Collector offline with vector and raster tiles at the same time

[JacksonTrappett]

Is it possible to use a raster and vector tile layer in the new Collector at the same time?

In the old version of collector, we would make tile packages of the aerial imagery with vector features included (roads, percels, etc.) and side load them.  Now that vector tiles are available, we also have vector tile packages for our vector data, and in web maps we just put the raster aerial imagery and vector layers together.  Can we do this in the new collector?  This would allow the vector tiles to be updated separately from the aerial imagery -- much faster and more efficient as we only get new aerial imagery every other year, but we update our vectors as often as every day.

I've seen where we can specify a tile package that is side loaded, but it only lets us pick one, a vector OR a raster, not both at once.  If we try to add the vector tiles to the web map, then it no longer allows us to take it offline.  Is there some other way that we haven't found yet?

Thank you!

[DougBrowning]

I totally agree I have been asking for this for years.  Even talked to the team about it.

I have no idea why they keep making basemaps with vector tiles.  Vectors are for, well, vectors.  Blending vector tiles for features and raster for basemaps seems like the perfect solution.  I waited a year for vector tiles and then was like - oh why is it this way?  I just do not get it.

We ended up having someone build a 3rd party app to do it.  We could stack up roads, streams, etc all over the top of a imagery basemap.  Then we could turn them all on/off etc.  Was so slick.

Big upvote!

https://community.esri.com/community/gis/applications/collector-for-arcgis/blog/2017/09/06/the-auror... 

One thing to try though.  I found that if you build the vector tiles then upload it to AGOL as a layer you can add it to a map and it will take it offline for you.  You can then stack them in.  There is also now a way to update that central vector tile layer so then all your maps and tablets update.  Of course when you have ok at best signal this is not so great.  I like that I can sideload at specific times or mail out sd cards.

Hope that helps

[MiaogengZhang]

You should be able to configure vector tile to support offline and work together with raster imagery tiled layer with offline capability. Actually Esri World imagery hybrid basemap is raster imagery tile with vector tile layer: https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=86265e5a4bbb4187a59719cf134e0018  

You can consider sideloading aerial imagery basemap and add your vector tile layer as a operational layer make sure it is offline capable if you want to take offline. 

[JacksonTrappett]

Thank you! The part we've had trouble with is making sure the vector tile is offline capable, is there documentation on how to set that up?  When we added a vector tile to our map as an operational layer, it removed the offline capability of the map.

[MiaogengZhang · Accepted solution]

Here is the doc Publish hosted vector tile layers—ArcGIS Online Help | Documentation. After publishing, the setting of the item has one offline option, you need to check it.

>  When we added a vector tile to our map as an operational layer, it removed the offline capability of the map.

If you use vector tile as basemap, the map has offline capability. But if you use it as operational layer, the map removed offline capability. If it happens, you can check the basemap layer. If you are using Esri basemap at ArcGIS Enterprise, you need to add it as proxy basemap to support offline. 

[JacksonTrappett]

Awesome - we did not know about that checkbox - I took a look and found it.  It was unchecked so I turned it on - we will test out with collector and see if that fixes our issue!

Thank you!