ArcGIS Online and Portal -- what is the best strategy for a multi-themed map

Question

I have an ArcMap project with several themes--each a different choropleth map based on census ACS data--that show different views of the same place--well, Texas.  I plan to publish to ArcGIS Online and later, to Portal.  What is the best way to get the same result in ArcGIS Online?  I guess this is really a question about its behavior.

1.  just upload the entire ArcMap document.   Since there are multiple references to the same local feature class, is AGO smart enough to recognize that and only store a single copy of the feature class online (i.e. multiple renderings of the same service); or would it store multiple copies of the same data (one for each theme, obviously something I want to avoid).

2.  load a single theme and use it as a template, to create multiple layers in an online map, forcing only one feature service that can be referenced from many contexts.

I guess the question here is whether, if I follow (1) above, I will end up storiing multiple versions of the block group layer in ArcGIS Online, where one would do?

DerekLaw · Accepted Answer

Hi Robert,

Regarding your question,

> I have an ArcMap project with several themes ... that show different views of the same place ... just upload the entire ArcMap document. Since there are multiple references to the same local feature class, is AGO smart enough to recognize that and only store a single copy of the feature class online (i.e. multiple renderings of the same service); or would it store multiple copies of the same data (one for each theme ...

Answer is yes. To be clear on the workflow: If you publish a map document containing multiple layers that reference the same data source (but are symbolized differently) as a hosted feature service to ArcGIS Online and/or Portal for ArcGIS, this will result in a single feature service with multiple layers stored. There would not be any data duplication.

Hope this helps,