idea Need absolute path names in Pro in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Need absolute path names in Pro

FredWatson — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 19:56:45 GMT

ArcGIS Pro should have the option to use absolute path names. In ArcMap, we can choose between absolute and relative. We should have that same choice in Pro.

A key reason to allow absolute path names is to facilitate a use mode involving many projects accessing the same data. In turn, this may be motivated by preferring to have a very large and relatively stable geospatial data system that is independent of the projects that are using it (and/or independent of the users that are using it; and/or independent of the software that is using it). It may also be motivated by needing to work on so many (100-1000) projects that even a small amount of common data between projects would lead to large amounts of wasted storage space duplicating the same data.

Not everyone works this way. But enough of us do that it should be an option. I teach Arc to college students; I use it in research; I've probably created 300 MXDs in my preferred use mode, which relies on absolute path names.

It's fine if relative paths are the default. But they should not be the *only* option.

None of the existing workaround are wholly satisfactory. Using "Save As" and moving folder references from within Pro is cumbersome and only solves half the problem. Using separate drives for data and projects is too restrictive. Scripts to convert relative to absolute paths would be cumbersome.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

KoryKramer — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 14:00:34 GMT

Fred Watson‌ and others who have up voted this, can you provide some examples of paths you're using in your projects - for folder connections, databases, etc? Are you connecting to mapped network drives with drive letters, or UNC paths? Are you and your students moving project files across different machines and/or different drives?

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

FredWatson — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 20:53:47 GMT

Sure, Kory Kramer. Here's a path to a file that I use in a lot of projects:

C:\f\_dat\nam\usa\ca\counties\monterey\NAIP\2018\ortho_1-1_hn_s_ca053_2018_1.sid

C:\f\dat\ is a ~1TB geospatial data collection organized in a geographic hierarchy.
The file I've indicated here is a 4 GB aerial photo mosaic.

The common use case that fails under relative paths is when moving projects between folders in a drive. This is a very common use case for us.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

RobertBorchert — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 21:17:56 GMT

we use UNC path and it works very well.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

FredWatson — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 21:25:08 GMT

Robert Borchert‌ - Can you use UNC paths to emulate the absolute-path example I posted above?

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

AJR — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 05:46:24 GMT

It's a hassle to have to worry about re-pathing everything just because the project file got moved on disk, absolute paths (or the option to use absolute/relative) would address this.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

PatIampietro — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 22:53:14 GMT

The simple answer here is that newer, supposedly improved software applications to which we are being encouraged (read: forced) to migrate should be as or MORE functional than the older platforms they purport to replace.

ArcMap allowed the user to specify which was more appropriate in any given situation: absolute or relative paths.

ArcGIS Pro removed that choice and with that change reduced functionality.

It's not the only place that happened in Pro, just one of many examples.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

CoryLittle — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 20:27:13 GMT

@PatIampietro Totally agree with you. If I had functionality in ArcMap that I can not emulate in Arc Pro without effecting major changes, it is difficult to call this progress. As far as you know, have there been any updates on this subject?

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

JoyDRoberts — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 13:05:13 GMT

Agree that we need absolute path names. One example I can share is that people at my company map their fileshares inconsistently so one can't rely on the "Data" drive being the T drive, etc.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

EmelineRenz — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 23:09:56 GMT

TL;DR: It would be at the very least helpful to use Absolute Paths WHILE Performing a Save As on an ArcGIS Project File. Then, the project could revert back to Relative Paths.

@KoryKramer - Here are two scenarios.

Another instructor here with the same issue. When teaching a new concept, sometimes it is helpful to build off of previous assignments, so students can use a nice map to show the differences between multiple projections, for example. I also ask students to keep their data organized, to prepare them for Real World GIS (which tends to breed chaos between data and maps and all the things everywhere... I digress..)

In this case, I asked them to perform a Save As on the Project (from Lab 5), then store the new APRX in the LABS folder as "Lab6.aprx". The previous project was in the LABS/Lab5 folder, but when they APRX is saved in LABS, the Paths to the Layers, Table, Folder Connections, etc. are all BROKEN. [In hindsight, this is a Teachable Moment, so maybe I shouldn't complain!]

Here's another scenario: I'm asking the Graduate Assistant who has "GIS Experience" to perform some analysis or map some of my research data. I sure as heck don't want them EDITING the data or changing my previous project work, but I don't have Fancy Enterprise cause my Grant was small. So, I Save a Copy of the APRX into a folder they can Edit, but I want to keep the Project Data in a separate folder they can read, but not edit. When I send them a link to their folder, and they open the APRX, it should still point to my GDB, even using Relative Paths, but shouldn't show them Broken Layers. Instead, I have to fix all the layers before sending them the link.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

BarryFradkin — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 14:44:49 GMT

We have a toolbox with ModelBuilder models that is saved in a shared network folder, but gets copied into individual project folders to update some inputs for each project site. Some of the data used in the models is stored in a shared network folder, and I would like the models to be able to maintain the link to that location. Unfortunately, with the default set to maintain relative path names, it always adds the file path of the new project in front of the saved file path to the shared data - breaking the link. If we had an option to switch to absolute path names this wouldn't be an issue. @KoryKramer

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

StevenDel_Favero — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 18:28:09 GMT

Another failure by Esri to understand how their software is actually used. ArcPro is poorly designed to function as collaborative enterprise software, where. In the real world people share data and tools. ArcPro projects are geared toward siloed individuals.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

PaulLohr — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 20:22:04 GMT

So this is an improvement over ArcMap, that we cannot switch between relative and absolute paths?

This "idea" was posted 3.5 years ago. It would sound like we are stuck without the ability to switch.

Have the people who designed this product never worked in a corporate environment?

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

RyanSlevin — Tue, 23 May 2023 07:56:09 GMT

Yes also very concerning seeing a 3-year-old thread...

@KoryKramer any update if this is being considered?

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

LyonMNGIS — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 18:27:44 GMT

@KoryKramer

Please add back the ability to store absolute vs relative paths! It would be even better if ArcGIS Pro could silently try to connect to an absolute path first and then fail over to connect to data using a relative path.

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/need-absolute-path-names-in-pro/idi-p/938348

I am not sure what the options could be but I imagine one of these could work:

Connect to data using an absolute path. If the data is not found than try connecting to data using a relative path (default)
Connect to data using a relative path if the data source is in a subdirectory of the project.
Always connect to data using absolute paths
Always connect to data using relative paths

Absolute path names in ArcGIS Pro

LyonMNGIS — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:01:38 GMT

ArcMAP allowed us to save relative or absolute pathnames to our data source. Could we bring that back in ArcGIS Pro. This would be a great help so we can move around projects without needing to select "Save As"

Thanks!

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

AlfredBaldenweck — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 18:39:56 GMT

So, this has recently (in the last two days) bitten me VERY hard.

As a whole, we're moving our files from a network drive to Microsoft Azure. Part of this process is to completely reorganize our folders to fit a national standard.

Old structure:

State
- District
  - Local Office
    - gisdata
      - Folder 1
        Folder 1A
    - projects
      - project home folder

New Structure:

State
- Local Office
  - reference_data
    - Folder 1
      - Folder 1A
  - projects
    - project home folder

The majority of offices are choosing to re-organize after the move. This has proven to be a poor choice.

The reason for this is because Pro stores all layer data sources as relative paths:

"dataConnection": { "type": "CIMFeatureDatasetDataConnection", "featureDataset": "ROAD_FEATURE_CLASSES", "workspaceConnectionString": "DATABASE=..\\..\\..\\..\\reference_data\\transportation\\roads\\2011\\RFO_TRANSPORTATION.gdb", "workspaceFactory": "FileGDB", "dataset": "RFO_ROADS", "datasetType": "esriDTFeatureClass" }

Taken from the JSON file describing this layer in the APRX

In short, this layer's data source is 4 levels up from the APRX's directory, then in reference_data\...\RFO_TRANSPORTATION.gdb

So, what happened when we moved is that the APRX still kept those same instructions for finding the data. The most immediate problem is that it's looking for folders that don't exist. That's honestly fine, we expected the links to break with the move.

The bigger problem is that the way we structured our code to repair a given project's broken links was to read a CSV containing the start folder and the end folder, then do a find/replace on the datasource.

This does not work at all in the new structure, since, while the Excel file is looking for:

\\State\District\Local_Office\gisdata\Folder1\Folder1A\example.shp

Pro stores the layer's path as:

..\gisdata\Folder1\Folder1A\example.shp

which translates to the following when Pro launches the APRX:

\\State\Local_Office\gisdata\Folder1\Folder1A\example.shp

which is 1) not in my spreadsheet and 2) absolutely impossible for me to predict programmatically since it's relative to every. single. project.

This has ROYALLY messed up our plans and made what was already not a super fun task monumentally harder. Like, it'd probably be pretty fine if we were either just reorganizing or just moving, but the combo of the two is deadly without absolute paths.

I'd also like to mention that we can use Absolute paths in LYRXs, so why not APRX?

Please, give us the option to use Absolute paths.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

PatIampietro — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 22:42:23 GMT

Five years on and despite 72 kudos and multiple posts offering the very use cases and examples that @KoryKramer requested, there has been no progress on this, or even an admission on Esri's part that it is a valid request.

Why remove the option for absolute paths? Both methods (relative and absolute paths) have their uses. Sometimes one is better than the other, and sometimes it really doesn't matter and either will do just fine. But don't force us to use only relative. Doing so makes ArcGIS Pro LESS powerful.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

RTPL_AU — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 03:52:35 GMT

@KoryKramer Would it be feasible for you to clearly explain the logic and thinking behind this regression? Maybe your team found a better way of doing things and due to bad documentation we just don't realise the potential for a relative path only workflow?
I still have to find a way to overcome this limitation in my typical environment - other than messing around with templates and 'just fix it after the fact' every time - which you can agree is not productive.

Re: Need absolute path names in Pro

PaulLohr — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 12:59:18 GMT

At what point should we give up on such a reasonable request? How long should we wait on this and numerous other issues which are still unresolved? This request was submitted 4.5 years ago.

If something as basic as file pathing does not work correctly, how can this product be relied on for daily work? And I am supposed to have our organization switch over to this product?