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How to create containment associations using Create Features Templates

ChristineLazina11

Hello all,

I'm in the process of setting up a new utility network using Esri's Stormwater Foundation, currently testing setup in a personal environment on ArcGIS Pro 3.3.5. I have created the utility network, which for our purposes is currently very simple, only including Stormwater Device point features and Structure Boundary polygon features.

I am trying to achieve an automatic containment association for any newly created BMP Boundary features. All BMP Boundary features should have an associated Stormwater Device point they contain, but not all Stormwater Devices may have a BMP Boundary container (we have many stormwater device features in our dataset that will have their BMP boundaries added later). Essentially when a new BMP Boundary feature is made, I would like it to automatically become a container associated with any Stormwater Device points within its polygon.

I believe I have the appropriate Association Roles and Containment Rules in place for the features in question (shown in the screenshots below from the UN Properties).

UN Association Roles for Structure Boundary features:

UN Containment Rules:

Other documentation/posts have led me to believe that default associations should be able to be configured from the templates for creating features - but when I edit an existing/create a new template there is no option to set containment/association defaults (shown below). I understand that attribute rules are another avenue to trigger association creation for new features, but this method seemed more likely to be a greater challenge given my current arcade skills.

BMP Boundary Template properties:

Thank you for any direction folks can offer!

- C

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Accepted answers

PatrickGCowan

Containment associations can be automatically created when using a group template—this functionality isn’t available with individual templates. One limitation of this method is that it only places a single BMP point, and you can’t specify its exact location. The most practical option is to place the point at the centroid of the drawn polygon. While other placement options exist (such as at vertices), they’re likely not useful in this context. That said, you can always adjust the point’s location after it’s created and the association will remain.

When configuring the group template, you’ll see a section called Associations. This is where you can enable automatic containment associations between the features created by the template.

As you mentioned, attribute rules would be another way of creating the association as well. If you want to associate several BMP points to a Boundary, I think you are going to need to look at going the attribute rule route. This blog post may help you with the attribute rules. The examples are for the electric industry, but the concepts are the same.

Advanced Attribute Rules - Creating Utility Network Associations with attribute Rules

All comments

ChristineLazina11

@PatrickGCowan @RobertKrisher @Isaac_King Thank you all for the clarification and direction! Good to know that only the group template can handle pre-set associations - given that many of our data points will have their BMP Point and Structure Boundaries created separately (and that we may indeed need multiple BMP Points tied to a single boundary) it sounds like this approach won't be the most useful here.

I will look into the attribute rule documentation, but it's also a good point (thanks Robert) that the associations could always be added manually after each Structure Boundary is created.

Many thanks!

Isaac_King

Patrick provided the link I dropped by to share! As both he and Robert have shared, you'll want to create an attribute rule to automatically generate associations. As someone who is also not fluent in Arcade, I can attest that the blog post with example attribute rules is a big help!

PatrickGCowan

When configuring the group template, you’ll see a section called Associations. This is where you can enable automatic containment associations between the features created by the template.

Advanced Attribute Rules - Creating Utility Network Associations with attribute Rules

RobertKrisher

If you are creating a new BMP Boundary on top of existing features and want to automatically create the associations, you'll need to create an attribute rule.

If you want to have a pre-defined template of a BMP with its boundary, BMP point, and a standard set of inlets/outlets, use a preset template. This will allow you to create a new BMP boundary, new BMP point, new inlets/outlets, and all their associations with a single sketch. Adding existing features to the new BMP would then happen using the Modify Associations tool.

Adding new associations using the Modify Associations pane isn't too bad. You just select the BMP with the Add features tool, then drag a box around the features you want to add. The tool will only add items to the list that are allowed to be contained in the BMP.

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