We're looking for a solution to keep track of changes over time. Each change is going to be a permanent record. One of the solutions that has been floated to me is to make a pdf of the map when each change is made. I think there is a more efficient way to do it within the database.
At 10.0 there is historical archiving and being introduced in 10.1 is Editor Tracking. Are these features going to be related at all? The concerns that I have with Archiving are:
1) If you disable archiving, you break the archive off into a separate feature class that can't be rejoined to a new feature class.
2) If you disable archiving, the new feature classes aren't in the same feature dataset as the original feature class.
3) I have a dataset with several feature classes only 2 of which need to have an historical archive. From what I can see, I have to make an historical archive of the entire feature data set.
4) Seeing the Editor Tracking makes me nervous that esri is going to switch things up and discontinue archiving. My concern is that once I start using it, I may not be able to keep using it into the future and/or there will not be a way to port this information into new technology as time goes on.
I have no idea what to think of Editor Tracking because I haven't seen it and don't know what it's going to be able to do. Are you going to be able to pick a snapshot in time and view it? Are you going to be able to make something similar to Historical Markers? Is this going to be a more or less efficient way for me to track changes over time?
Any advice, discussion or better solution would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jennifer