topic Unique Indexes in Versioned Feature Classes are not possible? in Data Management Questions

Unique Indexes in Versioned Feature Classes are not possible?

AdrianGay — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 15:54:22 GMT

Dear ESRI Community, This question comes in two parts

Firstly – Can anyone confirm that if the Feature Classes we create are versioned this means then that it is IMPOSSIBLE to create unique indexes on any of the Feature Class Columns? You cannot therefore constrain unique data in any of the Feature Classes.

Secondly – This being the case has anyone a possible work round for this problem? Not being able to constrain uniqueness in data model fields is a fairly basic requirement.

You may be asking.... why ask this question…

Why do we want versioned Feature Classes – for offline capability

Why do we want uniqueness on fields – to force data integrity

It would seem in this thread this lack of capability (no unique indexes) is documented - https://community.esri.com/message/614898

Has anyone else found this a limitation?

Any suggestion on how to get round this?

Grateful for any suggestions

Regards Adrian

Re: Unique Indexes in Versioned Feature Classes are not possible?

ChrisDonohue__GISP — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 16:41:38 GMT

I'm not sure if this will directly answer your question or be the exact solution, but one topic you may want to explore is the use of Global ID's for data replication.

GlobalID

[ESRI software] A field of type UUID (Universal Unique Identifier) in which values are automatically assigned by the geodatabase when a row is created. The GlobalID field is necessary for maintaining object uniqueness across replicas. All feature classes and tables participating in one-way or two-way replication must contain the GlobalID field. This field is not editable and is automatically populated when it is added for existing data.

Source: globalid | Definition - Esri Support GIS Dictionary

Add Global IDs—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Chris Donohue, GISP

Re: Unique Indexes in Versioned Feature Classes are not possible?

AdrianGay — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 08:02:02 GMT

Hi thanks for the comment

Most of our data objects have a Global ID so that the entire records are unique ... this is not really the question I was asking - I am looking to constrain data fields for uniqueness (normally done with unique index on a field / column ) - which appears to be not possible when the data objects are versioned.

Re: Unique Indexes in Versioned Feature Classes are not possible?

Asrujit_SenGupta — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 08:20:09 GMT

There are a lot of links discussing this expected "as designed" behavior:

FAQ: Can I build a unique or ascending index on an ArcSDE feature class or table?

Error: Failed to register as versioned. Unique indexes can't be specified for multiversioned tables

Error: Failed to register as versioned. Unique indexes can not be specified for multiversioned tables

https://community.esri.com/thread/69734