About workspace inheritance

Required license: Enterprise

If you have multiple workspaces, then it is likely that many of the workspace components and configurations are the same or similar. It can be difficult to maintain that consistency across separate, independent workspaces.

When you copy a workspace, the new workspace is completely independent of the original workspace. There is no visibility into or inheritance of changes from the original workspace.

Workspace inheritance allows you to create workspaces that are children of a selected workspace. Unlike a copy of a workspace, a child workspace remains tied to its parent workspace.

By default, a child workspace configuration is synchronized with the configuration of the parent. In other words, any changes to the parent workspace are copied to the child workspaces. Child workspaces can also override some of the parent configuration. You can track the child workspaces and how they are customized from the parent workspace.

For example, you might want separate workspaces for different development teams. Each team can make adjustments to suit their specific projects - such as different subsets - but inherit everything else.

What does a child workspace inherit?

By default, a child workspace inherits all of the configuration from the parent workspace, except for the following:

  • Workspace name - A child workspace has its own name.

  • Workspace description - A child workspace has its own description.

  • Tags - A child workspace has its own tags.

  • Destination database - A child workspace writes output data to its own destination database. You can copy the destination database from the parent workspace.

  • Intermediate database - For upsert, a child workspace does not inherit the intermediate database.

  • Webhooks - A child workspace has its own webhooks.

How parent workspace changes affect child workspaces

When you change the configuration of a parent workspace, the configuration is also updated in the child workspaces.

The exception is when a child workspace overrides the configuration. If the configuration is overridden, then the child workspace does not inherit the change.

Tonic Structural indicates on both the parent and child workspaces when the configuration is overridden.

What can a child workspace override?

A child workspace can override the following configuration items.

  • Table modes - A child workspace can override the table mode for individual tables. The other tables continue to inherit the table mode that is configured in the parent workspace.

  • Column generators - A child workspace can override the generator for individual columns. The other columns continue to inherit the generator that is configured in the parent workspace. For linked columns, a change to any of the linked columns overrides the inheritance for all of the columns.

  • Subsetting - A child workspace can override the subsetting configuration from the parent workspace. Any change in the child workspace means that the child workspace no longer inherits any changes to the subsetting configuration from the parent workspace. For example, if you change the percentage setting on a single target table from 5 to 6, that eliminates the subsetting inheritance. The child workspace keeps the subsetting configuration that it already has, but it is not updated when the parent workspace is updated.

  • Post-job scripts - A child workspace can override the post-job scripts. Any change to the post-job scripts in the child workspace means that the child workspace no longer inherits any changes to the post-job scripts configuration.

  • Statistics seed - A child workspace can override the statistics seed configuration.

From each view, you can eliminate the overrides and restore the inheritance.

What must a child workspace inherit?

A child workspace cannot override the following configuration items:

  • Data connector type and source database - A child workspace always uses the same source data as the parent workspace.

  • Foreign keys - A child workspace always uses the same foreign key configuration as the parent workspace.

  • Sensitivity designation for a column - A child workspace cannot change whether a column is marked as sensitive.

How schema changes are resolved in parent and child workspaces

For removed tables and columns, when a child workspace overrides the parent workspace configuration for the table or column, you must resolve the change in the child workspace.

If there is a conflicting change for the removed table or column in the parent workspace configuration, then regardless of whether the configuration is inherited, you must resolve that change in the parent workspace before the change is resolved for the child workspace.

For changes to column nullability or data type, you resolve the change separately in the child and parent workspaces.

You also dismiss notifications (new tables and columns) separately in the parent and child workspaces.

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