An overview of the Versions toolset

This topic applies to ArcEditor and ArcInfo only.

Versioning allows multiple users to access geographic data in a geodatabase. Versioning lets connected users simultaneously create multiple, persistent representations of the geodatabase without data duplication. The same features or rows can be concurrently edited without explicitly applying locking the data. This framework lets you create versions of a geodatabase for the states of a project, reconcile differences between versions, and update the master version of a geodatabase with the design as-built. Versioning is supported by the ArcSDE geodatabase only.

An organization can use versioning to manage alternative engineering designs, solve complex what-if scenarios without impacting the corporate database, and create point-in-time representations of the database.

Primarily, versioning simplifies the editing process. Multiple users can directly modify the database without having to extract data or lock features and rows before editing.

Tool	Description
Alter Version	Alters the database version's properties of name, description, and access permissions.
Change Version	Each input feature layer or table view will have its workspace modified to connect to the requested version.
Create Version	Creates a new version in the specified geodatabase.
Delete Version	Deletes the specified version from the input workspace.
Reconcile Version	Reconciles a version against a another version in its lineage.
Register As Versioned	Registers ArcSDE dataset as versioned.
Unregister As Versioned	Unregisters an ArcSDE dataset as versioned.

Versions tools.

Legacy:

The following tools in this toolset were available prior to version 10.0. They have been removed because they are no longer applicable.

Post Version	The Reconcile Version tool should be used to post versions after a reconcile.