About Working in Teams

The OutSystems Platform has a mechanism of version control that allows developers to work in teams. In the development environment, developers work on their own local version of the module. When they publish the module, the OutSystems Platform compares it with published versions and, if necessary, merges the work.

Merging the Work

When multiple developers are changing the same module at the same time, the OutSystems Platform provides a way for you to combine your work with the changes introduced by other developers.

When you publish your local version of the module, the OutSystems Platform does the following:

1. Determines the version of the module you opened in your development environment and all the changes you made to it;
2. Determines all published changes over the same version of the module, between the moment you opened it and the moment you are publishing it.

In case there are changes in step 2., it means the version you opened and developed was changed in the meantime by another developer. Work has to be merged and the Modified Version Detected window is displayed.

You have three options:

• Merge and Publish (recommended) : use this options to let the OutSystems Platform take care of the merge:
• • The OutSystems Platform automatically merges your work with the work of other developers and publishes it. Learn more about Merge and Publish ;
  • It might happen that you have conflicts between your changes and changes of other developers. In this case, the OutSystems Platform selects all the non conflicting changes for you, and lets you decide which conflicting changes you want to publish. Learn more about Resolve Conflicts .
• Compare and Merge : use this option if you want to manually compare, merge, and publish. Learn more about Compare and Merge ;
• Publish My Version : use this option to force publishing your version without merging work with others.

Merging Work with Other Versions or a File

In case you want to compare and merge your changes with a specific version of the module, use the merge options available in the eSpace menu:

• Compare and Merge with Published Version : this is normally used to bring the most recent changes and merge them into your work without publishing it;
• Compare and Merge with Another Version or File : this is normally used to retrieve work from an older version or a file, to compare it with your current work and eventually merge.

Learn more about Merging with Other Versions or File .

Using the Public and Personal Areas

Normally, you develop your applications by publishing changes and making them publicly available to other users. In this case you are using the Public Area . Learn more About the Public Area .

However, sometimes changes can be critical, and you may want to test them first in a controlled environment before making them public. In this case you can use the Personal Area . Learn more About the Personal Area .

See Also

Merge and Publish | Resolve Conflicts | Compare and Merge | Merge with Other Version or File | Elements Checkable for Merge