Is it possible to recover a single user's version from an SDE backup copy?

[MarniLaw1]

We had a SDE user loose about a day’s worth of edits on their version. Is it possible to get a backup of just their version? We have daily backups of our SDE database.

The user hadn’t reconciled and posted the whole day but did save their edits (spatial edits) and when they went to reconcile and post the next day there were lots of conflicts (another user had been doing table edits in 2 of the same feature classes that the spatial edits were on). Something went wrong in resolving the conflicts and we ended up losing the spatial edits.

There has been continued editing on the SDE since the spatial data loss so we don't want to fully restore/replace what we have on the SDE now, also the spatial edits never got posted so they never made it to the Default version.

Is it possible to get a copy of a version off a SDE default backup copy or would it only have the default state of the database?

[MarlonAmaya]

Hi @MarniLaw1 

Are you working with SQL Server/PostgreSQL/Oracle?

If you are conducting daily backups as you mention, the edits in the respective version will be available to you (not just default). Restore a backup another instance and view the edit version.

Marlon

[MarniLaw1]

Hi Marlon,

We are working with SQL Server. Will this allow for us to get a copy/backup of another instance and view the edit version? We don't want to fully restore what we have on our SDE now since more edits have been continuing since the data loss. Are we able to get a copy of the edit version and strategically replace what we need on the SDE from the version copy?

Thanks for your advice,

Marni

[MarlonAmaya · Accepted solution]

Hi @MarniLaw1 ,

Use a SQL backup to restore onto another SQL server instance. Once restored properly, you will be able to connect to this "backup" database via Pro/ArcMap and view the edit version that contains edits you want to retrieve. 

Since you only want some of the data and not all, you will need to find ways to only view the data you would want to copy to the current production database. How you achieve this depends on potentially fields that you can query or use to only view what you want.

Here are some tools that can help you:

Definition query:

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/mapping/layer-properties/definition-query.htm

Append:

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/data-management/append.htm

Marlon