Version changes should see changes in any SDE feature class

[BrooksWilson]

Since a version is a copy of the entire SDE, the version changes tool should be able to display changes that have occured between two versions even if the data isn't loaded in the map. If a supervisor is responsible for posting changes and reviews the work first, they could miss the fact that the user totally messed up a dataset that wasn't related to the workflow. With Version Changes you should be able to see edits that might have happened in other feature classes in the SDE even if they are not in the table of contents.

[MelissaJarman]

There is an old blog on this topic with similar comments within - "This tool was intentionally designed to work with the layers that are in the table of contents (TOC) of a map document. That being said, you can still get the changes of layers which are currently “turned off” or “unchecked” in the TOC. With this in mind, it is possible to create a map doc of all the layers and have them all remain unchecked so you do not encounter the rendering cost."

Road Ahead – Version Changes Viewer

http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2008/05/12/road-ahead-version-changes-viewer/

[mthompson]

I agree wholeheartedly with this very old post. Even in ArcGIS Pro there needs to be a way to check if there are any changes to a version without needing to add every single layer in the database to a map every time. If there is another way to do this, I haven't been able to find it.