Versioning

GeoAdministrator, like Operations and Regulations, supports versioning for addresses, parcels, properties, roadways, and configured linear assets. In general, versioning refers to the ability to create multiple records with the same ID or, in the case of an address, the same set of address fields. For example, if the building at an address is torn down and replaced, you may want to create a new version of the address record for the new building.

To enable versioning, open the Preferences box and select Enable GIS Versioning under Options on the Field Updates tab.

Note: This enables versioning for the five types of records listed above, but you aren't required to use it for all five. To set up versioning for a particular type of record, you must also add an IsCurrent (or similar) column to the attribute table to indicate which record is the current version. If you don't want to use versioning for a type of record, then this column is not required.

See Versioning.

Support for versioning in GeoAdministrator means that the data synchronization and QAQC processes can correctly handle multiple versions of the same record in the geodatabase. This becomes an issue when you use ArcMap to create a new version of a map feature that is linked to a record in Operations and Regulations.

For example, you can create a new version of a parcel in ArcMap by expiring the existing parcel and then adding a new parcel feature with the same ID. So now the geodatabase has two distinct records, as shown below. Although the old parcel is expired, it is still linked to the Operations and Regulations parcel record though a parcel key in the PRCLKEY column of the attribute table. Because the new version was created in ArcMap, not Operations and Regulations, it has no parcel key.


	ID	PRCLKEY	Expired
Old Version	PRCL1300	2001	07/02/2017
New Version	PRCL1300

If versioning is not enabled in GeoAdministrator, then the QAQC process will return these results for these two features:

The old version is marked as an extended field mismatch. It has the same ID and parcel key as a record in Operations and Regulations, but the expiration dates don't match
The new version is marked as a changed key. It has the same ID as a record in Operations and Regulations but the primary keys don't match.

Note that this gives you no way to create a new version of the parcel in the Operations and Regulations database to match the new version in the geodatabase. You can only synchronize the existing Operations and Regulations parcel with the new GIS parcel.

If versioning is enabled, the synchronization and QAQC processes will ignore any address, parcel, property, or roadway records in the geodatabase that aren't marked as the current versions.

For example, an IsCurrent field in the Parcel attribute table could be used to indicate that the new parcel is the current version, as shown below.


	ID	PRCLKEY	Expired	IsCurrent
Old Version	PRCL1300	2001	07/02/2017	N
New Version	PRCL1300			Y

With versioning enabled, the QAQC process will ignore the old version, because it isn't the current one. In addition, the new version will be marked as a new GIS version rather than a changed key, because GeoAdministrator recognizes it as a new record that isn't linked to an existing record in Operations and Regulations.

You can now create a new version in Operations and Regulations by synchronizing the GIS orphan. GeoAdministrator will add a new parcel record with a new parcel key, and link the new record to the GIS feature. In addition, the new parcel record in Operations and Regulations is given the next available version number and marked as current. The old parcel record is expired.