Bundle editorial workflow changes into one review branch

[ebello]

- Do you want to request a feature or report a bug? Feature request

- What is the current behavior? Currently every page updated or created within an editorial workflow setup gets applied as a separate pull request. The current workflow when hosting with Netlify is:

1. Single page edited or created within CMS.
2. Pull request created on Github to manage changes for that page.
3. Deploy automatically started on Netlify for that one change.
4. Deploy notification sent with URL showing just that one change.

- What is the expected behavior? It would be great to have a way within the CMS to combine changes so that they can be reviewed together in context before going live. A new workflow could be:

1. On editorial workflow page, provide button that says "Review changes".
2. When button is clicked, the option to select individual changes to review via the cards can be presented.
3. A prompt is provided to label these changes.
4. When confirmed, a new branch is created using the label name, and all the pull requests selected via the cards will be merged into the new branch.
5. Deploy automatically started on Netlify for that new branch.
6. Deploy notification sent with URL showing all changes selected.

It would be good to maintain a list of branches created this way in the editorial page UI so that any further changes can be remerged into the same branch, or have the branch eventually merged with master and then delete the branch as well as close all related pull requests.

[erquhart]

I'd love to see this, we've actually discussed it a lot in the past. It's common to have multiple pieces of content that all need to be reviewed and published as a group, agreed.

Maintaining a list of available content groups (branches underneath) and allowing them to be assembled in the UI makes a ton of sense - I think the biggest challenge will be how we express it in the UI. The current column approach may not be best, definitely worth discussing.

cc/ @neutyp @ziburski

[ebello]

I had a thought that the current three column approach could be refined like so:

In Review

• Rather than one long column it could consist of groupings of drafts
• Include an ever present button under the header that says “New review group” (not sold on this labeling but you get the idea)
• Individual changes can be dragged into a review group from the drafts column or another review group
• When a review group is ready for publishing you can drag the entire group to the Ready column
• If a grouping is deleted all changes get moved back to the drafts column

Ready

• Instead of publishing individual changes there could be a button under the header that says “Publish all changes” that would automatically merge all changes in the Ready column into master

I realize this would have side effects like not being able to update the status for an individual change, but I think it’s worth the sacrifice for this greater flexibility.

[erquhart]

react-beautiful-dnd is a higher level library than our current one (react-dnd), and I've been wanting to migrate to it for some time. It includes drag and combine functionality - dropping an item onto another item to create a group - that would fit the bill perfectly: https://react-beautiful-dnd.netlify.com/?selectedKind=multiple%20vertical%20lists&selectedStory=stress%20test&full=0&addons=0&stories=1&panelRight=0

A few other issues that are closely connected to this:

• https://github.com/netlify/netlify-cms/issues/1344
• #192

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[ositaka]

Hello, I am "upvoting" for the feature "Publish all changes" on editorial workflow.

I've open a topic on the Netlify Community with this question/solution for the button. You can take a look at: https://community.netlify.com/t/publish-all-changes-button-on-editorial-workflow-avoid-multiple-deploys/9958

[timothy-kodes]

Wauw almost three years ago this feature request was openend and still nothing really? My client is so happy :(

[schindld]

If this is too hard to implement, maybe offer us a config option (another value for publish_mode maybe?) that uses editorial_workflow, but re-uses the same branch, draft, for all draft edits. And it would also have to use branches for in review and ready, instead of labels.

[hstandeffer]

Any update? I just started using this, but am wondering if I can just disable automatic deployments and deploy each change one by one to not avoid repetitive failed builds?

[alexgonch]

What's the state of this issue? It's definitely a very desired feature in our team.

[inavarrorubio]

Any news yet? I really think this is a must.

[mohab-sameh]

This is critical. If anyone is planning to make progress on this, let's collaborate.

[marijanasevo]

I feel like this would improve the cms experience greatly. 👍 for optimizing the process to save time and money

[brandnewguys]

Upvote for this feature. Would save on build time so much.