Append will not write values in ModelBuilder for Tabulate Area

Question

Since Tabulate Area does not work on overlapping polygons, I created a model to iterate through features, run Tabulate Area for each row in the feature class, Collect Values, and then Append it all to a target dummy table with field names pre-defined. The final result is that the identifier text field copies over fine, but all the numeric fields generated by Tabulate Area result in Null values. The weird thing is that if I run Append again (in the Edit mode of ModelBuilder), with the iteration submodel and dummy table (now with the text field populated) already created, the missing Tabulate Area numeric values get filled in. The individual tables generated by Tabulate Area itself are fine.

This has been incredibly frustrating, and no amount of preconditions seem to be helping.

I was successful in carrying out this exact same process in ModelBuilder with Zonal Statistics as a Table for a different raster input, and can't figure out why it isn't working with Tabulate Area.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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JibrahnKhoury · Answer

Merge worked for me, thanks for posting!

curtvprice · Answer

The field map gets generated at model validation time not at runtime, so without explicitly creating a field map, it won't work with the inputs on the second iteration.

Hornbydd · Answer

Karen,

Have you looked for tools in ESRI codesharing? If you find yourself thinking this should be easy then you can be pretty sure you have not been the first person to think about this problem in the last 2 decades! A quick search threw up these:

* ZonalStatsOverlappingPolys 
* Spatial Analyst Supplemental Tools

Equally you could create a simple model using the Split By Attributes or Feature Selection Iterator feeding into the zonal stats tool.