If you use a branch-all variant view with item configurations set to a specific timestamp, you may periodically want to catch up the parent view with changes in the branched (child) view by performing a Re-base operation. While you can do this with View Compare/Merge, when a branch-all variant view is used as an Activity view, many files will not have been modified and hence will not have been branched. In this case, the non-branched files can be more quickly re-based with the main view by simply altering their configuration timestamp.
This procedure is a quick way to pull out all files that have not branched yet, and create a new view label to see them separately. This allows you to re-base the view on a controlled basis. The branched files, of course, have to be merged separately.
The non-branched files will be displayed in the upper pane.