Branch & Merge in Pega

Branch  & Merge

Suppose you are working in large development team that is building a Web application for a Client. There are multiple team developing each components of an application. All the developers are using the same distributed environment. There are chances of conflicts when multiple team are making change in the same rule. So, this would cause unnecessary confusion and also delay the project completion.

So, in order to avoid this, you can use “Branches” in pega to support parallel development. By Creating Branches each team can work independently and merge the branch to application ruleset once the changes are stable and conflicts are resolved.

What is a Branch?

It is just container for rulesets to hold the rules that undergoes rapid change.  A branch ruleset is branched from another ruleset.

Adding a Branch in an application

Step 1: Click application->View Definition to Open the application record and click Add Branch.

Step 2:Enter the Branch name or select if any existing.

Step 3:Now the branch is created.

Step 4:Now you add the branched ruleset to the branch created in previous step by creating and saving the rule in the branch. Branched ruleset will be created automatically based on the selected branch.

Rule is created in the branched ruleset in a branch.

To view the branch content and its quality. Please follow steps below.

Step 1: Click the branch name in the application rule

Branch window opens . The first tab displays content ie rules that are added to this branch and its details

The second tab displays quality of branch-showing guardrails, conflicts etc

Merging a branch

Step 1: Open a branch window. Select “Merge” options under Action menu.

Step 2:  Check if any conflicts are displayed. If yes, please resolve the conflicts before merging.

Make sure all the rules are checked in both source ruleset (branch ruleset) .

If you have already higher empty version created in original ruleset, you can select that version in drop down otherwise you can create new version while merging.

Provide the locking password in both source and target .

If the checkbox ”keep all source rules and rulesets after merge” is checked, then branch is not deleted from application after merge.

Note:  As a Best Practice, it is always recommended to delete the branch rules and rulesets once merged to avoid confusion.

Click on Merge

Deleting the branch from system

Step 1:  Select Actions->Delete from System

Step 2:  Select “ Save branch contents in a JAR for download” to  take a copy of branched ruleset for local save.  Click  “Delete”.

Step 3: The Delete Branch confirmation pop up is displayed.

Note : Here, I have created in branched ruleset in one application and merged the rules later. You can also create separate team application built on base application and create branched ruleset in each team’s application and give access to team members.