • Update the current version - As a result, the updates are published as a revision to the currently published artifact.
  • Publish as a new version using current date and time - As a result, a new version is published and the previous one becomes inactive.
  • Publish as a new version scheduled in the future - By providing the future start date you schedule this version of the artifact to replace the existing active version on the specified date.

The effective end date can't be manually configured. The artifact becomes inactive only on the date when a new version is scheduled. New start date becomes an end date for the previous version.

Only the active version of an artifact is searchable in Global Search and available in lists when adding relationships or performing other operations.

Note: Artifacts that were already inactive before the versioning feature was introduced on your system will disappear from the published artifacts lists once versioning is available. This means you won't be able to create new versions of these artifacts. Before versioning was introduced, inactive artifacts could still be modified.

Future versions

You can schedule only one future version at a time. If a future version shows a Pending tag, it indicates an issue or delay during the publishing process.

You can't view, edit, or delete a future version directly in the UI. You can only view its properties in the version comparison window. You can delete a future version using the API.

Whenever you add relationships and property values to the active version, they are automatically added to the future version as well.

Versioning and workflow

When an artifact is subject to workflow, the decision whether to create a revision or a new version is made at the first step of the workflow. If your configuration includes approvals, this decision is made at the Send for approval step.

To view the complete workflow history for a specific version:

  1. Open the artifact and click the Versions icon to open the side panel.
  2. Select a specific version and click the overflow menu.
  3. Click View workflow.

The workflow history modal displays all workflow activities for that version, including approval decisions and user comments.

Viewing versions and revisions

When viewing an artifact, you can use the Versions panel to view all versions and revisions in a timeline:

  • Use the search bar to search for a specific version.
  • Use the filter to filter the versions by a user who created or modified it, or by the modification date.
  • Click See modifications to view what was modified for a specific revision.
  • Use the overflow menu for a specific version and restore it, archive it, or compare it with another version.

Restoring a previous version

When you restore a previous version, the system creates a draft that can be further edited and must go through the workflow. The restored draft is then published as a new version (not as a revision).

Important considerations when restoring versions:

  • Restoring a version affects artifact properties but not the relationships. Relationships from the currently active version are reflected in the draft. You can edit them if you need to change them.
  • Once a version is archived, it can't be restored anymore.
  • You can only have one restored draft at a time. You can't create branches from different versions simultaneously.

To restore one of the previous versions:

  1. Open the artifact and click the Versions icon to open the side panel.
  2. Select a specific version and click the overflow menu.
  3. Click Restore.
  4. Select if you want to restore the version now, or schedule it for the future. Optionally, leave a comment.
  5. Click Restore.

Comparing two versions

  1. Open the artifact and click the Versions icon to open the side panel.
  2. Select a specific version and click the overflow menu.
  3. Click Compare.
  4. In the panel that opens, select a version with which you want to compare. Future versions are marked with a date.
  5. Use the checkboxes to either highlight differences between the versions, or to only view differences.

For reference data sets, a separate tab is available to compare the lists of reference data values. You can view details of individual reference data values by clicking View details.

Bulk edits and imports

When working with imports and bulk operations, note the following versioning behaviors:

  • CSV import: Drafts created by reimporting artifacts from CSV files can only be published as new revisions, not as new versions.
  • ZIP import: Reimporting existing artifacts from ZIP files creates new revisions, not new versions.
  • Bulk edit: Drafts created through bulk edit operations can only be published as new revisions, not as new versions.