Workspace Management Overview

Each Repository can contain workspaces. A workspace is a restricted view of the Repository's contents. The view is restricted for two reasons:

  1. A workspace can contain only those Repository object versions that you explicitly include in it. Thus, if you set up a workspace to apply to a functional area, you can include in that workspace only objects that pertain to that area.

  2. A workspace can contain only one version of any Repository object. Thus, the workspace provides you with a simple view of the Repository's data in which only one version of each object exists. In effect, operating within a workspace simplifies things because you do not need to choose among several versions of the same object. When you retrieve an object from a workspace, Repository simply returns the specific version of that object that is present in the workspace.

Although a workspace's view of the Repository data is restricted, operating in the context of a workspace is liberating for two reasons:

  1. A workspace reveals only the objects that are important to you – effectively yielding a custom view of the Repository.

  2. Because a workspace contains at most one version of any object, your within-workspace operations can avoid much of the complexity of the multi-version environment.