Managing variants
In Rollstack, creating and managing variants from a template streamlines the process of generating customized documents and presentations. However, it's crucial to understand which operations on the template will automatically propagate to its variants and which will not.
Understanding the rules governing the propagation of changes from templates to variants in Rollstack is crucial for effective document and presentation management. By adhering to these guidelines, you can maintain consistency across your documents, and ensure your content remains up-to-date and relevant.
When you perform the following operations on a template within Rollstack, these changes will automatically be reflected across all associated variants:
Operation | Description | Can propagate |
|---|---|---|
Adding a visualization | Incorporating visualizations into the template ensures that all variants receive these updates. | ✓ |
Delete a visualization | Removing visualizations from the template will also remove them from every variant. | ✓ |
Edit Filters | Adjustments made to filters in the template will be applied to all variants. | ✓ |
Update Cropping | Changes to how visual elements are cropped in the template will be mirrored in the variants. | ✓ |
Changing position (in Rollstack) | Changes to the position of visualizations in Rollstack via Move to feature. | |
These operations are fully supported by Rollstack's platform and are designed to ensure that your variants remain consistent with the template's latest configuration.
=> Conversely, any modifications made directly on the destination platforms (Google Docs, Google Slides, PowerPoint) will not automatically reflect in the variants. This includes:
Operation | Description | Can Propagate |
|---|---|---|
Resizing | Changes to the size of visualizations in the destination platform. | ✕ |
Changing position (destination platform) | Changes to the position of visualizations in the destination platform. | ✕ |
Destination platform native operations | Performing operations in the destination platform, such as modifying borders, text, images, and fonts... | ✕ |
These operations are considered external to Rollstack and thus require manual updates to each variant if needed.
To ensure your variants reflect substantial changes or updates made to the template, you can recreate them.
For targeted updates, you can choose to recreate a specific variant.
With a single click, you can also recreate all of your collection variants, ensuring they align with the current state of the template.
Archiving Process: After variants have been recreated, old variant files in your Google Drive folder will be archived (by appending a date prefix to their names). This safeguards your previous versions before restarting the duplication and update process from the template, ensuring you always have access to historical data and layouts.
