With ESRI dropping support for ArcMap in 2026 I am trying to get our office set up for a transition from editing in ArcMap and sharing in ArcReader to using ArcGIS Pro. My current process is perfect for our organization but I keep running into roadblocks replicating it all in ArcGIS Pro.
The two biggest hurdles are connecting our AS/400 attribute data and viewing imagery in Explorer.
In ArcMap 10, I build my layout, have an OLE DB connection to our attribute data, and when I publish a map, the shared PMF just works. It pulls all the vector and raster data from the local server and when I make changes it's near instantaneous in updating.
When I try and replicate the setup in Pro, my OLE DB connection is empty, all the options for sharing say they repackage our data instead of just connecting to it, and everything I read about raster imagery files for Explorer seem to require very expensive (computer power and storage) pre-rendered image tiles.
So far I estimate I have put 20+ hours just into researching this- am I just missing something here, or are we going to have to scrap everything and dump tons of money into Enterprise?
