Editing and Deploying Versions

File Version Overview

The Sovrn Ad Management header bidding script is configured by a large JSON structure that can be easily edited through our platform. Each JSON structure has a version number that allows for easy identification. Each version can have one of three statuses: Working, Live, or Deprecated. A Working version can be freely edited, copied, or deleted without affecting your website. A Live version is considered "live" on your website, and is currently being used to configure the header bidding process. Live versions cannot be edited, but they can be copied to a new working version. When either a Live or Working version is deleted, it is considered “deprecated” and cannot be accessed or recovered.

When you are working in the Ad Manager of our platform, you are updating a Working version. Any changes you make and save will update the underlying JSON structure. Changes you make to a Working version will not affect your website, and you can return to make additional changes to the Working version at any time.

When you deploy a Working version, its status becomes "live". During this process, the JSON you have been editing is marked as "read-only", and is then packaged up into a "loader" file that your website always references. When a user lands on your website, this loader file is used to start the header bidding script with the provided configuration. If there was a previously Live version, or versions, on your site prior to deployment, those versions will be marked as Deprecated and replaced with the new version or versions. When a version is deployed, a new Working version is created for convenience.

Managing Versions

All current Working and Live versions can be viewed in the menu on the top right of any screen under Ad Manager.

Editing a Working Version

Select the appropriate Working version from the Versions menu before making changes to your configuration. It is most common to have only one Working version available. You do not need to create a new Working version before making changes.

Updating Working Version Name and Tag

When you have multiple Working versions, it is helpful to give them a name to help distinguish them from each other when editing and deploying.

Select the Working version you wish to name
Click the edit icon next to the version and enter a Version Name.
Add a Version Tag if desired.

Version Tag is a user-defined label for a version. Values entered here can be pulled into the Tags dimension of the reporting dashboard to unify performance data across multiple deployments or to differentiate versions of a split test.

Creating a New Working Version (Uncommon)

Click + next to the version menu
Enter a Version Name
Enter a Version Tag if desired

NOTE: It is more common to copy an existing Working version than to create one from scratch. Creating a brand new Working version will require you to reconfigure all settings and recreate ad units.

Copying a Working Version

Select the Working version you wish to copy
Click the copy icon.
Enter a Version Name
Enter a Version Tag if desired

Deleting a Working Version

Select the working version you wish to copy
Click the trash can icon.

NOTE: Deleted (deprecated) versions cannot be recovered.

Deploying Versions

Click Ad Manager, then click Deploy
Under Push Live, select the Working version in one drop down and the Live version in the other to compare files and confirm that all differences are intentional.

Differences will be highlighted and shown as code snippets. Click Show Full Code to view the code in its entirety.

NOTE: rtp_file_version will always be different between versions

Click Deploy
Select the version(s) you would like to deploy and set the desired traffic percentage for each. Most commonly there will be a single version selected with 100% traffic share unless you are running a split test.

Select Session Persistence if desired. This ensures the version a user gets on the first page of their session will be the same on every other page of the session. This only applies when running two or more versions at a time.
Enter a detailed comment about what is being pushed.
Click Push It

NOTE: It is recommended you monitor performance in the Realtime Data tab after pushing a file live to ensure no dramatic changes in revenue following a deployment.

Version History

A log of deployments can be viewed by clicking Ad Manager, then Deploy, then History.

From here you can view a timestamp of a deployment, the user who pushed it, and the description input at the time of deployment.

Expanding a particular record will show the unique file version number. You can use the File Version dimension in the reporting analytics to pull metrics for specific file versions.

Click Compare to compare a pushed version to a live version, a working version or its parent version (the version that was live prior to this version replacing it).

Need more help?

If you still have questions, please reach out to admanagement@sovrn.com.