Versioning of a datamodel
The general principles of versioning in brief
- Only persons from the same organisation can see the datamodel in Draft status.
- Published datamodels are frozen and their actual content can no longer be changed.
- The metadata of a published datamodel can be changed.
- Datamodels cannot be deleted entirely. Instead, their status is changed to Retired or Superseded.
General principles of versioning
When a new datamodel is created, its status is Draft. Only persons from the same organisation can see the datamodel in Draft status. A datamodel in Draft status can be edited freely.
When a data model in Draft status is published, its status becomes Valid or Suggested. It will also receive a version number. Published datamodels are frozen and their actual content can no longer be changed. This ensures the integrity of these datamodels. Therefore, other parties using the datamodel do not need to worry about referring to the datamodel and its classes, attributes and associations because they do not change after the point of reference.
When a new version of the datamodel is released, the users of the datamodel can either decide to keep the references to the prior version of the datamodel or change the references from their own applications to point to the new version.
The metadata of a published datamodel (such as status information, domains, contributors) can be changed. For example, the organisation responsible for the content of the datamodel can be replaced with another organisation.
Once published, datamodels cannot be completely removed from the tool. Instead, their status is changed to Retired or Superseded when their content has expired. In this case, they will no longer appear in the listing on the front page, but they can be retrieved with the search function if necessary.
Possible status transitions
You can change the content from one status to another in accordance with to the following rules.
Current status | Statuses that content can be changed to |
|---|---|
Draft | Suggested, Valid |
Suggested | Valid, Retired |
Valid | Retired, Superseded |
Retired | Superseded, Valid |
Superseded | Retired, Valid |
Status information
Name FI / EN / code value | Description |
|---|---|
Luonnos / draft / DRAFT | The data content is still being worked on and is not intended to be publicly visible online. It is visible only to users from organizations that have editing rights to the content. A draft does not have a version number. It is a working copy from which publicly visible snapshots can be published in the Data Vocabularies tool. These snapshots can no longer be edited, but their statuses can be changed. |
Ehdotus / suggested / SUGGESTED | A datamodel in Suggested status has a public IRI as well. However, it is not recommended that other data model editors make references or links to a datamodel in Suggested status, as such a datamodel may not be long-lasting or may not become valid. The contributor decides when commenting ends and either changes the status of the datamodel to Valid (data content is OK) or Retired (suggested content was not approved). The IRI of the datamodel is reserved for this data model and cannot be assigned to any other data model. As a rule, when a datamodel has been published in Suggested status, it is permanent. If a datamodel needs to be deleted for some reason, it is possible if no references have been made to it from any other data model. If you cannot delete the datamodel, change its status to Retired. |
Voimassa oleva / valid / VALID | The content has been published and a version number has been given to it. The content is in common use. For example, it may be referred to from other datamodels and the other tools on the Interoperability Platform. The IRI of the datamodel is reserved for this data model and cannot be assigned to any other datamodel. Once the content has been published in Valid status, it can no longer be deleted from the Data Vocabularies tool. This is to ensure that the links and references made to this datamodel remain valid (i.e., the content will continue to be resolvable). This datamodel can only be retired (marked as no longer in use). |
Korvattu / superseded / SUPERSEDED | The data content is no longer recommended for use and has been replaced by another data content. The IRI of the datamodel is reserved for this data model and cannot be assigned to any other datamodel. |
Poistettu käytöstä / retired / RETIRED | The content is no longer recommended for use and has not been replaced by another data content. The IRI of the datamodel is reserved for this data model and cannot be assigned to any other datamodel. |