Our organization stores both active and pending parcels in the same parcel type. If these parcels share a boundary, they each need their own set of lines, even if the line geometries are identical, because they have different attributes on them (such as their line type) and are required for different visualization purposes in downstream systems. For example, we need to have a full active zoning layer with all the related lines, but we also need to pull out all the pending lines related to a specific record to create a pdf from a map document which is sent to the city council for approval.
To create the new pending parcels, we first use any existing lines that we have in the parcel fabric. These lines are sometimes in other parcel types, but they can also be in the same parcel type and associated with an active parcel. We were surprised to find that when using the Copy Lines To tool, if the line came from a different parcel type, it would persist in the active record, but if the line came from the same parcel type, once the parcels were built, the line would either revert back to the original record if it hadn’t been changed or the original line would be retired if the copy of the line had been changed.
Currently we can use the Copy Lines To tool to copy lines from different parcel types and use the Copy > Paste Special for lines that are in the same parcel type. However, the inconsistency in behaviour depending on which parcel type the line is from makes it more difficult to use a combination of lines from multiple parcel types because we have to use different tools depending on where the lines are coming from. It’s easy to use the wrong tool and end up not getting all the lines that we need associated with the records we need them associated with.
We understand that the tool is working as expected based on the documentation, but we are requesting that there be an update to the Copy Lines To Tool for when a user is copying lines to the same parcel type. We’d like to have the option to choose whether the tool creates a duplicate copy of the lines and that both the original line and the copied line persist after the parcels are built or maintain a single copy of the line like the tool is already doing. This would allow for organizations who just need a single copy of the lines to continue with their workflows while allowing our organization and others like us to easily create duplicates of lines when they are needed.
