Save incomplete changes when synchronizing in ALM

Imagine this scenario:

You are in the middle of making changes in your development model and have been doing so for the last few weeks. The changes are not complete and are not ready to synchronize. However, you just received a request for an urgent fix from the user community that is critical for the forthcoming monthly submission. What do you do?

What you don’t want to do is take the model out of deployed mode. You also don’t want to lose all the development work you have been doing. 

Following the procedure below will ensure you can apply the hotfix quickly and keep your development work.

The following diagram illustrates the procedure:

It’s a two-stage process:

Stage 1:

Roll the development model back to a version that doesn’t contain any changes (is the same as production), and apply the hotfix to that version.

1. Add a new revision tag to the development model as a temporary placeholder. (Note the History ID of the last structural change as you'll need it later.)
2. On the development model, use History to restore to a point where development and production were identical (before any changes were made in development).
3. Apply the hotfix.
4. Save a new revision of the development model.
5. Sync the development model with the production model.

Production now has its hotfix.

Stage 2:

Restore the changes to development and apply the hotfix.

1. On the development model, use the History ID from Stage 1 – Step 1 to restore to the version containing all of the development work (minus the hotfix).
2. Reapply the hotfix to this version of development.
3. Create a new revision of the development model.

Development is now back to where it was, with the hotfix now applied.

When your development work is complete, you can promote the new version to production using ALM best practice.

Additional resources:

The procedure is documented in the Fixing Production Issues Anapedia article.