How to Create Many-to-Many Relate in ArcMap?

Question

Has anyone had any success specifying many-to-many cardinality when creating an ArcMap Relate?

What I've tried:  The Relate dialog lets me pick the primary key field, the target table, the foreign key field, and then it lets me name the relate.  I don't get to specify cardinality as I do when creating a geodatabase relationship class.  The end result appears to support a 1:1 or 1:M relate, but befuddles me regarding the advertised and desired M:N relate.  The instructions suggest that an ArcMap M:N relate is supported, but the "how to" information is elusive.

Hopefully, I'm just slipping up somewhere... surely there's a button to press to specify cardinality and make it work.

RiyasDeen · Accepted Answer

Hi Tim,

On the fly M:N relate works just fine. The steps you followed will establish M:N relate if there is an M:N cardinality between your table attributes. You don't have to specify the cardinality explicitly as you would when you create a relationship class. Refer screenshot of M:N relate i created on the fly.