Interactive conflict resolution

This topic applies to ArcGIS for Desktop Standard and ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced only.

If conflicts arise between your edited version and the target version when you reconcile, you can resolve these conflicts interactively on the Conflicts dialog box. The Conflicts dialog box appears only if you set your editing options to automatically save changes only if there are no conflicts.

Learn about setting versioning edit options

When you resolve conflicts, you decide which representation of the features and attributes you want to keep.

Conflicts can be resolved at several different levels:

• Field level (attribute)—You choose which representation to use to replace specific attribute values in your edit version of the data. These changes apply to a particular field or fields.

  For example, if the Color field for fire hydrant 1297 in a Fire hydrant feature class contains the following attributes:Red for the common ancestor version, Yellow for the prereconcile version, and Orange for the conflict version, you would choose which color (which version's attribute value) you want to use to replace the attribute value for the Color field in your edit version.Fields are the field names listed under the Property column in the attribute information portion of the Conflicts dialog box.

  See Resolving conflicts interactively at the field level for instructions.

• Row level (individual feature)—A row in a table represents one feature; for example, the point representing fire hydrant 1297. These are shown in the conflicts list (left side of the Conflicts dialog box) using their ObjectID.

  Resolving conflicts at the row level means the chosen representation applies to all conflicts in that feature.So if the Color field and the Shape field in fire hydrant 1297 both have conflicts, the representation you choose to replace your edit version will replace the attribute values for the Color field and the Shape field.

  See Resolving conflicts interactively at the row level for instructions.

• Class level (entire feature class)—Feature classes are in the Conflicts list on the Conflicts dialog box. You will see the name of the feature class in the list.

  Resolving conflicts at the class level means the representation of the data chosen to replace your edit version of the data applies to all conflicting features and attributes in that feature class.For instance, if you choose to use the conflict version of the Fire hydrant feature class to replace your edit version of the Fire hydrant feature class, all conflicting attributes in all features are replaced with the attribute values in the conflict version.

  See Resolving conflicts interactively at the class level for instructions.

• Root level (all conflicts in all feature classes and features for a particular reconcile operation)—The root level on the Conflicts dialog box is the top level of the Conflicts list.

  If you resolve conflicts at the root level, all conflicts detected during the reconciliation process are resolved using the same representation.For instance, if you choose to replace with the prereconcile version at the root level, all conflicts in all feature classes and features in the list are resolved in favor of your edits.

  See Resolving conflicts interactively at the root level for instructions.

Resolving conflicts does not save your edits to the parent version; posting your changes to the target version does that.