topic Retaining attachments while merging two records in the same feature class in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Retaining attachments while merging two records in the same feature class

AlfredBaldenweck — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 17:13:57 GMT

I have a feature layer (pretend it's buildings on a college campus) containing a record for each building.

Each building has one or two photos attached to it via Collector.

I want to merge the buildings by function (e.g. all the dorms, the engineering buildings) into a multipart polygon, and I want to retain the photos attached to each record once they are merged. (So if Dorm A has 3 photos and Dorm B has 2 photos, I want the combined "Dorm" record to have all 5 photos).

I tried testing it and the Merge tool in the editing toolbar threw out pictures for the other record.

I tried googling it and found these two articles, but they seem to be geared at combining datasets, rather than working within a dataset.

Is there a way to do this cleanly?

Thanks!

Edit: This tool here:

Re: Retaining attachments while merging two records in the same feature class

MicZatorsky_AEC — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 05:13:27 GMT

Did you try setting the Maintain Attachments Environment setting? The Merge doco shows it as supported.

Re: Retaining attachments while merging two records in the same feature class

AlfredBaldenweck — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 17:12:17 GMT

That's for the Merge (Data Management) tool for use between different datasets.
I'm looking for Merge (Editing) for use inside a singular dataset. Thank you though!

Re: Retaining attachments while merging two records in the same feature class

Scott_Harris — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 18:01:25 GMT

Hi @AlfredBaldenweck

It's currently not possible to use the Merge (modify tool) and have all attachments carry over; however, the attachment table is editable, so you could manually update the attribute on the attachments that store the related record's ID.

Re: Retaining attachments while merging two records in the same feature class

AlfredBaldenweck — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 19:32:56 GMT

Thanks for the response.

Is it possible to do that in ArcGIS Pro with features hosted on AGOL, or can it only be done once a hosted feature has been exported to a gdb on desktop?

Thanks!

Re: Retaining attachments while merging two records in the same feature class

MicZatorsky_AEC — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 23:32:34 GMT

Append, then merge?

Re: Retaining attachments while merging two records in the same feature class

Scott_Harris — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 17:10:03 GMT

@AlfredBaldenweck Oh I'm sorry, yes, it seems the workaround that I suggested would only be applicable if you have access to the attachments table (i.e. in a local GDB).