topic Re: Field Level Metadata in State & Local Government Questions

Field Level Metadata

Corbinde_Bruin — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:38:56 GMT

Hi all,

I'm ultimately looking to create metadata on the field level. ArcCatalog only seems to let you add metadata down to the feature class level.

I thought X-Ray for ArcCatalog was my answer, but it doesn't seem to let me change field description and load the XML back into the same geodatabase that I exported the XML from. My understanding is that I can only load an XML with new field descriptions into an empty geodatabase. I would very much like to be proven wrong here if anyone knows differently.

If X-Ray for ArcCatalog isn't the answer for this problem, does anyone know of a way to do this?

Also, I understand I can just save out an excel file with the descriptions, but I'd ultimately like this data to be stored in the geodatabase itself.

Thank you in advance,
cdebruin

Re: Field Level Metadata

ScottOppmann — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:52:03 GMT

You are correct, Xray for ArcCatalog does work with XML workspace documents and you'd have to reload your data once you created a new schema with the metadata definitions. ArcCatalog does allow you to add metadata to individual fields, you just need to dig in to the feature class properties.

Scott

Re: Field Level Metadata

Corbinde_Bruin — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:03:43 GMT

ArcCatalog does allow you to add metadata to individual fields, you just need to dig in to the feature class properties.

Really? I've honestly been looking for this for years. Can you send a screen shot or a link to where this is outlined? I'm going back through every tab in Feature Class Properties and I just don't see it. I want it to be like a thrid column next to 'Field Name' and 'Data Type.' I just have never found it.

Thank you for the fast response Scott.

Re: Field Level Metadata

ScottOppmann — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 12:36:09 GMT

Its not in the properties dialog for a feature class. Its actually in the metadata sheet. Click on the description tab in ArcCatalog (when you have the proper feature class selected), then click Edit. You'll find a category called Fields under the Resource tab in the left panel of the metadata sheet.

Hope this helps.

Scott

Re: Field Level Metadata

Corbinde_Bruin — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 18:23:12 GMT

I can't find a left panel or a Resource tab from the edit description interface.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]19113[/ATTACH]

All I have on the left is the Catalog Tree.
Perhaps I have to check on that panel somewhere?
I right-clicked all over the place looking for it.

Thank you for your continued responses Scott.

Re: Field Level Metadata

MichaelVolz — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 18:28:29 GMT

Corbin:

You might need to change the Metadata Style in the Customize->ArcCatalog Options->Metadata tab.

I needed to change it to FGDC CSDGM Metadata in order to access the Fields information.

In addition, if the feature class is stored in SDE, then you would need to have sufficient privileges to edit metadata. In my organization, data is categorized via schema and the schema owner is given metadata editing privileges.

I hope this info helps.

Re: Field Level Metadata

Corbinde_Bruin — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:26:45 GMT

Oh gosh, there it is.

Thank you Mike. I had no idea there was another way to display metadata. This is going to help greatly.

Next question, is there any way to batch add field description entities?

Re: Field Level Metadata

ScottOppmann — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 02:29:37 GMT

Corbin,

There isn't a way to batch edit field definitions in ArcCatalog, only one field at a time. You may be able to script it with Python, not sure about that though. We use X-ray for ArcCatalog to do geodatabase design work like this. It has several tools that help you to edit the field, feature, and domain definitions.

Scott

Re: Field Level Metadata

sukfahsringangam — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 05:00:03 GMT

Hi all,

Thanks you Scott for suggestion to edit field description in geodatabase. I use X-ray for ArcCatalog to do. But my geodatabase has 5 datasets and 93 feature classes. Several feature classes has the same field name. I tried to use X-ray for ArcCatalog to edit field description for each feature class. But X-ray for ArcCatalog will provide a list of unique field names for the entire Geodatabase.

My Question is : How to identify the different field description in excel spreadsheet for each feature classes.

Sukfah.