topic "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved in ArcGIS Pro Questions

"Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

AZendel — Mon, 01 May 2017 16:46:19 GMT

Am I missing something? I personally don't like the idea of edits being saved without me deliberately saving or discarding them. What if I accidentally select 1000 features and hit the delete key when I only intend to delete one feature? As you can see below, I've unchecked "Automatically save edits", but the 'Save' and 'Discard' buttons are disabled, so I can't use them. If I close Pro and reopen it, my edits have persisted even though I never clicked save. As you can see, I've also checked "Show dialog to confirm save/discard edits". In this particular case, I was editing points features in an unversioned feature class stored in a SQL Express "Personal SDE" database.

It's been a while and I can't remember what these settings were 'out of the box'. I think that "automatically save edits" and "Make newly added layers editable by default" so both be disabled when someone starts using pro for the first time. I believe the latter is enabled by default. If so, that is very dangerous. I think every edit session should be very deliberate, especially when editing 'enterprise' data.

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

Robert_LeClair — Mon, 01 May 2017 22:42:30 GMT

I think the key here is you're using a non-versioned editing workflow which means you're doing edits directly on the BASE/BUSINESS table. As a result, those edits are directly committed to the BASE table without for SAVE or DISCARD icons being enabled.

In ArcMap, the only way to not save these edits is to stop the edit session without saving. In ArcGIS Pro (currently in 1.4), you cannot discard changes made to nonversioned data stored in an enterprise geodatabase. This may change in 2.0.

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

AZendel — Tue, 02 May 2017 13:42:11 GMT

Thanks for the response. For the sake of comparison, I did some testing with the same feature class in ArcMap using these settings:

I started an edit session, created a few points and then clicked stop editing. I was prompted to save edits and the new points disappeared after I opted not to save the edits. So it seems to be behaving like a file geodatabase: one editor, more than one readers. I realize that Pro is a work in progress and new functionality is being released incrementally. But in my opinion, the out of the box editor settings should be (if they're not already):

1) Make newly added layers editable by default: OFF

2) Automatically save edits: OFF

3) Save edits when saving project: OFF

And those should be applicable to un-versioned feature classes as well.

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

NicoleGamble1 — Tue, 02 May 2017 13:50:04 GMT

I generally work with file geodatabases, but I have not changed my editing settings in Pro and here is what I have by default in case this is useful:

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

AZendel — Tue, 02 May 2017 13:53:10 GMT

Thanks for following up. I couldn't remember what was enabled/disabled by default

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

Robert_LeClair — Tue, 02 May 2017 15:07:00 GMT

This is also the default editing options in ArcGIS Pro 2.0 BETA as well.

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

AZendel — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 14:23:13 GMT

Edits are still being automatically saved when editing this non-versioned FC in Pro 2.0 release edition (not beta). I still think that we need to be able to stop editing and then opt discard edits. I can live with the inability to use the undo and redo buttons, but we need a way to discard edits without saving. If this doing so is possible in ArcMap, then the SQL Express database is capable of this functionality. The problem seems to be with the ArcGIS Pro interface.

If you're wondering why, I'm using an unversioned FC in SQL Express because I absolutely need SQL access to this feature class. While I never create and delete features in a feature class using SQL, I do a lot of SQL updates to non-spatial columns via extensive data processing code that isn't suitable for geoprocessing tools - for several reasons.

Thanks, AZ

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

Robert_LeClair — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 22:42:20 GMT

There's an Enhancement Request -

ENH-000102281: Create a radio option for Automatically saving edits in ArcGIS Pro similar to ArcMap.

As well as an ArcGIS Idea to add this functionality:

https://community.esri.com/ideas/13010-in-arcgis-pro-allow-formal-edit-sessions-for-unversioned-data-in-an-enterprise-gdb

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

AZendel — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 12:44:47 GMT

Awesome, thanks! I realize Pro is a work in progress. It's a complex, massive piece of software that functions quite well in most respects. Props to the ESRI team who has pulled it off.

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

Robert_LeClair — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 15:09:57 GMT

Indeed. Pro has advanced considerably from the 1.0 release and still has some work ahead of it certainly. Prior to my reply, I created a non-versioned feature class in PostgreSQL in ArcGIS Pro 2.0 to test the non-versioned editing workflow. My save/discard buttons were grayed out as well. The "edit session" automatically saved each edit and did not give me the option to discard edits by not saving the edit session.

Essentially, when you click the Edit core tab, it starts an edit session in Pro. As you know, there is no "stop editing" command in Pro. This process is initiated when the user clicks on another core/contextual tab.

In my conversation with one of the Pro Dev Team - "Currently, when editing nonversioned data within an enterprise geodatabase- there is no ability to undo edits, or discard / not save edits once edits are made. This is because the first edit in the edit session begins the database transaction and the individual edit operations performed are committed to the database as a single transaction. When editing nonversioned data in ArcGIS Pro, each transaction is automatically committed to the database without needing to 'save' the edits."

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

MalcolmJ — Wed, 01 May 2019 04:53:13 GMT

Its almost two years later and this still happens in version 2.3

We have mostly unversioned data in SDE and even though 'Automatically save edits' is unticked and 'Show dialog to confirm save edits' is ticked, data edits are still saved immediately.

Versioned data is fine, its just the non-versioned data which unfortunately is most of our SDE data.

Is this improvement likely to ever happen? This is holding us back from stopping using ArcMap as it will be too easy for users to accidentally delete data in the current setup.

In ArcMap you can choose to discard your edits, why not in ArcGIS Pro?

Thanks

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

ThomasColson — Wed, 01 May 2019 12:33:45 GMT

I wouldn't consider this an "enhancement", it's a bug. Bump to the point that unversioned SDE feature classes are the norm for most enterprise users. I can't tell you how many times I've fat fingered 1 or many edits on an unversioned FC in ArcMap and thankfully had the option to Stop and Discard edits. I'm sorry, but I have to call out "...you’ll find all the same functionality available (with very few exceptions) plus new updates not available in ArcMap.".

I know all the peeing and moaning about equivalency isn't adding much to the conversation, but as a program administrator with a many-years-long lead time on major IT projects, I have to look to what I'm going to be doing 5 years from now, now, and that includes planning for when ArcMap might no longer be on the approved software list due to it not being in the "General" support column. I don't think it would be very hard for ESRI to focus development efforts on the next release 100% on equivalency issues, instead of "new" features. Just once? Back in the day we called these "LAN parties". Yes, I had a Cisco switch with handles screwed on to it.......

To ESRI's credit, in the same document, "It isn’t an update to ArcMap, but a totally new application...", but most customers aren't looking at it that way. We really don't have the luxury of running two desktop GIS platforms side by side for more than a few months.

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

AZendel — Wed, 01 May 2019 18:23:57 GMT

Thomas Colson wrote:
To ESRI's credit, in the same document, "It isn’t an update to ArcMap, but a totally new application...", but most customers aren't looking at it that way. We really don't have the luxury of running two desktop GIS platforms side by side for more than a few months.

I agree that most customers don't look at it that way as well. We still need to get our work done .... and we need to do it safely. I myself am very receptive to changes in workflow and which buttons to push in which order. And there are numerous improvements that Pro brings - features that I love. But when we can't do our job without worrying about the safety of our data, then I really wish ESRI would listen to us and make Pro work like ArcMap in these respects. I don't understand their resistance. If this isn't the way that Pro is going to work out of the box, then please give us the option to enable out requested functionality.

Related content about Pro editing concerns:

https://community.esri.com/ideas/14454-arcgis-pro-provide-an-option-that-requires-all-edit-sessions-to-be-manually-started

https://community.esri.com/ideas/13988-improved-save-edits-by-allowing-to-deselect-an-fc?commentID=69616#comment-69616

https://community.esri.com/ideas/14075-arcgis-pro-edit-session

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/data-management/dont-fret-it-just-edit/

And I agree: this is a bug. Additionally, these workflows work in ArcMap, so they can be implemented in Pro. This is not a database issue. If only they would listen.....

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

DavidWheelock2 — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 21:18:55 GMT

Yes, Thomas Colson‌, this is NOT an enhancement. This is an ArcMap Equivalency issue, and it's wrong to classify it as an enhancement and make users feel like they have to ask for it. This is something that should have been in the pipeline from the start.

Everyone whom I tell about this issue is shocked to find out that they can't cancel their edits on non-versioned data in Pro.

arcmap equivalent‌

arcmap equivalency‌

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

DavidWheelock2 — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 21:23:51 GMT

Robert LeClair‌, how's that enhancement request coming that you mentioned in your comment above?

ENH-000102281: Create a radio option for Automatically saving edits in ArcGIS Pro similar to ArcMap

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

Robert_LeClair — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 16:57:20 GMT

David - I'm not seeing anything new on the internal Esri sites. Kory Kramer‌ - any additional information on ENH-000102281 that you can see?

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

KoryKramer — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 21:29:39 GMT

It looks like it may be a longer-term effort, but not one that is being ignored by the teams involved. I think that instead of providing only the option to either save or discard ALL edits - say you've made 50 edits and then the 51st edit is bad, do you want the option Save (including a bad edit) or Discard (all 50 good edits + 1 bad edit)? OR, discard the 51st edit? That's my understanding of where we are on this and it is more complex under the hood than it might seem when just looking at the car... so to speak.

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

DavidWheelock2 — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 13:40:29 GMT

Thanks Kory. Happy to hear that there's a plan to address this.

I would be happy just to have ArcMap Equivalence, but if ESRI wants to kick it up a notch and provide more granular roll-back for non-versioned data, I'm not going to argue with you.

Perhaps the idea at the link below should be marked as "In Product Plan" or combined with one of the others, as well.

In ArcGIS PRO allow formal edit sessions for unversioned data in an enterprise GDB

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

BrianBulla1 — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 12:10:46 GMT

Hi,

So recently I have noticed that my Edits in a Versioned SDE GDB are saving automatically. This has never happened before. Previously I have always had to hit the "Save" button to save my edits, but now they magically are saving automatically. Here are my Editing settings, which to me are still set the same as before. Did the latest update change something?? I am at the latest version, 2.4.2.

Re: "Automatically save edits" is disabled, but so are the 'Save' and 'Discard' button. And my edits are being saved

DavidWheelock2 — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 12:43:01 GMT

See the thread above and the comment by Kory Kramer on 10/11/19.

https://community.esri.com/message/886946-re-automatically-save-edits-is-disabled-but-so-are-the-save-and-discard-button…

Those settings only apply to versioned data. Edits to unversioned data are saved automatically in Pro. This issue goes back to 2017. In ArcMap you could cancel an edit session and discard your edits. Kory indicates above that a resolution is in the works but it may take a while.