Are table-only feature services designed to be published with branch versioning?

[KevinBoes2]

I've been testing our ability to publish and work with branch versioned feature services in ArcGIS Pro (Pro v. 3.4; Enterprise v. 11.3), and when I started by publishing a table registered as branch versioned, I found that the contextual versioning ribbon would not appear when bringing the service into my map, even though the rest endpoint showed that a VersionManagementServer endpoint existed. When I tried a similar process with a point feature layer, the contextual versioning ribbon would appear successfully! After doing further testing, I've found that the versioning ribbon will appear after adding a service to the map as long as that service contains at least one layer with geometry, but it will not appear if the service doesn't contain any layers with geometry.

Is this behavior intentional, or is this potentially a bug that has been or has yet to be fixed?

[Robert_LeClair · Accepted solution]

This behavior is intentional/expected in ArcGIS Pro, not a known defect based on current documentation scope.

In Pro, the contextual Versioning ribbon is surfaced for web feature layers that participate in branch versioning with Version Management enabled. A service that contains only tables (no geometry layers) can still expose a 'VersionManagementServer' endpoint, but Pro’s Versioning UI typically won’t light up unless there is at least one feature layer in the map/service.

References:
Manage branch versions | ArcGIS Pro documentation
Branch version scenarios | ArcGIS Pro documentation

Workaround: publish/include at least one branch-versioned feature layer (geometry) in the same service (with Version Management enabled); then add the service to Pro and manage versions from that layer while editing/relating to the tables as needed.

[KevinBoes2]

Thank you for this background, @Robert_LeClair! This will be good for us to be aware of as we keep testing out use cases for branch versioning in our workflows.