Note: Regardless of which reconcile option is used, reconcile can only take place within an active edit session.

After one editor has saved and automatically reconciled his changes, when a second editor then tries to save changes, a warning will be returned to advise that the target version has been altered since the current edit session started. The second editor must review the changes from the target version that have now been merged with the current edit version and save it again.

Any conflicts introduced by the automatic reconcile would be highlighted and the editor would have to decide which version of the feature or rows in conflict is acceptable. An auto reconcile option, available in ArcMap, can override this default behavior. If the target has been modified since the second editor's edit session began, the changes will be saved automatically after performing the reconcile, without notifying the editor.

Reconcile notification can be useful, however, to allow the second editor to inspect the results of the reconciliation and review the differences that were introduced into the current edit version.