Viewing file history

Surround SCM stores all of the activities performed on a source file. You can view a file’s history and work with a historic version of the file.

You can also view removed file history. Select a repository and choose Activities > Properties. Click the Removed Items tab. Select a file and click History.

1. Select a file and choose Activities > History.

The History dialog box opens. If you select an image file, it is displayed in the lower right corner for Add, Check In, Promote, Rebase, and Rollback events. Click the Thumbnail button to view thumbnails.

You can change the columns in the History dialog box. To display a column, right-click a column and select the column to add from the menu. Click and drag the column to change its location. To hide a column, right-click a column and select the column to hide. The Version and Action columns cannot be hidden.

2. Select a Filter by user option. You can view actions performed by a specific user or all users.

The System user is used by triggers to change workflow states and custom field values.

3. Select a Filter by action option. You can view specific actions, only actions that changed the file contents, or all actions performed on the file.

4. Select Additional events to display all file workflow events, custom field values, or label events.

5. Expand the parent branch file history for Add from branch and Rebase events, or child branch file history for Promote from events.

File changes in the ancestor branch after the add, promote, or rebase are not included.

The file version changes when you check in, promote, and rebase files. Select the File contents changed filter to view files with content changes.

6. Select a file version and click a button to perform an action.

Button	Action	More information
	View history details for the selected version	Viewing file history details
	View differences for the selected versions	Viewing file differences
	Generate a report of differences between versions	Running file differences reports
	Retrieve a copy of the selected version	Getting files
	Check out the selected version	Checking out files
	View the selected version	Viewing files in Surround SCM
	Edit the file	Editing files in Surround SCM
	Revert to a previous file version	Rolling back files
	View branches that contain changes made in the selected version	Tracking duplicated changes
	Review changes made in the selected version	Reviewing changes between file versions
	Add the selected version to a code review	Adding files to code reviews
	View code reviews for the selected version	Viewing code reviews files are included in
	Attach the selected version to an item in Helix ALM item or an external issue tracking tool	Attaching source files to Helix ALM items and Attaching source files to external issues
	View the Helix ALM item the selected version is attached to	Viewing Helix ALM items
	View the committed changelist. Only enabled if the action was performed as part of a changelist.	Working with committed changelists
	Set the workflow state for the file	Changing workflow states
	Label the selected version	Labeling files
	View labels applied to the selected version	Viewing labels

7. Click Close when you finish.

Administrators can enable logging of file retrievals from the Surround SCM Server. If files are retrieved from the server and returned to a computer running a Surround SCM client, information about who retrieved the files and when is logged in a text file. Logging retrieved files can be enabled in the Surround SCM Registry Utility. To learn more, see Surround SCM Registry Utility.