Product Spec: Page Branching - Webflow

This doc template is inspired by a detailed product spec that Britt Jamison created as Head of Product at Webflow.

# Product Spec: Page Branching - Webflow

The following template is inspired by a product spec artifact that [**Britt Jamison**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittjamison/) created as Head of Product at Webflow. He also created an extremely detailed product brief artifact for this same product release.

We turned that artifact into a template as well and recommend checking it out too: **[Product Brief: Page Branching - Webflow](https://whimsical.com/product-brief-page-branching-webflow-UVBmuCuU9v99bGi2tNChx8)**

You can see the original Product Spec artifact with his annotations here: [**Product Spec: Page Branching at Webflow**](https://artifacts.reforge.com/artifacts/product-spec-page-branching-at-webflow)

Or you can create your own product spec with this template: **[Product Spec Doc Template - Webflow](https://whimsical.com/product-spec-doc-template-webflow-MnhGaouEAt9pUhUKtUnef1)**

# Product Spec: Page branching

PM: Larry Blyth | Design: \[redacted\] \[redacted\] \[redacted\] | Eng: \[redacted\]

Status: Released | _\#proj-page branching _| Last updated: 05/26/2022

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### Table of Contents

- Overview

- Timeline

- Problem and opportunity

- Questions

- Decisions

- Functionality

- Sequencing

- Interoperability

- Edge Cases

- Logging and Metrics

- Go to Market Plan

- Appendix

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## Overview

Today, scaling teams struggle to efficiently build websites in Webflow because only one designer can work at a time. Enabling multiple designers to divide and conquer in Webflow with page branching will unlock immense productivity for scaling teams.

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## Links to related docs

- Product brief

- Designs

- Content design brief

- Customer calls

- Research summary

- Competitive comparison

- GTM plan

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## Timeline

_Insert link to timeline here. _

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## Problem and opportunity

For an overview of the background, problem, and opportunity please see the Product brief.

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## Questions

_Not exhaustive, for open technical questions please see Tech discovery notes._

| **Theme** | **Question** | **Answer** | **Priority** |

| --- | --- | --- | --- |

| **Symbols** | How will we handle changes made to symbols on the main site while users are using them on branches? | See Edge cases | High |

| **Designer permissions** | Would enabling users to modify page settings on a branch add any tech effort \(and if so how much\)? | No, therefore we’ll include in milestone 1 | Med |

| **Preview links** | How complex would it be for users to be able to create and share preview links of page branches so they can get feedback from stakeholders? | Medium complexity \(\~1 week\) | Med |

| **Site Activity log** | How should activity from branches surface in the activity log?At time of merging \(with updated time stamp\)In real time \(marked as from a branch\)In real time \(filtered to show only current branch\)Never | See Interoperability | High |

| **Polite handover** | How might we minimize mode confusion with the addition of branching in m1, and beyond | See latest designs | Med |

| **Commenting** | How will commenting and branching work together when commenting launches, when approvals launches, and beyond | See Interoperability | Low |

| **Auditor** | How might the Auditor work with branches? | See Interoperability | High |

| **The Editor** | How should we be warning users when they navigate to a page in the Editor that has been branched? | See latest designs | High |

| **The Editor** | Can a user modify content on a page branch from the Editor like they can for a regular page? Would this come ‘for free’? | In the long-term yes, in the short-term no \(see Interoperability\) | High |

| **Draft pages** | Can a user change a page from ‘Draft’ to ‘Non-draft’ or vice versa while working on a branch? | Yes | Med |

| **Draft pages** | Can a user branch a draft page, make edits, and merge the branch back into the main site \(remaining a draft page\) | Yes | Med |

| **Duplicating project** | Should a branch persist when a project is duplicated? | Yes, branches will be duplicated alongside the rest of the project | Low |

| **Keyboard Shortcut…** | Most features in the designer have a keyboard shortcut. Should page branching? | | Low |

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## Decisions

_Note: we switched to using our slack channel to surface decisions with more visibility_

_Search ‘DECISION:’ in \#proj-page-branching to check them out_

| **Theme** | Decision | Commentary | Date |

| --- | --- | --- | --- |

| **Naming** | Rename project internally to ‘Page branching’ from ‘Page versioning’ | - Industry standard: e.g. Figma branching, Retool branching, Github branching<br>- Avoid confusion: ‘Branching’ commonly refers to a collaboration workflow, while ‘branching’ commonly refers to a way for an individual to manage iterations of work<br>- Marketable: from our conversations with Enterprise customers, we believe ‘Page Branching’ will hold more weight in sales conversations | Jan 13, 2022 |

| **Page vs site level branching** | We will start with page-level branching…