I need to add some fields to an existing publisher to replicate to the other
offices. The problem is that all offices have been populating these fields
locally for about two months. I was told that when I add the fields to the
publisher that it will overwrite those fields in the other databases. I find
this odd. I thought that merge replication would combine them and at worst
data that was the same exactly would be affected by the last writer wins.
This is a billing thing so I believe we should be safe there because I doubt
that more than one bill (especially in different cities) would be exactly
the same. Can anyone verify if this will happen. I have read through about
150 pages of different information on merge replication but nothing touched
on this matter. Thanks in advance for any help.

Curt

Fields. They are present on all of the servers but as I mentioned they all
will be holding local data that we do not want to loose.

Curt

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Curt,

to be honest I'm a little confused by your post - when you refer to adding
fields to the publisher did you mean adding rows? - the rest of the question
seems connected to conflict resolution.

In merge, you can have column-level or row-level conflict detection. By
default the publisher will win a conflict with any subscribers and if 2
subscribers have conflicting data, the first one assumes the priority of the
publisher.

If your bills are raised on different subscribers, you could partition the
data to avoid conflicts - eg use identity ranges. However if it is actually
the same bill recorded in 2 places, then a conflict is the event you'll
need.

HTH,

Paul Ibison

Curt,
if you are adding existing columns to a publication in this manner
reinitialization will be necessary. The easeist way to get a more granular
control is to drop the publication, use linked servers to upload any changes
you want from the subscribers to make the necessary changes on the publisher
then start from scratch.
HTH,
Paul Ibison