Local changes, Staging and Live

This is a preview. It is turned on for some organizations at a time; until it is on for yours, publishing works as described in Publishing from the app (AD-5). Members never see any of this: only owners and admins do.

Where you are

Your organization's setup runs in an environment:

• Local changes are your own edits, on this device only. Your app runs them as soon as you make them, so you can try how a change works and looks before anyone else sees it.
• Staging is a shared copy where owners and admins try changes together before members get them. It is optional: an organization starts with only Local changes and Live, and an owner turns it on with Turn On Staging… at the end of the Publish tab.
• Live is what every member uses.

The account switcher lists your organization once for each environment you can reach: Live, Staging when it is on, and Local changes once you have saved a change (or while you are in it), and you switch there. The box you type in shows a Local or Staging chip, so you always know which copy a chat is using. If you can reach more than one environment, Live shows a Live chip too. A chat stays in the environment it started in.

Files can only be changed in Local changes. On Staging or Live an editor is read-only; Edit in Local takes you to your own copy. In Local changes an editor's button says Save: saving keeps the change on this device, and nothing reaches anyone until you push it.

The Library's three tabs

• Files lists your streamlines, briefs, templates and forms as before. An item you changed carries a mark and a count, an item a teammate changed too carries a Pull or conflict mark, and the initials of teammates editing it show beside it.
• Publish shows the lanes, Local changes, then Staging, then Live, with each one's revision (r57), and everything waiting to move.
• History lists every revision: which is Live now, which is Staging now, and any Restored one.

The Library row in the sidebar carries a count of what is waiting, and the environment you are in.

Push your changes

On Publish, Your Changes shows each item you changed as a tile, with the changes in plain words (Model: Haiku to Sonnet, Quick phrase added: Gift wrap). Tap a tile to see each change; Discard takes one change, or the whole item, back.

Tick the items you want to send and tap Push (Push 2 to Staging, or to Live when your organization has no Staging). The sheet shows what will change, anything that lets a tool run more freely first; confirm with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. The rest of your changes stay on this device, untouched. Each push lands as a new revision.

Staying current: Pull and Settle

Your copy keeps up on its own. When a teammate pushes, items you haven't changed come in by themselves, and Came In lists them (Leo updated Receiving).

Items you have also changed wait for you: their tile says so and offers Pull. Changes to different settings merge without asking. When you both changed the same setting, Settle… opens the conflict sheet: for each setting, keep yours, take your teammate's, or type Another value. Keep All Mine and Take All Theirs decide them all at once. You can't push an item until it is settled.

Teammates shows who is editing what, by name. Only the person's name and the names of the items are shared, never what they changed.

Promote to Live

With Staging on, Live moves only by promotion or a hotfix. On Staging lists what Staging has that Live doesn't. Use Mark Tested on an item once you have tried it; it is a note for the team, not a gate. Promote… sends all of Staging to Live, or only the streamlines you choose. The sheet shows every change and what isn't marked tested yet; confirm with Face ID.

Hotfix to Live

When something must reach members now, without waiting for what is on Staging, pick it on Publish and tap Hotfix to Live…. The sheet warns that every member gets this now. The fix lands on Live and is merged into Staging too, so Staging never loses it. If the same setting changed on Staging meanwhile, the fix waits under Waiting for Staging on Publish: Settle… chooses Staging's value or the hotfix's for each setting, and Merge into Staging finishes it. A whole promotion waits until it is merged.

History, Compare and Restore

History is the timeline of revisions: each with its number, environment, title, who made it and when, and the items it changed. Compare… shows, in plain words, what differs between any two revisions. Restore… makes a new revision with an old one's content, on Live or on Staging; nothing is ever moved backward, and your organization's keys are never brought back.

The organization's own systems still decide what the assistant can do, whatever is published.