topic Re: Soft delete with editor widget in ArcGIS Web AppBuilder Questions

Soft delete with editor widget

Tevfik_ÇağrıDural1 — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 14:43:24 GMT

Is it possible to soft delete the data with editing widget?

Re: Soft delete with editor widget

RobertScheitlin__GISP — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:03:41 GMT

Whats a soft delete?

Re: Soft delete with editor widget

Tevfik_ÇağrıDural1 — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:49:08 GMT

I might want to bring "soft" deleted data back. So users think that they deleted the data and will not be able to read or change it, but administrators can read and bring them back.

A better explanation of soft delete Definition from PC Magazine Encyclopedia

Re: Soft delete with editor widget

RobertScheitlin__GISP — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 12:39:41 GMT

Tevfik,

OK, sorry I don't have a suggestion for that then.

Re: Soft delete with editor widget

DerekLaw — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 15:07:48 GMT

Hi Tevfik,

I suppose if you configured the Edit Widget with a feature service with a data source that's an enterprise geodatabase, with a feature class that is registered as versioned, this might be possible. After making edits, you could potentially recover the "deleted" data at the database level (e.g., within the geodatabase) by querying the feature classes' delta tables (A and D tables). This would likely require some custom development work.

Hope this helps,

Re: Soft delete with editor widget

RebeccaStrauch__GISP — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 15:41:09 GMT

Just throwing a few possible workaround (with no scripting suggestion). I have not messed with editing so not sure if any of these are possible or not.

can you have a "status" field that is not displayed, but is used to filter. If deleted, change the flag to "deletepending" or something similar and then filter those out from what you can edit.
or, create a GP service that takes a copy of the deleted line and copies is before getting deleted.
or, keep a pre-edit copy of the data, then post editing have a script to find what has changed.

Pretty brunt force options, but if it's important and if there are no other easier alternatives, sometimes you have to create a few more hoops until something better is available.

Re: Soft delete with editor widget

Tevfik_ÇağrıDural1 — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 13:46:58 GMT

Hello Robert, Rebecca and Derek,

Thank you so much for your time and comments.

Those are really good ideas. I'll be trying all of them.