Conflicts between changeset commits

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Conflicts between changeset commits

    ServiceNow's CDM (Change Delivery Management) helps manage configuration changes across multiple teams, blocking conflicting commits and notifying users of issues. As of the Washington DC release, DevOps Config is set for future deprecation, remaining supported but no longer installed on new instances. For further details, refer to the Deprecation Process article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

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    How to Handle Conflicts

    When a conflict arises during a changeset commit, the system identifies it and offers you options to either retain some changes or discard them and start anew. For easier recreation of your work, consider copying significant changes to a text editor before closing the conflicted changeset.

    How to Avoid Conflicts

    • Keep changesets open for short durations; close and start new ones if further research is needed.
    • Coordinate with coworkers to prevent simultaneous updates to the same configuration item.

    Types of Conflicts

    Conflicts can arise from various scenarios, including:

    • Stale data in your working changeset due to changes made by other users.
    • Data corruption from incorrect modifications in the data table.
    • Changes in parent/child relationships affecting item hierarchy.
    • Duplicate items with the same name causing conflicts.
    • Invalid includes when referenced components or collections are deleted or renamed.

    Service delivery can include multiple teams working at the same time on config data with potentially hundreds of configuration changes every day. Because changes can be in conflict with earlier changes by a different user, CDM manages commits and snapshots to block commits that conflict. You are notified of changeset conflicts to help you to resolve them.

    Important:
    Starting with the Washington DC release, DevOps Config is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer installed on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the Deprecation Process [KB0867184] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

    When a conflict happens

    Every time you attempt to commit a changeset, the system determines whether there are conflicts with other earlier commits. If the system reports a conflict, you can choose to attempt to keep some of the changes or discard all conflicted changes and start from a new changeset. For this reason, to ease the task of recreating your work, you might copy-paste larger changes to a text editor before closing a conflicted changeset.

    How to avoid conflicts

    Follow these suggestions to avoid conflicts:
    • Try to keep a changeset open for a brief period. If you need to do research, close the changeset and start a new changeset after you have the information.
    • Coordinate your code editing tasks with coworkers. This enables you to avoid updating the same configuration item at the same time.

    Types of conflicts

    In each of the following examples of an identified conflict, the "item" being described is the configuration data item (CDI) in your changeset. Another user committed changes that your changes conflict with.
    Stale data in your working changeset
    • The value of the item was changed in another changeset.
    • The item is no longer included in a collection or deployable in another changeset.
    • Data corruption caused by an incorrect change in the data table: The newly added item in your open changeset was modified in the data table to incorrectly refer to a previous version. The item in your open changeset was superseded by a change in the data table. The updated or deleted item in your open changeset was incorrectly modified in the data table to not refer to the previous version.
    Changed parent
    The item is an orphan because its parent was deleted or renamed in another changeset.
    Changed parent/child relationship
    New items were added in another changeset while you made changes to the parent data item.
    Changed references
    • The Item was included in a collection or deployable in another changeset.
    • The item cannot be deleted because it is included in a collection or deployable in another changeset.
    Duplicate
    An item with the same name already exists.
    Invalid includes
    • The component or collection to which the include referred was deleted in another changeset.
    • The component or collection to which the include referred was renamed in another changeset.
    • A descendent of the component to be included is already included in the collection in another changeset.