topic Re: Conditional Domains in Data Management Questions

Conditional Domains

MarkYoung — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 10:28:01 GMT

Hi all,
Does anyone know if it is possible to have 'conditional' domains. For example a value of commercial in field1 would spawn a domain in the next field of C1 C2 C3 etc whereas a value of residential in field1 would spawn a domain with R1 R2 R3 etc..

Thanks
Mark

Re: Conditional Domains

MarcoBoeringa — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 12:50:09 GMT

Hi all,
Does anyone know if it is possible to have 'conditional' domains. For example a value of commercial in field1 would spawn a domain in the next field of C1 C2 C3 etc whereas a value of residential in field1 would spawn a domain with R1 R2 R3 etc..

Thanks
Mark

Yes, this is possible. In order to do this, you need to create subtypes. See the following Help pages:

A quick tour of subtypes
Working with subtypes

Re: Conditional Domains

MarkYoung — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 14:29:48 GMT

Hi,
Thanks - I now have a sub type (field2) based on field1
I tried to create a second sub type (field3) based on field2 but it will only let me base it on field1 - is it possible to create a sub type of a sub type?
Thanks
Mark

Re: Conditional Domains

MarcoBoeringa — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 15:48:33 GMT

To be honest, I have never used subtypes in real-life, so its getting a bit theoretical here, but I am pretty sure subtypes can't be "nested". So you will have to adjust your geodatabase design to accommodate for this limitation. E.g. by creating separate Feature Classes for the different fields you want subtypes on.

Re: Conditional Domains

MarkYoung — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 05:54:07 GMT

Hi,
Thinking that as well.. What I might do is link to an excel spreadsheet and create the nested sub types there - see if that works,
Thank you for your help with this anyway.
Mark

Re: Conditional Domains

MatthewGerber3 — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 06:22:32 GMT

I am interested on this same topic. It is something I am able to do in Excel which is called dependent drop downs and was want to extend this to GIS databases. (Pipelines can be made of particular material, then each material is constructed to particular standards, and each standard has only certain sizes available)

But taking Mark's same example and rewording it.

Say you have the following fields:

- Landuse

- Density

- Structure Type

Landuse = Residential, Commercial, Industry

Density (For Residential) = Low, Medium or High

Density (For Commercial) = Services, Offices

Density (For Industry) = Light, Heavy, Hi-Tech

Structure type (for Residential - Low) = Single Dwelling, Acerage

Structure type (for Residential - Medium) = Townhouse, Duplex

Structure type (for Residential - High) = Units, High Rise, Hotel

Structure type (for Commercial - Services) = Automotive, Retail, Health

Structure type (for Commercial - Offices) = Finance, Resources,Government

Structure type (for Industry - Light) = Agricultural

Structure type (for Industry - Heavy) = Mining, Manufacturing

Structure type (for Industry - Hi-Tech) = Medical equipment, Computer manufacturing

And for these fields you would like only valid domains to be displayed in the drop downs as you go along the attribute table.

eg.

I choose landuse = residential

I only want Density - low, medium,high to be displayed in the drop down box.

Then when I choose Medium... I only want structure type = townhouse or duplex to be displayed in that attributes drop down box.

Hope that clears up Mike's question

Thanks

Re: Conditional Domains

AnninaHirschi_Wyss1 — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 10:15:18 GMT

Hi mgerbz‌, Did you find out something how to do this? Would be very interested in that possibility too...

Re: Conditional Domains

MatthewGerber3 — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 02:11:02 GMT

Hi a.hirschi-wyssesri-rw-esridist‌, No i did not. I got the short answer of, It is not able to be done in a standard geodatabse setup / by ESRI software parameters. I have a theory that in the SQL/Oracle RDMS geodatabase world, you could expose this type of methodology into an enterprise geodatabase. However have not progressed on this any further.

Re: Conditional Domains

NickAddison — Tue, 28 May 2024 17:21:43 GMT

Reviving this old thread . . . Did you ever find a solution to this?

Re: Conditional Domains

RobertKrisher — Wed, 29 May 2024 13:45:24 GMT

@NickAddison The original accepted solution for this question issue is from 11 years ago (oof) is subtypes, which allow for different domains and default values for each subtype. Since then, Esri has also introduced contingent values, which allows for contingency between domain values without requiring subtypes.