Project snapshot overview

Review these topics to learn about project snapshots and understand how to use them.

Project snapshot use cases

The following examples describe some common use cases for project snapshots:

Project snapshot concepts and terms

In the UI, snapshots introduce some new concepts and terms for working with projects.

Project snapshot: A snapshot is a new instance of an existing project. Some key points to remember about snapshots are as follows:
  • A snapshot is a separate project. Making a change to one snapshot in a snapshot set does not affect the other snapshots in the set.
  • A snapshot is an executable project. It runs with the objects that you also select to snapshot when you create the project snapshot or with the objects associated with the source project, also called the base snapshot.
  • A snapshot is not a copy.

    If you snapshot an object associated with a project, a separate instance of the object is created. Copying a project copies the relationships between objects, it does not create a new instance of a selector, environment, or an inline or chained project.

  • A snapshot is not a revision of a project:
    • Snapshot does not support comparing changes between two project snapshots.
    • Changes to project snapshots are not tracked or identified with a version number as in a source control system. However, you can correlate project snapshots to milestones by using a snapshot naming scheme that includes version numbers, for example, 7.5.0, 3.4.01.

Snapshot set: A snapshot set is the set of all the project snapshots that are descendants of one base snapshot. At a minimum, the set includes the base or parent snapshot and a child snapshot. In the UI, the Snapshot icon Snapshot icon beside the project name indicates that a snapshot set has been created for the project.

Base snapshot: Initially, all projects have a snapshot name of Base Snapshot. You can change Base Snapshot to another name. The base snapshot is the parent of the snapshot set.

Default project snapshot: The default project snapshot is the current, working project. Only one snapshot in the set can be the default. If you do not specify a default snapshot, the base snapshot is the default.
  • In the UI, the default snapshot is displayed at the top-level of the projects list. Select Projects or Jobs > Start to display the projects list.
  • When you select a project with snapshots as an inline project or chained project, the default project snapshot is used unless you select a different project snapshot in the list box.
  • To access and work with other snapshots in the project snapshot set, you must click the Snapshot icon Snapshot icon.

Project snapshot views

Select the Snapshot icon Snapshot icon to display the Snapshot view. In the UI, the Snapshot view shows the hierarchy of the snapshots in a set:
  • The base snapshot is at the top level and has the name Base Snapshot, if you do not assign it a unique name.
  • All project snapshots are children of a base snapshot. Children of the same base snapshot are indented at the same level in the Snapshot column.
  • Project snapshots that are created from a child snapshot become children of the child snapshot and are indented at the next level in the Snapshot column.

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