How to keep track of changes (version control) to MXD files?

Question

I am trying to use ArcMap for the first time, so please bear with me and don't down vote the question. My superior at the work place has asked me to do some research about the life cycle of an .mxd file. Is there anything called a life cycle of an mxd file, like the life cycle of servlets?

Answer 1

While Subversion is most frequently used for version management/control of code, it is possible to use for documents and other types of files. There is an example of someone using it with Word documents.

Subversion is mature, and a lot of support is available for it on the 'net. I would recommend it if you're serious about tracking and reverting changes in MXDs, especially if you have multiple people working on the same MXD or set of MXDs.

Answer 2

I guess he means how the mxd file develops in time, preferably also keeping track of what you changed, and how you did it, with the options of going back to an earlier version. You could try and use a version control system like mercurial to keep track of the mxd file, but this can be troublesome.

Maybe switching to a scripting language like R or python (especially python seems to work well with ArcGIS as it is the standard scripting language nowads is not an option, but this supports all this things. You can version control the R script which does the processing, and visualization. You track the .R file in a repository, commiting changes as you go. Each commit is accompanied by a message of why you did this commit. You can also get older versions of the script out of the repository, enabling you to create the output of older version.

Answer 3

Versioning of MXDs is currently possible in third party software. One which I know works is more of a CAD package called Projectwise. However, it apparently doesn't support 10.1 yet (this is second hand kmowledge so don't quote me on that).