Revisions & version control
See the different versions of your content as you save and revise it.
Any time content changes are saved, either in published or draft form, a new version of the page is created and added to a running list of revisions.
The Revisions tab at the top of all pages while in the CMS allows you to review these revisions, compare them, and revert to older ones if desired.
If you're unable to find a revision, you may be able to find an archived version of the page. You'll see a link to the archives when you click the Revisions tab. Published pages are archived weekly through a service that crawls pages on Mass.gov.
Reviewing revisions
Organizations review revisions for numerous reasons:
To track changes when multiple members of a team work on content
To publish drafts
To revert to an earlier version of the page. For example, an organization might test how an Organization page with a Featured Item Mosaic performs, but then decide after looking at the Analytics Dashboard that it wants to go back to its traditional Organization page layout
You can go back and view earlier published and draft versions of your pages by selecting the Revisions tab while in the CMS.
The Revisions tab brings up a reverse-chronological list of past versions.
View past versions
You can view the past versions by selecting the hyperlinked dates on the left hand side of the screen.
Note: In order to keep the CMS database from getting too large, we will soon implement a process to remove revisions older than 14 months.
Reverting to a previous version
You can publish an earlier version by selecting the Revert button on the far right side of the screen.
Clicking the Revert button will bring up a screen to double-check that you really want to publish the earlier version.
Comparing revisions
Before reverting to a previous version, you might want to first compare versions.
Step 1: Choose versions
From the list of revisions, click on 1 (one) small circle apiece in each of the 2 columns just to the left of the Revert buttons.
Step 2: Compare versions
Scroll to the bottom of the Revisions list and select the Compare Selected Revisions button.
Step 3: Review change logs
Review the side-by-side change logs, noting changes highlighted in pink and green.
Revisions vs. Archives
Revisions in the CMS should not be treated as archived content. Learn about finding archived content.
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