Exercise 3: Working with the Update tab

Available with Production Mapping license.

Complexity:

Beginner

Data Requirement:

ArcGIS.com

Goal:

Manage individual and multiple features using the Feature Manager functionality.

As features are edited, you may need to update their attribute values as well as their geometries. With the Manage Features window, you can update features in several ways. Attributes can be updated for individual features or several features at once. You can also copy and paste attributes between features.

In this exercise, you are going to update features using all the methods listed above. In the first two parts of the exercise, you are going to update attributes on an individual features, then see the difference between that and changing attributes for multiple features at once. In the other parts of the exercise, you are going to copy and paste attributes between features.

Note:

Before completing any part of this exercise, you must complete Exercise 1 of this tutorial to ensure that the correct production properties and metadata favorite are set.

Exercise 3a: Updating an individual feature

The Update tab in the Manage Features window displays the selected features and allows you to edit the attributes of the selected features. In this part of the exercise, you are going to modify the attributes of a selected feature.

1. Start ArcMap.
2. If necessary, navigate to the installation directory for the Feature Manager tutorial and select the FeatureManager.mxd file.
3. On the main menu, click Bookmarks > Buildings.

   The map zooms to an area of the city with a number of school and church buildings.

4. On the main menu, click Customize > Production > Toolbar Settings > Editing.

   If the ArcMap Setting Change Warning appears, click OK.

   Tip:

   You can further customize the editing environment by repositioning the windows that appear.

5. Click the Production Start Editing button on the Production Editing toolbar.

   Note:

   The Manage Features and Create Attributes, Update Attributes, or Metadata Attributes windows automatically appear when you start an edit session using the Production Start Editing tool.

   Tip:

   If the Create Attributes, Update Attributes, or Metadata Attributes window does not appear when you start an edit session, click the Show/Hide Attributes button on the Manage Features window.

6. Click the Update tab on the Manage Features window.
7. Select the building point for Collier Junior High School.

   

   The feature is added to the Update tab and the attributes are populated in the Update Attributes window. This feature is incorrectly named, so in the next step, you will rename the feature and change the school type classification.

8. In the Update Attributes window, click the cell next to nam and type Correia Junior High School.

   

9. Click Apply.

   Validation is run on the attribute combination. A message appears indicating that there is an error with the attribution. Because the feature is a school, the School Type attribute is applicable and must be set.

   

10. Click OK to close the Validation Results message.
11. Click the cell next to SchoolType and choose 2 - Junior High School.

    

12. Click Apply.

    This time no message appears, indicating that the attribute combination is correct. The attributes of the feature are updated and stored on the feature.

Exercise 3b: Updating existing features in batch

In the previous part of this exercise, you learned how to update an individual feature using the Update tab in the Manage Features window. The Update tab can also be used to manage a selection set and update multiple features at the same time.

The same validation rules that are run when you apply attribution changes can be run against a selected set of features. Any features that pass validation will be removed from the selection set. In this part of the exercise you will validate a selected set of features and perform a batch update to fix the issue.

1. If necessary, on the main menu, click Bookmarks > Buildings.

   The map zooms to an area with a number of school and church buildings.

2. If necessary, click the Production Start Editing button on the Production Editing toolbar.
3. Select all the buildings in the current extent.

   The Update tab displays a tree view of all the selected features. In the tree view, you see that there are two Buildings layer subtypes selected, School and House of Worship.

   

   You will be working with the House of Worship subtype features, so next you will use the Update tab to remove the School subtype features from the selection set.

4. On the Update tab, click the School subtype node.
5. Right-click the selected node and click Unselect.

   

   This removes the School subtype features from the selection set and from the Update tab. Now, you will only see the House of Worship subtype features selected.

   Tip:

   You can also select the House of Worship node and click Keep Selected on the context menu to change the selection set.

6. Right-click the Update tab tree view and click Validate Selection.

   This performs validation on the selected features to determine if any attribute errors exist. The Browse Features window allows you to browse through the errors.

   

7. Navigate through the features using the Browse next feature button .

   Notice that the description is displayed at the bottom of the Browse Features window. For all the features, the description is the same: the Worship Type attribute must be populated.

8. Click Select All on the Browse Features window.

   This selects all the features with errors. In the following steps you will update the attributes for all of these features.

9. Click the Close button on the upper-right corner of the Browse Features window to close it.
10. Click the House of Worship node on the Update tab.

    The default attributes of the House of Worship subtype are displayed in the Update Attributes window.

11. Click the cell next to WorshipType and choose 4 - Church.

    

12. Click Apply.

    A message appears indicating that validation will not be performed because you are updating the features in batch.

13. Click Yes to continue.

    The WorshipType attribute is set for all the selected features.

14. Select one of the church features on the Update tab.

    Notice that the WorshipType is set to 4 - Church.

15. Right-click in the Update tab and click Validate Selection.

    A message appears notifying you that no errors have been returned.

16. Click OK to close the message.

Exercise 3c: Copying and pasting attributes

The Update tab can also be used to copy attributes from one feature to other selected features. In this part of the exercise, you will learn how to copy specific attributes from one feature to other features.

While not covered in this exercise, you can use the same procedure to copy attributes from a template and apply them to a feature. You can choose the template from the Create tab, copy the attributes, then click the Update tab and paste the attributes to the selected features.

1. On the main menu, click Bookmarks > Roads.

   The map zooms to the intersection of Catalina Blvd., Chatsworth Blvd., and Point Loma Ave.

2. If necessary, click the Production Start Editing button on the Production Editing toolbar.
3. Select the roads in the extent.

   

   The selected roads appear on the Update tab.

   

4. Click each of the nodes on the Update tab.

   The feature nodes that appear under the RoadLine subtype represent each of the selected roads.

   Notice that a graphic flashes in the map to indicate which road is selected on the Update tab. As you select the different nodes, notice that their attributes are displayed in the Update Attributes window.

5. Click the Point Loma Ave node.

   The node for this feature is highlighted on the Update tab. This feature has the attributes that are going to be copied for this exercise.

6. In the Update Attributes window, check the boxes next to the ltn, med, rst, and wd1 attributes.

   

   Checking the boxes next to specific attributes means that only those attributes will be copied to other features. If you want to copy all the attributes, leave all the attributes unchecked.

7. Right-click in the Update tab and click Copy Attributes.
8. Click the Catalina Blvd node on the Update tab.

   Notice that the values for the four attributes—ltn, med, rst, and wd1—are all set to 0. If you want to apply the copied attributes to all the selected roads, you can select the RoadLine node instead of the Catalina Blvd node.

9. Right-click the Catalina Blvd node and click Paste Attributes.

   The attributes you copied are now set in the Update Attributes window and appear in blue. This means that the attribute values have not been applied to the feature yet.

   

10. Click Apply.

    Validation is run and no errors are returned. The attribute color changes from blue to black to indicate that the values are now applied to the feature.

    

Exercise 3d: Working with relationships

Relationship classes allow you to maintain associations between objects in your geodatabase. In this sample dataset, a relationship exists between the buildings feature class and the building owners table. The relationship is a many-to-many (M-N) relationship because a building can be owned by multiple people and a person can own multiple buildings. With the M-N relationship, each link between a building and its owner(s) is stored as a record in the relationship and additional attributes exist on the relationship to indicate what percentage of the building is owned by each person.

In this exercise, you will create a relationship between a feature and a table. Ensure that you have completed exercises 2a and 2e as you will be building a relationship between the feature and the record you created in these exercises.

1. On the main menu, click Bookmarks > Sea World.

   The map zooms to Sea World.



2. Select the Building Point that represents Sea World. You created this point in exercise 2a.
3. In the Table Of Contents window, click the List by Source button .
4. Right-click the BuildingOwners table and click Open.

   The records in the Building Owners table are displayed.

5. Select the record in the BuildingOwners table where the Owner ID is 12345 and Owner Name is your name. You created this record in exercise 2e.

   

6. In the Update tab in the Manage Features window, click the Sea World node in the tree view.
7. Expand the Sea World node to display the BuildingOwners node.

   This node represents the relationship class between the Building features and the records in the BuildingOwners table.

8. Click the BuildingOwners node, right-click in the Update tab, and click Add Selected.

   A relationship is created between the feature and the record.

9. Expand the BuildingOwners node.
10. Click the Build to Owner node.

    This node represents the relationship between the building (Sea World) and the owner (you). The attributes of the record in the M-N relationship table are displayed in the Feature Attributes window, where you can edit the attributes of the relationship.

11. In the Feature Attributes window, click the cell next to the PercentOwned field, and type 50.
12. Click Apply.

    You have updated the relationship to indicate that you own 50 percent of Sea World. You can use the same steps to add another owner who owns the other 50 percent of Sea World.

In this exercise, you have learned about the different ways you can modify features using the Feature Manager and explored relationship classes. These methods can now be applied as you edit features in your own data either individually or across several features as once.