topic Automate attribution update? in Data Management Questions

Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 11:42:18 GMT

Hi guys,

I have a project I am working on which involves me snapping one set of nodes to another set, one by one.

Once this is done I need to update 2 blank fields in one node. One involves copying the item number from one node to the other. And the other update involves inserting a number into a blank field to indicate the node has been paired.

I wondered if there is a way to automate this? i presume this would involve some Python scripting which I am fairly new to, so any simplified advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Ray

Re: Automate attribution update?

WesMiller — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 13:46:05 GMT

You could use model builder to do it. The tools you'll need are listed below.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RichardFairhurst — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:21:34 GMT

Using Attribute Assistant is the only automation that happens as soon as you edit a feature. It has an an Intersecting_Feature method (or a few other options) for filling in the first field and an Equation or GenerateID method to fill in the second field.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:42:54 GMT

Thanks for the reply, will this work with data from a personal geodatabase?

Re: Automate attribution update?

RichardFairhurst — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 15:18:54 GMT

It will work. One of the bug fixes mentions that it was specifically done to make one of the Attribute Assistant dialogs work correctly for a personal geodatabase.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 13:19:12 GMT

Thanks Richard,

Do you know which download I require? It is not a standalone download, there are several options.. I'm not sure which I should be using.

Thanks,

Ray.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RichardFairhurst — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 20:43:49 GMT

I downloaded the Address Data Management templates for the Local Government Information Model, since my main dataset deals with roads. However, it doesn't really matter which one you pick as far as the Attribute Assistant toolbar, since that will come with any of the templates and you would be customizing it for your specific needs anyway. So just download any of the LGIM templates to start.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 15:58:37 GMT

OK thanks for your help Richard, I'll try and download it tonight. Once I have tried it out I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks again.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 18:40:32 GMT

Hi Richard,

I have added the attribute assistant to my mxd and was about to setup the dynamic table... But Im unsure how to create the Value Method to copy one field from another layer to the field in this layer? This requires knowledge of visual basic syntax?

I cant seem to find much on this when googling so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ray.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RichardFairhurst — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 21:57:59 GMT

Here is an example of an INTERSECTING_FEATURE record in the DynamicValue table:

OBJECTID *	Table Name	Field Name	Value Method	Value Info	On Create	On Change (Attribute)	On Change (Geometry)	Manual Only	Rule Weight	Comments
193	CENTERLINE	CITY_LEFT	INTERSECTING_FEATURE	ZIP_CODES_WITH_CITIES\|CITY\|C	True	False	True	False	1	<Null>

Table Name is the target layer with the field that needs to be completed by another intersecting layer

Field Name is the field name in the target layer

Value Method is INTERSECTING_FEATURE (any one of the Attribute Assistant methods)

Value Info is made up of 3 components separated by a | character. The components are: Intersecting source Feature Class Name|Field Name in the source Feature Class|C(Centroid match) (alternatively I could have used P for Prompt for an option or F for using the first feature intersected)

On Create is set to True so that the moment the feature creation is finished the attribute will be updated.

On Change (Attribute) is set to False, since it doesn't need to refresh due to an attribute change.

On Change (Geometry) is set to True so that any change in geometry refreshes the attribute (the intersecting feature should have been fixed first before the target feature geometry changes).

Manual Only is false, but it could be true if I want to use the Attribute Assistant toolbar to force a refresh

Rule Wieght is optional but I ususally set it to 1

Comments provides any explanation of the purpose or use of the rule.

An Expression update does needs to have its Value Info written the same way you would write a VB Script field calculation. Use the field calculator to test your expressions and ask for help here if you have problems with a specific equation.

Re: Automate attribution update?

DarrenWiens2 — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 22:09:40 GMT

Once this is done I need to update 2 blank fields in one node. One involves copying the item number from one node to the other. And the other update involves inserting a number into a blank field to indicate the node has been paired.

Since you're doing this after you've completed your editing, I'm not sure why Spatial Join, which will transfer all the attributes from the old nodes to the intersecting/nearest (?) new nodes, wouldn't take care of this for you.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 13:06:48 GMT

Hi Richard,

Thank you for the detailed reply, it was very helpful. I actually spent some more time on it after my previous post and was heading in this direction, thankyou for confirming. I will hopefully get this set up soon and will let you know how I get on.

Thanks again.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 13:10:00 GMT

Hi Darren,

Yes I may look into spatial join after i have managed to get attribute assistant working.

The reason i didnt use spatial join is that the table ares amended in microsoft access after I have moved the nodes to the correct position and updated attribution.

Creating a spatial join would create a new merged table, so now we would have three tables? I do not currently have control over the data after I have edited it so it maybe something i could pursue in the future.

Thanks.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 11:22:30 GMT

Hi Richard, Intersecting_feature works perfectly, thank you.

I was trying to do the second part which involves updating another field to the value of 1 to indicate the nodes have been paired.

I entered another record into the dynamic value table to do this and tried using Field_Trigger but the field did not seem to get updated.

Is there a different method I should be using?

I have been running the attribute assistant manually, so once I have selected several nodes I run the attribute assistant, which now copies the field from the snapped node into this node, but now I need another filed to be updated to 1.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ray.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RichardFairhurst — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 00:29:00 GMT

I would use the EXPRESSION method, which can verify that the Node_ID field is not NULL before changing the other field to 1.

The Expression record in the Dynamic Table must have been inserted after the record that intersects the node for this to work and the Rule Weight must be Equal To or Greater Than the value for the Rule Weight of the Node Intersect rule.

OBJECTID *	Table Name	Field Name	Value Method	Value Info	On Create	On Change (Attribute)	On Change (Geometry)	Manual Only	Rule Weight	Comments
193	CENTERLINE	CITY_LEFT	EXPRESSION	IIF(IsNull([NODE_ID]),[CITY_LEFT],1)	False	False	False	True	1	<Null>

In the rule above, the expression determines if a field named NODE_ID is Null. If NODE_ID is Null it does not change the CITY_LEFT value (it sets the value of CITY_LEFT to itself so that it retains is current value), otherwise it sets CITY_LEFT to 1

Edit 3/24/2016 - Added missing end parenthesis to Value Info expression.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 15:19:02 GMT

Hi Richard,

Thanks again for a detailed reply. I am going to try and implement this tonight.

I had one other question for you..

Is there a way to get attribute assistant to work on version 10.0 ArcGIS? I have been using it successfully on higher versions(on a different laptop) but now I am stuck with version 10.0 and not able to upgrade.

Thanks,

Ray.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RichardFairhurst — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 17:05:53 GMT

It looks like you can get a download of the 10.0 version here: http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=e35580f27bce4782b95ea8296ac60927

Let me know if that link has what you need.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 10:48:31 GMT

Hello Richard,

Thanks for the link. That does work and I have installed it with my version of arcgis 10.0.

For some reason though attribute assistant posts an error message saying 'no editable layers from selected features' when trying to run the attribution update on selected nodes.

Not sure why this is as it worked fine with the current version of attribute assistant and arcgis 10.4.

Maybe INTERSECTING_FEATURE is not supported on the earlier version of attribute assistant.

I will try and investigate more today.

Thanks Richard.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RichardFairhurst — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 14:57:24 GMT

I wonder if somehow the geodatabases have been upgraded to 10.1 version and that is affecting Attribute Assistant, although I would have thought that would cause them to fail to draw in a 10.0 map. To test if Attribute Assistant is the problem I would create a new 10.0 geodatabase and two FCs with the same schema and names and run the rule on them to see if the error still occurs.

It looks like Attribute Assistant was very new with 10.0, since it is not mentioned in the help and a blog was written by the Esri developers asking for user feedback on how it was being used. The link in that blog to the Attribute Assistant site now says only versions 10.1 and up are supported.

Re: Automate attribution update?

RobRees — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 10:00:32 GMT

Hi Richard, trying to get the expression to work.. is there a parentheses missing in the code?

Thanks,

Rob