What are branches

When a branch is created, it contains an exact replica of every project element that is contained in its parent branch. You can then work on the subbranch without affecting the contents of the parent.

There are several types of branches in Decision Center:

  • The releases and activities of a decision service. Releases and activities are used with the decision governance framework, a prescriptive workflow to implement change management within Decision Center. They are governed branches, and have their own characteristics (see Managing changes with the decision governance framework).
  • A regular branch of a decision service, stemming from the main branch. This branch allows for work on the decision service without the decision governance framework.
  • Snapshots of any branches can also be considered branches because the snapshots represent a read-only state of the rules of a branch at a past moment in time.

When the initial version of a decision service is created, published, or imported, both a main branch and an Initial Release branch are created. The main branch is available if you want to work in a decision service but not use the governance framework. The Initial Release branch is published as the closed initial release of the decision service.

In the Business console, you can create new branches off the main branch, and rename them. If you use the governance framework, you can create new releases with any closed release as a starting point. The owner of a release can then create change and validation activities. You can also copy an open release and its content with any closed release as a starting point.

You can delete any branch, except for the main branch. To delete a release, you must have a Permission manager role. The release owner can also delete a release, if it is not in a Complete state.

Note: You might want to delete releases you do not use anymore, but be aware that all dependent releases, including the ones in progress, are also deleted.

Merging of branches is done automatically within the context of the governance framework, but you might also be required to merge release and change activity branches, if changes to one need to be pushed to the other, or if the automatic merging fails due to conflicts. For these cases, you must consider the following actions:

  • You can merge a change activity into any other release in the decision service when the change activity is completed and the release is not already completed.
  • You can merge a release into a change activity in the decision service when the change activity is not already completed.
  • You cannot merge a release with another release in that decision service.
  • You can merge a change activity with another one in the decision service when the target change activity is not already completed.