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Configuring Version Control in SharePoint

Written By: Rahul Mehta -- 10/7/2010 -- join -- contribute -- (0) comments --

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Categories: Configurations, Document Management, MOSS 2007, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Foundation 2010, WSS3

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Problem

Version Control is an essential need in content management. In SharePoint, version control helps to track the changes made to content by saving a copy of each iteration. This provides a way of rolling back to a previous saved version if needed. Read more to learn how to configure this ...

Solution

This article will demonstrate how to enable and configure version history and how to limit the number of saved versions.

By default, version control is not enabled. When opening an item's ECB menu (the dropdown for an item), you won't see "Version History" option.

To enable, navagate to the Document Library Settings.

Click on Settings, Document Library Settings

Click On Versioning Settings

By default, it will be "No versioning" beside "Document Version History". Change it to "Create major versions". This will create versions like 1.0,2.0,3.0, etc. Below you can control the number of the versions you want to keep. When using this feature, the number you enter shows how many history versions will be saved in addition to the 'current' version. If you enter a 2, you will have the current version plus the most recent 2 versions saved.

Click OK and navigate back to the library. Now every time you change the document and save the changes, a new major version will be created. Open any item's ECB menu (dropdown) and you will now see the option of "Version History". Click on it.

As you have limited the number of versions to 2, you would be only able to see 3 versions as below.

This demonstrates how you track changes made, and by who. By clicking on a previous version, you will be able to look at a previously saved version and, if needed, roll back to it.

Next Steps

Use Version Control to track changes, by whom it is made and for what reason it is done.
Use version to restore the document.
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