How to: Manage Identity Columns (SQL Server Management Studio)

Specify an identity column management option on the Properties tab of the Article Properties -<Article> dialog box of the New Publication Wizard. For more information about using this wizard, see How to: Create a Publication and Define Articles (SQL Server Management Studio). In the New Publication Wizard:

If you select Merge publication or Transactional publication with updating subscriptions on the Publication Type page, select automatic or manual identity range management (automatic, the default, is recommended). After the table is published, the property cannot be modified, but other related properties can be modified.
If you select other publication types, identity range management should be set to manual.

Modify identity ranges and thresholds on the Properties tab of the Article Properties -<Article>, which is available in the Publication Properties - <Publication> dialog box. For more information about accessing this dialog box, see How to: View and Modify Publication and Article Properties (SQL Server Management Studio).

To specify an identity column management option

If the Publisher is running a previous version of SQL Server, on the Publication Type page of the New Publication Wizard, select Merge publication or Transactional publication with updating subscriptions.
On the Articles page, select a table with an identity column.
Click Article Properties, and then click Set Properties of Highlighted Table Article.
On the Properties tab of the Article Properties - <Article> dialog box, in the Identity Range Management section, set the Automatically manage identity ranges property to Automatic or Manual (for Publishers running SQL Server 2005 or later), or True or False (for Publishers running a previous version of SQL Server).
If you selected Automatic or True in step 4, enter values for the options in the following table. For more information on how these settings are used, see the "Assigning Identity Ranges" section of Replicating Identity Columns.

Option
Click OK.

On the Articles page of the Publication Properties - <Publication> dialog box, select a table with an identity column.
Click Article Properties, and then click Set Properties of Highlighted Table Article.
On the Properties tab of the Article Properties - <Article> dialog box, in the Identity Range Management section, enter values for one or more of the following properties: Publisher range size, Subscriber range size, and Range threshold percentage.
Click OK.
Click OK on the Publication Properties - <Publication> dialog box.