Snapshots & Comparison

Every time a diagram is saved, the modeler records a snapshot of its state. Snapshots let you review how a diagram evolved, restore an earlier state, and visually compare two saved states.

Browsing Snapshots

Open a diagram and use the snapshot (history) button in the modeler toolbar. A selector lists the saved snapshots of the current diagram, newest first, including who saved them and when. Use the search field to narrow the list.

The list holds the saves that changed the diagram itself. Saving only a rename or a new description is recorded as well, but is not offered as a state to go back to, since going back to it would change nothing. The number of entries the list shows is capped by cibseven.webclient.modeler.history.maxResults (default 30, available from 2.3.0).

Restoring a Snapshot

Selecting a snapshot loads that saved state into the editor. The restored content becomes the working state of the diagram — save it to make it the newest snapshot. Nothing is deleted by restoring: the snapshots it was restored from remain in the history.

Comparing Snapshots

The compare button opens the snapshot comparison view:

1. Select two snapshots to compare (typically an older and a newer state).
2. The diff viewer highlights the structural changes between them directly on the diagram: added, removed and changed elements.
3. Layout-only movements are distinguished from semantic changes to the process model.

The comparison is a structural BPMN diff (powered by bpmn-js-differ), so renamed properties, changed task types, and added/removed flows are detected even when the visual layout barely changes.

Retention

A scheduled job keeps the newest cibsevenmodeler.deleteProcesses.versionLimit versions of every diagram (default 50) and deletes the snapshots below that, so the history of a long-lived diagram does not grow without end. cibsevenmodeler.deleteProcesses.cron controls when it runs (default: midnight daily). Snapshots are per diagram: deleting a diagram removes its own history only.

Both properties are listed in the Configuration Reference, and the snapshots live in mod_processes_diagrams_aud — see Database Schema.