Complicated model with a lot of nested models

felixBack — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 21:25:00 GMT

Hi everyone,

I have been using modelbuilder for years but very recently got into iterators. I always have a lot of metadata to derive from shapefiles representing lidar mission acquisition (Flightlines, project limits, cover, etc) and put into a geodatabase, so I thought I would automate things a bit.

I have created a big model with 16 nested models doing various tasks and sometimes using the previously created layers to derive more data.

Here is an idea of what it looks like (It aint pretty) with all the user variables listed on the left side.

Four questions :

1. When I created the tool, I was very much into the learning phase. Each nested model was tested individually and I left the inline variables in the nested models and published those as variables outside the nested model. Is this correct ?

My feeling is that I should not have done that, I should have instead created blank nested models, publish the variable I need in the big model and write my inline variable there. Here is one of my nested models showing the problem:

2. I create a lot of intermediate data and sometimes, I find it easier to save a copy of the intermediate data on disk if it has to be used by another nested model. I create a "delete folder" tool at the end to delete all those layers at the end. How how you managing the intermediate data if it needs to be used by another model ?

3. When I verify a model, I get a ton of these mentions :

Is this linked to my inline variable substitution I was speaking about in question 1 ?

4. Sometimes, the shapefiles input by the user creates problems, more specifically when I have this "-" symbol or if the name of the shapefile starts with numbers. Example :

Is everyone using a python script to modify the name temporarily or is there another method ?

Thank you to anyone taking some of his time to read this,

Felix

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Complicated model with a lot of nested models