topic Re: How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing? in ArcGIS Enterprise Questions

How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing?

Jeff-Reinhart — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:46:10 GMT

And follow-up… is it possible to manage those resources in Portal after publishing?

We are trying to understand what is important to maintain on the server where services are published from. We have ImageServer set up with an Enterprise Portal. We are building mosaics for some thematic rasters that we want users to be able to display, ID, and analyze in both Pro and Portal. These need attribute tables for the color map and text descriptions. We have followed this tutorial to build them:

https://learn.arcgis.com/en/projects/share-raster-data-as-an-analytical-image-service/

(Thank you to Michael Dangermond for this tutorial, it was critical to understanding how to get this done. Particularly for those who worked with the older ways of managing raster attribute tables.)

It seems that the mosaic is the only item that Portal maintains a reference to in the source. The Raster Function and the attribute table seem to be copied to Portal and are not referenced to their original sources. Do we have that right?

For the Raster Function, I tried deleting it from the source via the Pro | Raster Functions Pane, and it deleted from C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ESRI\ArcGISPro\Raster\CustomProcessCategories\Custom1. However, in Portal, it is still applied to the Imagery Layer. So that does not seem to be referenced.

For the attribute table, I renamed it in the Geodatabase. In Portal, it is still applied to the Imagery Layer. Also probably not referenced.

I tried renaming the mosaic from a fresh Pro project, and that errored on a schema lock, so that seems to be referenced.

Based on all that, it seems the mosaic is the only thing referenced and it doesn’t matter what we do with the source Raster Function or attribute table after we have published the service…

Assuming we don’t want to make changes to the service later. Because there does not seem to be a way to manage either the Raster Function or the attribute table once the service has been published. If I open the service in Map Viewer, I can change which Processing Template is used, but I cannot edit the Processing Template. From what I could find, Map Viewer is the only place I can even find that the Processing Template exists in Portal. I have searched for the attribute table in Portal | Contents, but I am not finding it anywhere.

Based on this, it seems Esri has stuffed these resources in the black box and if we need to manage them, it means republishing the service. Do we have that right?

If there are docs on this somewhere, I’d love to see them!

I have read:

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/3.4/help/analysis/raster-functions/raster-functions.htm

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/3.4/help/analysis/raster-functions/raster-analysis-with-portal.htm

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/3.4/help/analysis/raster-functions/processing-template-manager.htm

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/sharing/overview/publish-an-image-service.htm

https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/publish-an-imagery-service-with-a-preferred-raster-func-000031281

Re: How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing?

Jeff-Reinhart — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 16:04:58 GMT

I spoke too soon. There seems to have been some lag on things updating in Portal. I just went back to the Imagery Layer and the Processing Template seems to be broken. I am getting "Error: Error exporting image" and the thumbnail for the Processing Template is now broken (it was there before changing the sources). There is a 500 error when attempting to include the Raster Function.

Looks like the change to the source Raster Function, source attribute table, or both eventually broke the service and some of the source data is actually referenced, not copied.

If the Raster Function is actually referenced, that is particularly important. Storing it in a Windows user folder seems very risky.

Confirmation from Esri on this would be greatly appreciated.

Re: How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing?

Jeff-Reinhart — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:08:52 GMT

This onion has many layers. Based on the way Pro manages rft.xml files, there are two places that file can be on the server that publishes the service:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ESRI\ArcGISPro\Raster\CustomProcessCategories\Custom1

<pro_project_name>\RasterFunctionTemplates\Project1

I have tried multiple ways to put rft.xml files in another folder, and whenever I import it, either through the Raster Functions Pane or through Manage Processing Templates, Pro copies it to one of the above locations. This was difficult to verify because there is never a "Path" variable shown in the UI for these Processing Templates and because Pro automagically recreates the file if you delete it from the Project1 folder via Windows Explorer if the Processing Template is applied to a mosaic (perhaps it is buried in the mosaic somehow?).

As I said before, keeping the rft.xml file in a users folder seems risky. If that user needs to be removed from the server, that will drop the rft.xml file and break the service. This seems to mean that we must store an item on our server in a Pro project folder and that item is then referenced by ArcGIS Server. This also seems like bad practice.

Re: How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing?

BillFox — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:37:55 GMT

did you create referenced mosaic dataset (from source mosaic dataset) and then publish it?

Re: How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing?

Jeff-Reinhart — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:14:17 GMT

The source is a mosaic dataset in a file GDB that has a TIFF added to it. I applied the Processing Template to that mosaic. Then I published the mosaic as a referenced Imagery Layer.

Re: How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing?

jiezhang_imagery — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:56:08 GMT

Hi @Jeff-Reinhart,

Thanks for the great question. I can help clarify the confusion you have here.
The raster processing template once configured into the mosaic dataset will actually be saved within the mosaic dataset (one of the gdb tables that composited to become the mosaic dataset)
The function template you browse and edit in the function pane will remain to be in the user profile folder or project folder as you found out.
Once the template is imported into the mosaic dataset, it stored a copy within the mosaic dataset. The edit you made in the function pane for templates location in Custom or project folder will be not reflected in the template in the mosaic dataset.

When you published the mosaic dataset as image service, the processing template will stay with the mosaic dataset and the image service will read it from mosaic dataset as well.

There are ways to edit the processing template after you have published it. It depends on the mode you publish the mosaic dataset.

If you publish "by value", it will package and upload the mosaic dataset to the server in a reserved "config store" location. The processing template stored in the mosaic dataset will be harder to edit/update in this case. Because you will need to go into the server's directory, find the mosaic dataset and update it there.

Hence we recommend you publish "by reference", this requires you to register the database where mosaic dataset is stored as a data store on the server. In this mode, the mosaic dataset is not transferred, hence you can make edit directly in Pro to add, remove or update existing templates on the mosaic dataset.

Re: How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing?

Jeff-Reinhart — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 19:22:38 GMT

Thank you, @jiezhang_imagery.

It would be excellent if Esri would include this information in their documentation somewhere. If I missed it, I'd love to hear it!

Re: How are the underlying resources for Raster Functions managed when publishing?

jiezhang_imagery — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:43:42 GMT

Hi Jeff,

yes, indeed. We will enhance this doc topic https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/analysis/raster-functions/processing-template-manager.htm to have more information about how the template is stored.