By default, the Database Connection dialog box in the Catalog window connects to the DEFAULT version of the master sde geodatabase. If you have user-schema geodatabases or use geodatabase versioning, you might want to save a connection to a different version. Reasons for this include the following:
- You frequently edit the same geodatabase version.
- You want to connect to a user-schema geodatabase.
- You frequently view or compare data with a specific historical version of the geodatabase.
To save a connection to a user-schema geodatabase or a version other than DEFAULT, follow these steps:
- Right-click your existing database connection in the Catalog window in ArcMap or ArcCatalog and click Geodatabase Connection Properties.
- Choose what type of geodatabase version you want to connect to:
- Choose Transactional version to connect to a user-schema geodatabase or a transactional version other than DEFAULT.
- Choose Historical version to connect to an historical marker or specific date and time.
- Choose a geodatabase version, marker, or date.
- For transactional versions, choose the version from the list.
- For historical versions, choose either an historical marker from the drop-down list or set a specific date and time.
- Click OK to close the dialog box.
Each time you use this database connection, you will connect to the version you specified. To change to a different version, repeat these steps.