Create Version

Version Control is a way to backup your work while editing pages in the CMS. A version is essentially a snapshot of all your content on a given page at a particular point in time. Each time you activate your page, the CMS automatically creates a version of that page. You can also manually create page versions and leave notes about changes you've made to the page. When making large content changes, using versions can serve as a potential backup in case you need to revert to a previous rendition of your page.

  1. Navigate to your desired page in the Site Admin.
  2. Highlight the page by hovering over the page's thumbnail and selecting the transparent checkmark.
  3. On the left side of the page under the Action bar, select the Side Menu icon.
  4. Select Timeline. A side panel will appear on the left side of the page. This panel contain version history of the selected page.
  5. To create a new version, select the upward arrow icon on the bottom left side besides the Comment field.
  6. Select Save as Version.
  7. A window will appear with Label and Comment fields. The Label field will rename the version (default names are New Version 1.x). The comment field will add a comment to each version. Both fields are optional.
  8. Select Create.
  9. A green confirmation banner will appear on top to show that the version has been successfully created.

List of Versions

Versions will appear in reverse order beginning with the most recently created page version. Each time you activate the page or manually create a version, a new item will be added to the bottom of the list of versions. The version label will increment as you continue to make more versions (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc) listed alongside the date and time it was created.

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Restore a Version

To restore individual pages:

If you've made edits to your page and want to restore to a previous version you can:

  1. Navigate to your desired page in the Site Admin.
  2. Highlight the page by hovering over the page's thumbnail and selecting the transparent checkmark.
  3. On the left side of the page under the Action bar, select the Side Menu icon.
  4. Select Timeline. A side panel will appear on the left side of the page.
  5. A list of available page versions will appear. Comments will appear in a text box under the version.
  6. Select a version you wish to restore. When you select a version, the view will expand and show three buttons: Preview, Compare to Current and Revert to this Version.
  7. Select Revert to this Version. A small, green pop-up window will appear on the top of the page with the text: SUCCESS Version reverted.
  8. All other versions will still be available on the Timeline side panel.

To restore multiple pages at once:

  1. Navigate to the parent page of the pages you wish to restore in the Site Admin.
  2. Highlight the page by hovering over the page's thumbnail and selecting the transparent checkmark.
  3. In the top Action Bar, select Restore, then select Restore Version.
  4. You will be directed to a fullscreen window titled "Restore Versions inside [Parent Page Name]".
  5. Select the pages you want to restore.
  6. For each page, under the column "Restore To Version", select a version number from the dropdown.
  7. On the top right, select Restore. Once the restore has succeeded, a green pop-up window on top will appear: SUCCESS: Resource(s) has been restored.

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Things to Note

Some important things to keep in mind when using Version Control:

  • Do not restore to any versions created before July 20, 2016.
    • They will revert to an older site design and there is no way to restore them back to the updated design.
  • Only users with CMS Approver access (those able to activate pages) are able to restore a page to a previous version.
  • Only 140 versions per page for a maximum for 14 months are able to be saved in the CMS. Versions exceeding these criteria will be deleted in order to maintain system performance.
  • Once a page is deleted in the CMS, no versions of it remain.
  • CMS Authoring System Backup Standards:
    • The CMS Team conducts extensive backups of the CMS Authoring System every Friday beginning at 10 p.m. EST.
    • It is the responsibility of each CMS user to create versions of their content using Version Control in the event that they may need to restore their page(s) to a previous state.
    • It is not guaranteed that accidentally deleted content or pages will be able to be restored on behalf of CMS users.

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Screenshots

Versioning Tutorial - Accessing Timeline

Selecting the Side Panel icon will show a menu containing the "Timeline" panel.

Versioning Tutorial: Option Expansion

Versioning options include: Save Version, Restore Version & Restore Tree.

Versioning Tutorial: Selecting a version will give options to Preview, Compare & Revert to this Version.

Versioning Tutorial - Timeline Panel

The Timeline panel will show a list with ta page's version history.

Versioning Tutorial: Creating a Version

Versioning Tutorials: Success banner

The green Success banner will appear when a version is reverted.