Branch status and branch type

A branch has a given status, depending on its place in the product development cycle. The status of a branch determines what type of branch it is.

Development status is for a product in active product development
Maintenance status is for a released product that is in a maintenance phase
Delivery status is for a product released out to a client
Closed status is for a product that is no longer on offer to its identified audience

Available actions based on branch status

Branch types have different requirements and behaviors, based on the branch status.


Behavior	Development or Maintenance	Delivery	Closed
Allows Editing	Editable	Read-only
Minimum Status for Objects	Objects can be at any status	Objects must be in a final status, such as Done Note: Cannot move objects to an earlier status, such as Work
New Objects	Addition of new objects allowed in branch	No addition of new objects allowed in branch
Deleting Branches	Deletion of a Development branch allowed	No deletion of a Delivery branch allowed	No deletion of a Closed branch allowed
Content Pushed from Other Branches	New content allowed for push to branch	New content allowed for push to branch. Note: Content in the source branch must have at minimum a status of Delivery before you can push new content. When you push new content, it creates a new revision for the instance of the object in the Delivery branch, despite its status.	No new content allowed for push to branch

Automatic object forks

When an object is shared between different branches, it might automatically fork depending on the combination of branch types and whether there is a clear context for your edits. It can automatically fork when you edit the object or when you change its status from Done back to Work.

The following assumptions assist in determining the context of your edit:

If you edit an object while in Map Editor, the map open in Map Editor is the context
If you edit an object that is assigned to you, any context map for the assignment is the context

Note: The map that you edit an object within overrides the context of any assignment.

An object automatically forks only when:

You edit the object in only one of the branches in which it is located
You edit the object within the context of a Maintenance branch
You edit the object within the context of a Development branch and it is not shared with any other Development branches

Note: Instances in Delivery and Closed branches never automatically fork, since they are in a final status and cannot be checked out.

For example, you are in Map Editor and want to edit a topic. The system assumes you want to edit the topic within the context of the map. If this map is in a Maintenance branch, the topic will automatically fork. When you click Edit, the system notifies you before the topic forks.