Submitting to Staging

jtram98

Hi. Before I get to my question, some background:


We have approx. 800 users who all require their own web sites. The web sites are all identical in respects to layout, colors, CSS, etc. The only difference is their own customizations for the bios, team members, links, etc. We've set up Teamsite with one branch called homepages and each user has their own workarea which is named after their user ID.

For example:
[indent]
/default/main/homepages/WORKAREA/user1
/default/main/homepages/WORKAREA/user2
/default/main/homepages/WORKAREA/user3
[/indent]
etc ...

In production, their URLs will look like this:
[indent]
http://www.mycompany.com/user1
http://www.mycompany.com/user2
http://www.mycompany.com/user3
[/indent]
etc ...

Our IW field engineer suggested we create one branch and create workareas for each of our users. Initially, we thought of creating branches for each user. This however, seemed like it could become a maintenance nightmare given that we would have 800+ branches. There is a lot of common content and its seems like a better idea to put all common elements in a common workarea and when a central image or JS file gets updated, we simply do a "Get Latest" for all the workareas to propagate the changes. Anyway, this is the reason why we have architected it this way.

Ok, so now to my question:

When a user saves a DCR or submits a file, the workflow, among other things, copies the file(s) to staging. So if a user1 has just edited a file called header.html, the workflow copies the file here:
[indent]
/default/main/homepages/STAGING/header.html
[/indent]

I thought it would have been copied here:
[indent]
/default/main/homepages/STAGING/user1/header.html
[/indent]

Or if a DCR called header has been edited and saved, it gets copied here:
[indent]
/default/main/homepages/STAGING/templatedata/main/header/data/header
[/indent]
And not to here:
[indent]
/default/main/homepages/STAGING/user1/templatedata/main/header/data/header
[/indent]

I thought that when the file gets copied, the full path is copied, including the workarea name. Have I done something wrong? The problem is that, with the exception of a few pages, all the names of the pages in the web sites are the same. So each user will have a header.html page and a bio.html page and a team.html page etc ... So when user2 edits header.html, the workflow also copies it here:
[indent]
/default/main/homepages/STAGING/header.html
[/indent]

Won't this overwrite the original header.html that user1 just submitted? Have I missed some fundamental point here? Any insite would be appreciated.

Thanks
John

ISCBorisB

Conceptually, Branch Content is kept in Staging. In the very real sense in TS Branch IS Staging.

Workareas contain a virtual copy of ALL content in the Staging area of a branch. That enables contributors to modify/test
their work before submitting to STAGING thus integrating it with the job of other contributors. Think of a WA as a mechanism for
concurrent development. The main scenario is: Get Virtual Copy - Lock/Modify - Submit/Unlock. Further, with the correct design WA should be
a disposable commodity. You can drop it at any moment, create a different one with the arbitrary name/ownership and do "Get Latest".

I hope that from this explanation it is clear that WA Name is nothing but (yet another) copy label, it is not a component of
the Branch (read Staging) tree structure. Same Branch WAs with unique non-private components are not supported.

It should be also clear that you have a very real problem with your design. For example, there is no WA/A "header.html"
or WA/B "header.html". They are modifiable copies of the same Branch asset, whoever submits it last wins. If I were you I would've
hired a TS architect to see what can be salvaged and what and how must be changed (re-branching, declaring private assets etc)