Workspace example scenario: Regular maintenance

All of these changes can be committed to the production-ready data as soon as the changes are ready and the Product Manager approves the changes.

This scenario assumes that workspaces are already enabled, as workspaces must be enabled when the authoring server instance is created.

The Workspace Manager creates a new workspace

Because regular maintenance is an ongoing issue for a site, the workspace manager creates a new, persistent workspace, if a workspace for regular maintenance does not exist. This persistent workspace keeps all regular maintenance in one place. This persistent workspace also keeps the regular maintenance workspace available even if there are no new or active task groups in the workspace.

Using one workspace for regular maintenance also keeps information about the maintenance in one location. By keeping the information in one location, you can go back into the Workspace Administration Tool or Workspace Management tool and view a history of the regular maintenance.

The Workspace Manager creates a new task group

Although changing product descriptions and adding new merchandising information seem unrelated, the Workspace Manager creates one new single-use task group for these tasks. The Workspace Manager can create this task group because there is one approver for both tasks and the Workspace Manager wants to commit these changes to the production-ready data at the same time.

The task group is single-use because the Workspace Manager does not think this specific task group will recur as part of regular store maintenance.

The Workspace Manager creates new tasks

Each task is assigned to a different Workspace Content Contributor.

The Workspace Manager activates the new task group

Now that the Workspace Manager has the workspace, task group, and task in place, the Workspace Manager can activate the task group. By activating the task group, the Workspace Content Contributors can work on the tasks within the task group.

An email message that the task group is activated is sent to the Workspace Content Contributors.

The Workspace Content Contributors work on their tasks

The Workspace Content Contributors receive the email notification that the tasks in the task group are activated. The Workspace Content Contributors can then log on to either WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or Management Center to select and work on the tasks in the task group.

The Workspace Content Contributors test their changes

Workspace Content Contributors can test their changes for tasks that they are working on by using the Preview function available in either WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or Management Center.

The Workspace Content Contributors mark their tasks as complete

When Workspace Content Contributors complete all of the work that is required to finish their assigned tasks and test the changes, the contributors mark the tasks complete.

When all tasks are completed, an approval task is generated and assigned to the Workspace Task Group Approver.

The Task Group Approver approves the completed task group

The Task Group Approver receives an email that indicates that the task group is ready for approval.

Before the Task Group Approver can grant approval, the Task Group Approver must review the changes and confirm that the changes are correct. The Task Group Approver can use the store preview function to check the store and verify the changes. To view changes that are made within completed tasks in store preview, the Task Group Approver must first select to work on the approval task group.

When the Task Group Approver is satisfied that the changes are correct, the Task Group Approver approves the changes in either the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or the Management Center.

When the task group is approved, the changes in the task group are committed to the production-ready data.