Introduction to versioning in GTM

Before understanding the concept of workspaces, it is important to understand how versioning works in GTM.

In GTM a ‘version’ refers to the snapshot of a GTM container, made at a particular time. This snapshot can be created by clicking on the ‘Submit’ button in your GTM account:

and then clicking on the ‘Publish and Create Version‘ or ‘Create Version‘ link:

GTM can maintain one live version, one latest version and several old versions of the same container, at the same time.

The live container version is the one, which is currently being deployed on your website.

The latest container version is your last saved container draft.

Whenever you want to save the current state of your container draft, you create its new version. You can see the list of versions of your container by clicking on the ‘Versions’ tab in the top navigation:

A container draft is that snapshot of your Google Tag Manager container which you are currently using, to create and test the container’s configurations (tags, triggers, and variables) before you publish them on a live website:

When you publish a container draft, you create both the latest and live container version at the same time:

The advantage of creating and managing container versions is that you can always revert back to the previous working version, in case something goes wrong.

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Introduction to Google Tag Manager Workspaces

A workspace is a container draft.

When you create a new workspace in GTM, you are in fact creating a new container draft. So creating 2 new workspaces means, creating 2 new container drafts. Each container draft remains separate from other drafts.

Before the advent of workspaces, a GTM container had only one container draft.

After the advent of workspaces, a GTM container can have up to three containers drafts and all of these container drafts can exist at the same time.

However, you can publish only one container draft at a time.

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Types of GTM workspaces

There are two types of GTM workspaces:

1. Default workspace
2. Custom workspace

Every GTM container has got one default workspace:

In addition to one default workspace, you can create up to 2 custom workspaces. So in total, you can use up to 3 different workspaces at the same time.

If you are using GTM 360 (premium version of GTM), then you can create and use an unlimited number of workspaces at the same time.

When to create and use a new workspace?

#1 Create a new workspace if you want to work on a new tagging project and you don’t want to take the risk, of you or someone else, accidentally publishing your work.

For example, if you are working on installing enhanced ecommerce tracking on your website via GTM, you may want to treat this project as a separate tagging project.

You can do that by creating a new workspace and adding all of the tags, triggers, and variables related to enhanced ecommerce, in that workspace:

You can then work and test your enhanced ecommerce’s tags, triggers, and variables in your workspace, for as long as you like, without worrying about someone accidentally publishing your half baked work on a live website.

When you are sure, that your enhanced ecommerce tracking is working, the way it should, you can then create a new container version from your workspace and then publish it on the live website.

Creating new workspaces for different tagging projects is the best use of workspaces.

#2 Create a new workspace if more than one person has to work on the same GTM container and he/she wants the ability to independently create and test GTM container configurations (tags, triggers and variables).

When not to create a new workspace?

If you are the only person creating and testing container configurations, then you don’t really need to create any new workspace.

You can and you should continue to work in your default workspace unless:

1. You want to work on a new tagging project, which you want to keep separate from the latest container draft
2. You don’t want, you or someone else accidentally publishing your incomplete work on the live website.  

When you unnecessarily create and use multiple workspaces, you can make your GTM work more complex than it needs to be.

If there are any conflicts between existing changes made to your workspace and new changes merged to your workspace, then GTM will ask you to resolve conflicts before proceeding.

Such conflicts are not always, very easy to fix.

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How to use workspaces in a multi-user environment?

Ideally, only one user should be setting up your GTM container configurations.

I find the whole idea of several people, working on the same container tag, quite terrifying. Remember the phrase ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’.

If multiple users, have to work on the same GTM container, then it is important, that only one user has the right to publish the container and make all of the changes live on the website.

All other users can independently create, edit and test container configurations via workspaces, but should not be allowed to publish them on a live website.

If several people are publishing tags on a live website at or around the same time, then you may have a hard time understanding who broke your website’s functionality/tracking and when.

Also, any user can edit someone else’s workspace at any time.

The Default Workspace

Let us suppose the latest and live version of your GTM container is 1

The workspace associated with the latest container version is called the ‘Default Workspace’.

Here is how the default workspace overview section looks like:

Now if you click on the ‘MANAGE WORKSPACES’ link, you can see the list of all the workspaces created in your container.

Let us suppose that at present there is only one workspace, called the ‘default workspace’:

So unless you create a new workspace and navigate to it, every time whenever you use GTM, you are working in the ‘Default workspace’.

The Workspace overview section of this default workspace will show the latest workspace changes you made. For example:

So if later you return to your workspace, say after 2 days, then through the ‘Workspace Changes’ section, you will remember the last changes you made to your workspace.

Note: The ‘workspace changes’ section shows only the ‘unpublished’ changes made to your workspace.

Custom Workspace #1

Let us suppose a user name ‘John’ wants to create and test his tags.

To do that, he logs into the existing GTM account and then navigates to the ‘workspace’ section of the container:

He is now in the default workspace. But for some security reason, he is not allowed to work in the default workspace. So he has to create and work in his own workspace.

In order to create a new workspace from within the default workspace, he clicks on the ‘Manage Workspaces’ link as shown below:

Now he clicks on the plus ‘+’ button in the top right corner:

Then John gives a name to his workspace: ‘John Workspace’, entered a small description of his workspace and then clicked on the ‘Save’ button:

As soon as John clicked on the blue ‘Save’ button, a new workspace (aka container draft) is created, which is a copy of the latest Container Version.

John now sees his workspace overview section. He knows that he is editing his workspace and not default workspace because he can see in the container overview section, the following message ‘Now Editing John Workspace’:

John clicks on the ‘Manage Workspaces’ link again, to see the list of all the workspaces available.

Now there are two workspaces listed in the ‘workspaces’ list. One is the ‘Default workspace’ and one is ‘John Workspace’:

At this point, if John wants to change the name of his workspace or change the description of his workspace, he can do that by clicking on the ‘i’ button as shown below:

If John wants to delete his workspace, he can do that, by opening the hidden menu and selecting ‘delete’:

Note: If you have run out of available workspaces in your container, then the only way to create a new workspace, is to delete, one existing workspace.

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Custom Workspace #2

Let us suppose another user name ‘Sara’ wants to create and test her tags. To do that, she logs into the existing GTM account and then navigates to the ‘workspace’ section of the container.

She is now in the default workspace. But for some security reason, she is not allowed to work in the default workspace. 

She is also not allowed to work in the ‘John Workspace’. She has to create and work in her own workspace. So ‘Sara’ created a new workspace from within the default workspace and named it: ‘Sara WorkSpace’.

Now we have got three workspaces in the GTM container:

1. Default Workspace
2. John Workspace
3. Sara Workspace

Note: In GTM, you can create only 3 workspaces at a time (unless you are using GTM 360).

Now John creates a new tag in his workspace for deploying ‘Google Adwords Conversion Tracking Code’ on the website say ‘Website A’.

As soon as John finished creating his new tag, the container overview section of his workspace, show the workspace changes, he just made:

If John later returns to his workspace, say after 2 days, then through the ‘workspace changes’ section, he will remember the last changes he made to his workspace.

At this point, Sara has no idea, what John is doing or has done in his workspace unless she manually navigates to his workspace. She can manually navigate to his workspace by clicking on the ‘Manage Workspaces’ link, in her workspace overview section and then clicked on ‘John Workspace’:

The ‘Adwords conversion tracking’ tag created by John, won’t appear in the ‘Tags’ section of Sara’s workspace.

Now Sara decided to create a new tag in her workspace for deploying ‘Facebook Tracking on website A.

Sara knows that she is editing her workspace and not John’s because she can see in the container overview section, the following message ‘Now Editing Sara Workspace’:

The other message which confirms Sara, that she is working in her workspace and not John’s, is the ‘current workspace’ section:

As soon as Sara finished creating her new tag, the container overview section of her workspace, show the workspace changes, she has just made:

At this point, John has no idea what Sara is doing or has done in her workspace unless he manually navigates to her workspace.

The ‘Facebook conversion tracking’ tag created by Sara, won’t appear in the ‘Tags’ section of John’s workspace.

At this point, the third person, say ‘Rocky’, who is working in the default workspace has no idea, what John and Sara are doing in their workspaces unless Rocky manually navigates to their workspaces.

The ‘Adwords conversion tracking’ tag created by John and ‘Facebook conversion tracking’ tag created by Sara, won’t appear in the ‘Tags’ section of Rocky’s workspace.

Sara now decides to create a new container version from her workspace. So after previewing and debugging her tag, she created a new container version.

Once she created the new version, the latest container version is the version created by Sara.

GTM automatically named this new version as: ‘Version 2 – Sara Workspace’:

At this point, if Sara clicks on the ‘Manage Workspaces’ link, she will see only two workspaces:

Sara Workspace now no longer exists.

It is now available in the form of the latest container version and Sara can no longer work in her designated workspace.

At this point, John gets a notification in his container overview section, that his workspace is out of date and he needs to update it:

At this point, Rocky (who works in the default workspace) also gets a notification in his container overview section that his workspace is out of date and he needs to update it:

Whenever a workspace creates a new container version, all other workspaces automatically become out of date, as they are not using the latest container version.

You would need to update all outdated workspaces, before you can use them, to create a new container version or publish them.

If you try to create a new container version from an outdated workspace or if you try to publish an outdated workspace, GTM will first automatically update your workspace before creating a new container version or before publishing the workspace.

So if John tries to create a new version from his outdated workspace, he will see the following message:

Now John decided to update his workspace, so he clicked on the ‘update now’ button.

John now sees the list of unmerged container versions:

When John updates his workspace, the update operation merges the latest changes made by Sara into his workspace. Any existing changes made in John’s workspace are not affected.

What that means, after workspace update, when John navigates to his ‘tags’ section of the workspace, he now sees the ‘Facebook conversion tracking’ tag created by Sara:

At this point, for Rocky, who works in the default workspace, the ‘Facebook Conversion Tracking’ tag created by Sara and the ‘Adwords Conversion Tracking’ tag created by John, still does not exist. This is because Rocky has not updated his workspace yet.

Now John decided to create a new container version from his workspace. So after previewing and debugging his tag, he creates a new container version by, clicking on the ‘Create Version’ button.

Once he creates the new version, the latest container version now is the version created by John and not by Sara.

GTM automatically named this new version as: ‘Version 3 – John Workspace’:

At this point, if John clicks on the ‘Manage Workspaces’ link, he will see only one workspace .i.e. the default workspace:

John Workspace now no longer exists. It is now available in the form of the latest container version.

John can no longer work in his designated workspace.

At this point, Rocky, who works in the default workspace is still not aware of the tags created by Sara and John. But he knows that the latest container version has changed, as his workspace has become outdated:

Now Rocky decides to create a new tag before updating his workspace. So he creates a new tag that deploys ‘AdRoll’ tracking on the website ‘A’.

Before Rocky can create a new container version from his workspace, he has to update his workspace. He clicks on the ‘update’ button.

Rocky now see the list of two unmerged container versions:

When Rocky updates his workspace, the update operation merges the latest changes made by Sara and John into his workspace. Any existing changes made in Rocky’s workspace are not affected.

What that means, after workspace update when Rocky navigates to his ‘tags’ section of the workspace, he sees the ‘Facebook conversion tracking’ tag created by Sara, as well as the ‘Adwords Conversion tracking’ tag created by John:

At this point, it is worth mentioning that Rocky is the Admin. He is in charge of publishing tags on the website and not Sara and John.

Since the ‘Facebook conversion tracking’ tag and ‘Adwords Conversion tracking’ tags are not created by Rocky, he needs to make sure that the two tags do not break the website functionality and design, and work the way, they are supposed to.

After previewing and debugging the tags (including his own ‘Adroll Tracking’ tag), Rocky created a new container version from his workspace.

Once he created the new version, the latest container version now is the version created by Rocky and not by John or Sara:

It is also worth noting that, though the latest version is now Version 4, the version that is live/published is still version 1.

So all the changes made by Sara, John, and Rocky are not live on the website ‘A’ yet. In order to push these changes live, to website ‘A’, Rocky needs to publish his container version.

So Rocky clicked on the ‘Publish’ button from the ‘Actions’ drop-down menu next to the container version 4:

Now container version 4 is both the latest & live version and all the changes made by Sara, John and Rocky, are now live on the website ‘A’ :

At this point, if Sara wants to create/edit a tag, she has to first create a new workspace from within the default workspace.

Similarly,  at this point, if John wants to create/edit a tag, he has to first create a new workspace from within the default workspace.

That’s how workspaces can be used in Google Tag Manager.