Understanding synchronization
Synchronization is the process by which your publications are locally updated whenever you edit a topic or a map, so that your modifications are visible without having to start a complete publish operation.
The synchronization relates Collaborative Review with Content Manager. When synchronization is active, whenever you edit a topic or a map, the publication containing this topic or map is locally updated in order to make your modifications rapidly visible by the readers. The first steps of this process are specific to synchronization, but the publication itself is using the standard publication process, only for a small set of topics or maps.
- You edit a topic.
- Your changes are compared to the previous version, and if differences are found, the process carries on.
- Topics or maps referenced by your topic are identified with the graphs.
- The modified topic is put in a Holding Area as well as any topic or map referenced by this topic.
- The data for the active publication is retrieved and that single publication is locked.
- The objects in the Holding Area are published for that publication only.
- The other publications using the topic are identified with the
where_usedfeature. - Those other publications are picked up for publication as soon as resource is available, asynchronously.
Synchronization process
The use of graphs, the fact that in the first phase a single publication is executed, the common use of standard publication steps, optimize synchronization's efficiency.