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:
- Snapshot a project to make changes to the project configuration
or perform testing of new tools or scripts while continuing to run
jobs with the existing project.
- Store a snapshot of a project as an temporary backup or as part
of an official archive.
- Snapshot a project to capture a point-in-time project configuration
that corresponds with a milestone, such as an external or internal
release.
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
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
.
Project snapshot views
Select the
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.