Available with Standard or Advanced license.
When working with traditional versioned datasets it is helpful to compare the changes that have been made in a named version. The Differences view allows you to see changes that have been made to a traditional version since it was created or last reconciled with an ancestor version.
The differences displayed include changes that have been made to the named version from the time it and the chosen target version were identical. This means that changes that are made to the target version since the named version was created or last reconciled are not included as a difference. The Differences view lists the changes made to the version for all layers in the map document based on the selected workspace. If the layer is not currently visible, changes to that layer are still present in the view.
The view lists the modified classes and you can explore them in an experience similar to the interactive Conflicts view. You don't have to be in an edit session to open the Differences view, and you can view changes before versions are reconciled. You can also view the changes made during your current edit session.
Open the Differences view
Follow these steps to open the Differences view:
- In the Contents pane, click the List By Data Source button
. - Ensure that you are connected to a child version. To change versions right-click the enterprise geodatabase data source
and click Change Version 
. - Click the contextual Versioning tab, and click the Version Changes button
.The Differences view opens.
Once opened, you can dock the Differences view anywhere in the app or position it as a floating window. This allows you to interact with a map view at the same time to provide context and further explore the data.
Use the Differences view
When the Differences view is opened on a traditional versioned workspace, the next step is to choose a target version for comparing changes. The available versions listed on the Target Version tab are those in ancestral lineage with the version selected when opening the view.
Click the Differences tab to see the differences between the current version and the target version you've chosen. For traditional versions, any common ancestor those two versions share is also listed. Differences between versions are symbolized by a red indicator on the row in the right-hand grid.
Click the Change Display button to open the change display viewer at the bottom of the view. This allows you to view the changes as they appear on the map, as well as navigate and identify features in the display. You can change the display to show the current, target, or common ancestor version using the toggle button.
The total number of changes is shown in parentheses next to the workspace or service name. Each feature that contains differences between versions is shown in the list on the left. The number in parentheses by the feature name is the number of changes made on that feature. Click the down arrow to see which of these changes to the current version were inserted, updated, or deleted items. Click an ObjectID value to see its changes in the window on the right and zoom to the feature in the change display viewer. All attribute values for the two versions being compared and for their common ancestor are displayed. Attribute values with a red indicator and displayed in bold signify that a change has been made to the version for that attribute.
Right-click an ObjectID in the list to open a context menu with the following options:
- Flash in active map—The object will briefly flash blue and change to red in the map.
- Zoom to in active map—Zoom the map to center on the selected object.
- Pan to in active map—Pan the map to the selected object.
- Select in active map—Select the object in the map.
- Flash—The object will briefly flash blue and change to red in the Change Display viewer.
- Zoom to—Zoom to the center on the selected object in the Change Display viewer.