Version Control

In Agile Business Suite, multiple developers in a work group can share the same model, and multiple workgroups can share a common version repository, from which they check out model elements to modify them and then check them back in to publish the changes to other workgroups.

The Visual Studio framework provides an interface to external source control products, implemented as the SCC Manager component. The standard product comes with support for tools that support SCCAPI, and could be extended with implementations tailored for other products. Developer supports Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2018 as source control system. Elements in the model are automatically protected by source control when it is active.

The standard source control infrastructure revolves around files. When a versionable element is added to source control its parent containers and its members are also added (if not already present) to define its position within the model hierarchy. For example, a segment can be added to the Source Control Bank along with its members such as ispecs, reports, and attributes. When an Agile Business Suite Element is checked into source control, the XML export file is created and passed to the SCC Manager. The name of this file is recorded in the model. When an element is checked out, the XML file representing it is checked out. Where the project has been added to source control, elements must be checked out before they are modified.

Comparing and merging different versions of an element is implemented as a separate application, which can also be invoked directly from the source control system.