Well, well, well. Welcome to the Enterprise Game, Google Tag Manager<\/a>! You know, if you took a look at all the feature requests and complaints that pass through the Google+ community<\/a> or the Product Forums<\/a>, you\u2019d notice that a large portion of them revolve around lack of multi-user and multi-team support in the tool. Well GTM has taken a gigantic leap forward to soothe these concerns, with the release of its latest feature: WORKSPACES<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Now, not only did they roll out this new feature, but they completely revamped the Tag, Trigger and Variable creation and management process. This is so overwhelming that I\u2019m not even going to complain how much work I have ahead of me, being forced to update all my current and future articles to align with the new interface. Anyway, I didn\u2019t want to clog this post up with all the changes, so I wrote a short overview of the UI changes to GTM<\/a>, where I walk you through some of the most meaningful changes to the user interface.<\/p>\n Gosh, I don\u2019t even have a clue what Workspaces will do to my GTM Tools<\/a>. Probably some sort of cosmic implosion. But it doesn\u2019t matter. The new stuff is just so great that I can whine later.<\/p>\n Let this article serve as an introduction and a guide to how Workspaces function. I\u2019m sure there will be many other guides online soon, which is great as always, as I predict this to be a defining moment in Google Tag Manager\u2019s release history.<\/p>\n There\u2019s lots of things here, so let\u2019s just jump in.<\/p>\n \n \n Subscribe to the Simmer newsletter<\/a> to get the latest news and content from Simo Ahava into your email inbox!\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n To help wrap your mind around the new feature, think of GTM of the past having just one Workspace. Everybody working in GTM had to work on the same Container Draft, and when a Version was created and\/or published, all changes were added to the Version at that moment, regardless of who worked on them or when.<\/p>\n With Workspaces, you\u2019ll be working with multiple Container Drafts<\/strong>. In essence, when a Workspace is created, a new Container Draft is separated from the latest GTM container version<\/strong>, and this becomes your new Workspace. From that moment on, it will live a separate life as a draft, and you can edit it, Preview it, and Debug it to your heart\u2019s content without interference from other Workspaces. There will still remain just one main branch of Versions, so you won\u2019t be able to publish your Workspaces into a completely separate branch, only merging them at some distant point in the future (if even then).<\/p>\n Work can be done in multiple Workspaces at the same time, as only once a Workspace is turned into a Version does it become part of the Google Tag Manager container. It follows that there\u2019s no actual versioning of Workspaces themselves.<\/p>\n When another Workspace is turned into a Version, all other Workspaces will get a notification that the Latest Container Version has changed. Any changes implemented in this new Container Version need to be synchronized with all other Workspaces before those<\/em> can be turned into new Versions. You don\u2019t have to do it immediately, but you will see the notification in the Container Overview reminding you that you need to update the current Workspace with changes in the Latest Container Version.<\/p>\n Perhaps my amazing flow diagram will help you understand this better:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Container Version 1 (CV1) has three Workspaces created out of it: WS1, WS2, and WS3. All are being actively worked on.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n WS2 is published, so its contents become the new Container Version 2 (CV2).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Since WS1 was based on CV1, which is now replaced with CV2, WS1 gets a notification that the Latest Container Version has changed and a sync is required. The same notification is received in WS3.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n WS1 is ready to publish, so the sync is done, and the workspace is published. This becomes the latest container version CV3.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n WS3 ignored the sync request for CV2, but now it, too, is ready to publish. Since the latest container version is CV3, this is synced with WS3 (thus bringing in the changes from CV2 as well), and the workspace is published into CV4.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Finally, a new workspace is created from CV4, with all the changes from the previous, now published, workspaces.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n So it\u2019s like an abstraction of a typical branching version control system. There\u2019s just one version tree, but you can \u201cbranch\u201d drafts out of it, merging changes in the version tree to these branches, and merging branches into new versions of the version tree.<\/p>\n The main difference to e.g. GitHub is that a workspace is deleted as soon as it is published or created into a version<\/strong>. Thus, workspaces are ephemeral<\/em>. They exist solely to deliver an incremental update to the container.<\/p>\n Creating a new Workspace is easy. Go to the Overview<\/strong> section of your Container, and click any one of the three options to \u201cManage Workspaces\u201d you see in the image below.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Once you click one of those, you should enter the \u201cManage Workspaces\u201d screen. To create a new Workspace, click the Plus<\/strong> icon in the top right corner to open the Workspace creation prompt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n By the way, notice the text saying 1 workspace left<\/strong>? In the free version of Google Tag Manager, you can have three Workspaces active at the same time. This might sound like a limitation, but it actually steers you into a more conservative approach to tag management. I\u2019ll talk more about this in the last chapter of the post.<\/p>\n Once you click the plus icon, you can give your new Workspace a name and a description. I\u2019m not one of those people who try to stick naming conventions down your throat, so I recommend you come up with a good schema all by yourself (or, preferably, within your team).<\/p>\n Even though these screenshots don\u2019t reflect it, I\u2019m actually using the following naming convention:<\/p>\n 024 – AdWords Conversion Tracking – Ahava & Behava<\/strong><\/p>\n The number would be the Version number the Workspace was created from, followed by the feature implemented in the Workspace, followed by the team working on the Workspace. A simple naming schema, with lots of information encoded within.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a good idea to give a description to the Workspace, such as who\u2019s working on it, what the goal is, when the expected publishing time is, etc. Once you\u2019re done, just click Save<\/strong> in the top right corner.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n You should see your fancy new Workspace in the list, and the Workspace you just created automatically becomes the draft that you\u2019re currently editing.<\/p>\n Just remember – the new Workspace is created off the Latest GTM Container Version<\/strong>, not<\/em> the Workspace draft you had active when you created the new Workspace, nor the Published version (if different from the Latest Version)!<\/p>\n Now, there\u2019s no way to actually, explicitly save<\/strong> a Workspace. Since it\u2019s a Container Draft<\/em>, any Tags, Triggers, and Variables you save automatically become part of the draft. There are new, awesome ways to view and abandon any changes you\u2019ve made in the current draft, and we\u2019ll get to them shortly.<\/p>\n To delete a Workspace, you\u2019ll need to open the Manage Workspaces overlay, and click the small info button next to the Workspace you want to delete.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the view that appears, you can change the Workspace configuration (name, description), view its changes, and you can click the little menu in the top right corner to Delete the Workspace.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n To switch between Workspaces is easy. In the left navigation is a new menu for Workspaces. Whenever you click that, an overlay flies out, which lets you switch between Workspaces simply by clicking the Workspace name in the list that appears.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The new menu item in the navigation serves a two-fold purpose: First, it lets you know which Workspace you\u2019re currently working on. Second, it lets you quickly open the Workspace management overlay, where you can jump between Workspaces really smoothly.<\/p>\n Now, head on over to Overview<\/strong>, and lets take a look at what\u2019s changed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n There are some vital changes to the Overview dashboard, so let\u2019s see what we find.<\/p>\n The Description<\/strong> field is now the Description you entered when creating the Workspace.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The whole central panel is reserved for Workspace-related information. The menu in the top-right corner of the box lets you either Update the Workspace or Manage Workspaces. The changes in this Workspace (compared to the Latest Container Version) are listed at the bottom.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n If there\u2019s a newer Container Version than the one that the Workspace was created from, you\u2019ll see an alert here AND at the bottom of the screen, reminding you to update the Workspace.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Right next to the PUBLISH<\/strong> menu is another reminder of how many changes there are in the current Workspace when compared to the Latest Container Version.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The orange Conflict<\/strong> bar can pop up after you\u2019ve updated your Workspace to merge the changes in the Latest Container Version. If, in the current workspace, you\u2019ve made modifications to any of the Tags, Trigger, or Variables that were included in the update, you will need to resolve the conflicts either in favor of the Latest Container Version or your current Workspace.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n A more detailed list of the changes in the current Workspace is here. By opening the menu aligned with each change, you can view what changes were made to each asset, and you can abandon the changes with the click of a button.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n The usefulness of the Overview screen just multiplied by a zillion. I never used it before, now I find myself returning to it all the time.<\/p>\n OK, get ready for pretty much the sweetest addition to the new user interface. In any of the places you can view changes to the Workspace, find the item you want to analyze and click open the menu next to the item. There are two options: Abandon Changes, which reverts any changes you made to that item back to their original settings (i.e. the values in the Latest Container Version), or View Changes, which lets you analyze all the changes you\u2019ve made, and individually choose whether to keep or to abandon them!<\/strong>. Since the latter is more interesting, click \u201cView Changes\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n What you see next can be pretty intimidating. Remember that \u201cView Changes\u201d is a completely optional operation. You don\u2019t have to view any changes, nor do you have to accept any changes at any point when working with a Workspace. Indeed, once you\u2019re happy with what you\u2019ve done with the Workspace, you can just Create a new Version or Publish the Workspace without ever double-guessing your changes.<\/p>\n But if you DO want to check what you\u2019ve (or someone else has) done, the overlay that opens is the perfect place to do so. Let\u2019s first take a closer look at what we have here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here are the elements of this overlay:<\/p>\n On the left is the column which represents the item in the Latest Container Version. On the right is the column which represents the modified version in the current Workspace. This is, essentially, a diff<\/em> of the two versions.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Up in the right you can see how many changes are yet to be resolved, and a disabled APPLY<\/strong> button, which you can click after you\u2019ve resolved all the changes. Basically, any changes that you resolve in favor of the Workspace will remain as changes whenever you open this screen again, and any changes you resolve in favor of the Latest Container Version will be removed from the draft in your Workspace.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n In Red<\/strong> are items you\u2019ve REMOVED<\/strong> from the Latest Container Version. By clicking the arrow, you have two options: keep the change you\u2019ve made to the Workspace (the IGNORE icon), or copy the original value from the Latest Container Version back to your Workspace (the COPY icon).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n In green<\/strong> are NEW ADDITIONS<\/strong> to the current Workspace, which are absent from the Latest Container Version. You can click the arrow again to either abandon or keep the change.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n In blue<\/strong> are actual MODIFICATIONS<\/strong> to existing properties. In this example, the value for a Custom Dimension has changed. You can use the arrow icon again to validate your change.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n Anyway, don\u2019t be too confused with the View Changes screen. Remember, you don\u2019t have<\/em> to accept or abandon any changes if you don\u2019t want to. You can simply use this screen to check what changes have been made, and then close the overlay without applying or changing anything.<\/p>\n It\u2019s simply an incredibly convenient way of verifying what changes have been made to the container. I love it!<\/p>\n Another way to observe changes in items is to open an asset itself (Tag, Variable or Trigger). If any changes have been made in this Workspace, or if it\u2019s a newly created item, the UI will inform you of this, and you have the option of Abandoning the Changes, or Viewing the Changes (for modified assets only).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n See all that other cool stuff in the new UI? Read on!<\/p>\n I want to remind you again: Workspaces are just Container Drafts. Just as before, a Container Draft becomes a Container Version in any of two ways: you either choose \u201cCreate Version\u201d from a relevant menu (most common is the red menu in the top right corner of the container), or you choose \u201cPublish\u201d, which first creates the version and then publishes it as the new, live container.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you click the Publish (or Create Version) button, there\u2019s a new overlay:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This is very convenient, as you have the options to:<\/p>\n Set Version Name – very useful for making sense of the Versions view<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Set Description – same comment as above<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Choose Environment to Publish to<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Last chance to View \/ Abandon Workspace changes<\/p>\n<\/li>\n View the Activity History for the current Workspace<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Note that if there are changes you need to sync from the Latest Container Version, you\u2019ll see this warning in the Publish \/ Create Version overlay:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you Create a Version or Publish the Workspace, it\u2019s exactly as it was before Workspaces. The current draft becomes the Latest Container Version, and it\u2019s now visible to all users in the Versions screen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In this list, the Version name will match what you set when publishing the Workspace. You can, of course, rename it from the Actions menu as before. A feature update I\u2019d like to see it the original Workspace name as a column of its own, so that I could make better sense of the publishing workflow (in the screenshot, the Version names are the respective Workspace names for clarity).<\/p>\n Remember that when you create a new version from the Workspace, it automatically becomes the Latest Container Version, which means two things:<\/p>\n Any new Workspaces will be automatically created from this Latest Version<\/p>\n<\/li>\n All other, existing Workspaces will need to sync the changes you made to the Latest Version, before they can create a version out of their<\/em> Workspace<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n So even though Workspaces give you plenty of wiggle-room in terms of organization and management, it doesn\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t eliminate the need to periodically discuss your version plans, and it definitely doesn\u2019t remove the need for proper governance. So make sure everybody knows when new versions are created, so that they aren\u2019t blind-sided by a version update!<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you\u2019ve decided to start your work for the day, and you fire up GTM. In the Overview screen, you see an alert that an update is required!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s also the bar at the bottom of the page prompting you to update the Workspace, too.<\/p>\n When you select to Update the Workspace (i.e. sync the changes with the Latest Container Version), a new overlay appears:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here you\u2019ll see which Versions need to be synced to the Workspace. So there might be multiple versions listed here, if there has been more than one update to the Latest Container Version since you\u2019ve created the Workspace.<\/p>\n Remember that updating the Workspace isn\u2019t necessary right away. You can keep on working on your changes, only merging the changes from the Latest Container Version once you\u2019re ready to create a version out of your<\/em> Workspace. Nevertheless, it\u2019s a good idea to do periodic merges, since the further away you diverge from the Latest Container Version, the more conflicts will arise once you do decide to go ahead with the merge.<\/p>\n Anyway, when you select to Update the Workspace due to changes in the Latest Container Version, your Workspace files will be updated to reflect the modifications to the Latest Container Version. In other words, the very foundations of what you\u2019ve been working on might have changed. It\u2019s a good idea to closely research the Latest Version in the Versions view, so that you\u2019ll know if any of the assets you have dependencies with have been changed.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you did all the steps in the previous chapter, and happily clicked UPDATE to sync your Workspace with the Latest Container Version.<\/p>\n But something\u2019s wrong, and a big, ominous, orange bar pops up in the screen, telling you that there was a conflict!<\/p>\n A Conflict<\/strong> arises when a Tag, Trigger, or Variable was changed in the Latest Container Version, and you have also modified that same item in your current Workspace. For you to be able to synchronize your Workspace with the Latest Container Version, you will need to resolve each conflict either in favor of the Latest Container Version or your Workspace. You can see which items are in conflict by looking at the list of Workspace changes in the Overview screen. This is, again, a typical way to deal with branches in version control.<\/p>\n![\"Workspaces](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/07\/workspaces-finally.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n
\n X<\/span><\/p>\n
\n The Simmer Newsletter<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n1. What are Workspaces?<\/h2>\n
![\"Workspace](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/06\/workspace-process.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
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2. Managing (creating, saving, and deleting) a Workspace<\/h2>\n
![\"Manage](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/07\/manage-workspaces.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"Create](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/07\/create-new-workspace.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"Save](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/save-new-workspace.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"Workspace](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/info-workspace.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"Delete](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/delete-workspace.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n3. Switching between Workspaces, and Workspaces in Overview<\/h2>\n
![\"Switch](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/switch-workspace.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"Container](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/07\/container-overview.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
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4. Viewing changes<\/h2>\n
![\"View](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/view-changes.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"View](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/06\/changes-view.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n\n
5. Viewing changes item-by-item<\/h2>\n
![\"View](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/view-single-item.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n6. Creating a Version or publishing a Workspace<\/h2>\n
![\"Create](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/publish-and-create.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/06\/publish-overlay.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"Sync](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/06\/need-sync.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/versions-screen.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n\n
7. Syncing a Workspace with an updated Latest Container Version<\/h2>\n
![\"Update](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/06\/update-workspace-alert.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"Update](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/06\/update-workspace.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n8. Resolving Conflicts in Workspaces<\/h2>\n
![\"Resolve](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/05\/resolve-conflict.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"Conflict](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/06\/conflict-resolution.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"Ignore](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/06\/ignore-import.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.simoahava.com\/images\/2016\/07\/new-permissions.jpg#ZgotmplZ\")
<\/p>\n