Guidelines for minimizing conflicts with geometric networks

Conflicts are the result of multiple editors changing the same feature in different versions. There are steps that you can take to minimize the chances of conflicts occurring when reconciling geometric networks.

• Minimize the amount of overlap between the areas of interest that your editors perform their edits within. This will decrease the chance that multiple editors change the same feature, especially for long edges such as mains or primaries.
• Avoid making edits that are spread out across your network within a given version.
• If there are features in your network that are exceptionally large or long and span large tracts of your network, consider making edits to these features in one version.
• Plan ahead for bulk updates or edits for a time when most of your outstanding versions can be posted to DEFAULT. Choosing to perform a mass update of a nonnetwork field, such as a text field used for labeling, while you still have outstanding versions will result in an increase in conflicts.
• Perform your data cleanup prior to creating the network. Data cleanup requires a large number of edits to features and will result in an increase in conflicts.

There are additional steps that can be taken once the edits have been performed that minimize the number of conflicts:

• Use different reconciling options, especially the By Attribute option for defining conflicts. If you've performed edits to different fields on the same feature in different versions, this option can minimize the conflicts.
• On the Conflicts Resolution dialog box, choose to replace conflicts at the class or feature level.