Overview
Collaboration allows multiple users to work together on a model which is saved in a shared folder. Team members can perform changes to a model at the same time, some being online and others being offline. When offline users come back online, and diagrams are synchronized, conflicts in the changes can occur. Conflicts will occur if changes are made by more than one person to the process flow or to the documentation of any element in the same diagram.
The following example illustrates how conflicts can occur:
You have shared a model thought Dropbox with another team member but you need to travel abroad whilst they work on the model. During the flight you decide to work on a diagram and make some changes offline. However at the same time your team member is also working on the same diagram whilst being online.
When you next connect to the network your model will automatically synchronize. Consequently, your changes will now conflict with your colleague's.
Bizagi has a tool that allows you to resolve these conflicts.
Process flow conflicts
Let us assume that you and your team member work in the Administrative department of your company and you are collaborating via Dropbox on the Purchase Request process. You changed a diagram offline and your team member, whilst being online, also made some changes to the model.
As you come back online and synchronize the model, a new window will be displayed to warn that there is a conflict.
There will be two diagrams, one in blue and one in red. The blue one will be your diagram i.e.; being the person who synchronized.
The left pane shows the conflicting versions. You can switch between the diagrams to analyze which version to keep, just as in Word or Excel.
The person synchronizing (you in this case) must decide how to handle the conflict.
You can revert to your colleague’s online version or retain your own offline version. Note, you can always create a copy of the diagram that was not kept, by selecting the option Save a copy. Doing so will allow you to implement the changes in the discarded version.
Attribute conflicts
Again, let us assume that you and your team member work in the Administrative department of your company and you are collaborating via Dropbox on the Purchase Request process. As in the previous example you both made changes offline and online respectively, but this time to the attribute information for the same diagram element. For example, the description of the Create Purchase Request task.
When you are next able to connect to the network and synchronize your model, a message will display to warn that there is a conflict.
Two diagrams will be displayed: one with your changes and another with your team member's conflicting version. As the person synchronizing, you need to decide whether to retain your own, offline, version or revert to your colleague’s online version.
