Skill Versioning

02 Aug 2024
5 Minutes to read

Skill Versioning

Updated on 02 Aug 2024
5 Minutes to read

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Versioning

Versioning refers to the practice of maintaining and managing different versions of skills or configurations within the application. This feature allows users to track changes made to skills over time and revert to previous versions if necessary. Here’s why versioning is beneficial:

Change Tracking: Versioning enables users to monitor changes to skills, displaying the details of each version and identifying who made the changes.
Error Recovery and Rollback: Users can revert to stable skill versions if updates cause errors, ensuring system stability.
Collaboration and Documentation: Versioning promotes teamwork and serves as documentation by capture the evolution of skills over time.
Version Management and Flexibility: This feature allows users to create new versions, view history, and edit existing versions. In addition to this, we can use different version of a skill in different workflows.
Example - Skill_A (v1) in Workflow A, Skill_A(v2) in Worklflow B.

Versioning in Skills

Versioning of skills in Skill Configurations is essential for service automation management. It involves tracking, managing, and deploying different skill versions within a platform. Using a Local database for skill versioning leverages version control to monitor changes, manage versions, and facilitate collaboration. This feature allows users to create new versions, view history, and edit existing versions.

Versioning activity consists of the following segments:

Create a new skill where a new version of that skill is created.
View the configured skill with the respective version on the Skill List page.
Edit the already configured skill to create a new updated version.

Navigation - Skills Menu

Navigate to Orchestration > User > Orchestration.
Click the hamburger icon from the left panel, to expand the MENU.
Click the Skills option to access Manage Skills menu as shown below.
Figure: Skills Menu

Create a new skill version

To create a new skill version, perform the following steps:

From the left navigation MENU, navigate to Skills > Manage Skills > Skill List.
The Skill List page is displayed with all the records.
Click the New Skill + icon to open the configuration page to create a new skill.
Figure: Skill List page - New Skill icon
Enter all the required information in the New Skill page as shown below. For more information on fields, refer to New Skill.
Figure: New Skill page

Note
When the skill is being created for the first time, the Status will be in Draft mode by default.
If the skill requires no further changes/edits and is ready for use, change the Status to Published mode.
In Draft status, only the Skill Name is mandatory; other fields are optional.
In New skill mode, the Version dropdown will not be visible. It will be displayed after the creation of a skill or in edit mode.

Enter all the required information in other tabs and click Save to save the new skill.

View version details of configured skills

To view the version details of configured skills on the Skills page, perform the following steps:

From the left navigation MENU, navigate to Skills > Manage Skills > Skill List.
The Skill List page is displayed with all the records.
Check the Version column to get version details about each configured skill.
Figure: Skill List page - Version column

Edit configured skills

You can edit configured skills in either Draft or Published states. Changes to skills are tracked and highlighted through version numbers.

Draft State

To edit skills in draft state, perform the following steps:

From the left navigation MENU, navigate to Skills > Manage Skills > Skill List.
Click the required Skill Name hyperlink whose status is in Draft state.
Figure: Skills list page - Skills in Draft Status

The Edit Skill page is displayed:
Figure: Edit Skill page
To save and publish the edits/changes made, change the Status from Draft to Published state.
Fill in all the mandatory fields, make any necessary changes (if any), and then click Save to publish the skill.

Let's understand this operation with a simple video demonstration!

Example: Let’s consider a skill named “HLC_import” which is in Draft status. Now, let’s see how the skill is moved from Draft to V1 version.

Note
When a skill is in Draft status, it will not be assigned any version numbers.
Figure: Skills List - Draft status
If a skill already has an existing draft version and you set another version to Draft status, the following confirmation pop-up is displayed. If you click Yes, the old draft values will be overwritten with published version values. Published version will not have any impact.
Figure: Confirmation pop-up
To check all the available versions of the skill, click the version icon as shown below.
Figure: Edit Skill page - Version drop-down

To use or revive any particular version of the skill, click the version number and the draft of that particular version will be updated accordingly.

Published State

To edit skills in published state, perform the following steps:

From the left navigation MENU, navigate to Skills > Manage Skills > Skill List.
Click the required Skill Name hyperlink whose status is in Published state.
Figure: Skills list page - Skills in Published Status

The Edit Skill page is displayed.
Figure: Edit Skill page
To make the necessary edits to the draft version, select Draft from the version drop-down.
Figure: Edit Skill - Version drop-down

Fill in all the mandatory fields, make any necessary changes in this draft version. Change the Status to Published and then click Save to publish the skill.

Upon saving and publishing the skill, the version will be updated as V2 (V1 to V2) and displayed in the Skills List as shown below:
Figure: Skills List page - Updated skill version

Let's understand this operation with a simple video demonstration!

Example: Let’s consider the skill named “Employee Onboarding” which is in Published status. Now, let’s see how the version number changes from V2 to V3 after the update.

Step 1: Change the status from Published to Draft.

Why should we perform this step?
Employee Onboarding skill is in Published status and the current version is V2.
On the Edit Skill page, both V1 and V2 versions are available in the Version drop-down menu.
To make any updates to a skill, it must be in Draft status. To obtain a Draft version of this skill, we should perform this step.

Step 2: Select the Draft version, make the necessary edits/changes. Change the Status from Draft to Published and click Save to publish the skill.

Here, upon making the changes, the skill version is updated from V2 to V3.

Key Points
Versioning on Skills list page
If there are multiple versions of the skill, only one record will be displayed on the list page.
For instance, the skill Different has four versions, yet only version V4 record will be displayed on the list page.
Figure: Skills list page
Here, when V4 is created from record V3, only the Created Date will be displayed, the Last Updated Date will not be shown.
A new version can be created from a skill in draft state or published state.

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User Management

Table of contents

Versioning
Versioning in Skills