topic Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup in ArcGIS Runtime SDK for iOS Questions

Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

KristofferStenersen — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 10:22:06 GMT

Hi,

An app use the AGSPopupsContainerViewController for offline feature editing (AGSGDBFeatures obtained from an offline synced AGSGDBFeatureTable). The popups editor is nice and implementation is efficient.. But this setup seem to have some limitations:

The administrator of this app sometimes needs to do domain changes to the feature services, i.e adding coded values for some of the fields.

Now, these changes does not seem to propagate out to the clients when synchonizing the offline database.

I´ve been able to work around this by setting up a temporary AGSFeatureLayer with a corresponding AGSFeature, matching the AGSGDB table and feature.. But yeah, it´s not a very pretty fix.

Any ideas on how to make a better solution to this?

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

YueWu1 — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:47:29 GMT

Hi Kristoffer,

I am not really sure what do you mean by "adding coded values for some of the fields".

Do you mean adding a new coded value to an existed data schema or adding a feature with one of the existing coded value from the service?

And when edited in offline mode it can't sync back right?

Would you elaborated a little bit detail?

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

KristofferStenersen — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 07:24:41 GMT

Hi!

The admin adds new coded values to an existing schema. An example looking at ArcGIS rest services directory for one of the layers:

MyFieldName ( type: esriFieldTypeString , alias: MyAlias , editable: true , nullable: true , length: 30 , Coded Values: , , , ...72 more... )

After creating an offline gdb on the client, these 72 values propagate out to the popups editor in the client, making the end user choose which value to set for this field. But, when admin adds value 73, we´ve not been able to get this last value out to the client.

It seems that synchonization does not update the schema/available coded values for the feature tables?

Thanks!

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

SwenWaschk — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 08:21:31 GMT

Hi,

Doesn't the admin have to update the mapservice as well. So not only the data and the datasheme?

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

KristofferStenersen — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 08:30:18 GMT

Hi! The admin performs a restart of the feature service in order to get the new values visible on the rest interface.

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

SwenWaschk — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 08:35:02 GMT

Does he also refresh the app?

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

KristofferStenersen — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 08:38:25 GMT

If you by refresh mean synchronizing the AGSGDBGeodatabase, then yes.

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

SwenWaschk — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 08:43:09 GMT

no, I think the admin needs to update the popup. Because basicly you're changing the input of the app and seeing that it doesn't work probably means that the popup also needs to be changed with a change in the domain of the geodatabase.

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

KristofferStenersen — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 08:55:34 GMT

We don´t maintain any popups. In the app, I´m setting up the popup using

poupInfo = [AGSPopupInfo popupInfoForGDBFeatureTable:agsFeature.table];

[[AGSPopup alloc] initWithGDBFeature:gdbFeature popupInfo:popupInfo];

Creating a default AGSPopupInfo on the information from the feature table.

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

YueWu1 — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 18:15:50 GMT

Hi Kristoffer,

Thanks for your detail information. One thing I want to make sure is that when the app running in online mode, can the popup container see the updated coded value (as you mentioned the 73th value)?

The reason I ask this is because if your application keep in offline mode, it will loading the old offline gdb file, which means the data scheme only have 72 values, and it can not get the updated schema. The app need to download a new offline gdb first and then can sync with new added coded value.

Please let me know if you have any other concern about this question.

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

KristofferStenersen — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 19:11:02 GMT

Hi!

This app does not have an online mode - as it mainly operate in a disconnected environment. We figured it´s more user friendly to hide the concept of online and offline mode to the end users - all they need to know about is a "synchronize"-operation, and the app always run in "offline" mode.

Also, it is hard for us to build the re-create offline gdb into the workflow - the dataset is large and expensive to re-create when not on wifi (both in terms of cellular fees and time).

Thanks for clearifying this!

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

MichaelDavis3 — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 19:29:21 GMT

Hi - just want to confirm what you are saying still applies.

If we add additional entries to a geodatabase domain those values are not updated in existing offline geodatabases when we sync. This is what is currently happening in our apps, and to be honest is not ideal, especially when a minor domain update could require re-downloading an entire database.

Are there any plans to include domain changes in the sync process in the future?

As it stands now we are having to replace many of our domains with geodatabase tables for things like crew names, or animal/plant lists that might be updated throughout a project.

Re: Updating domain/coded values in an offline setup

KristofferStenersen — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 19:38:17 GMT

We worked around this by fetching and persisting as fresh copies as possible of the feature layer definitions of all relevant layers. Since they contain all domain values, we present these to the user when editing a domain attribute.