Per Esri's documentation, Attribute Rules and Contingent Values are not supported in geodatabase replicas. I reached out to Esri Technical Support to ask what would happen if we implemented Attribute Rules on a child geodatabase participating in a two-way replica (Esri case 03438244). They tested that workflow and did not turn up any issues, but reiterated that it is not a supported workflow and recommended against implementing it without taking regular backups for disaster recovery purposes.
I would like to see Esri create a supported workflow for using Attribute Rules on replica databases. While I do not need to replicate the rules between the parent and the child, I can imagine that it would be useful functionality. Here is our current workflow:
- County GIS has the master NG911 geodatabase. This includes, but is not limited to, address points and road centerlines.
- City GIS (my organization) has a child two-way replica database of the master NG911 geodatabase. We are responsible for maintaining geodata within our city limits, as we are the authoritative source for addressing in this area.
- Each address point and road centerline has attributes related to the zones that intersect. For example, an address point must be assigned a fire response zone and a law response zone. The city uses Attribute Rules to auto-populate these fields based on their intersection with the polygon layers that track that information.
We have several other rules (auto-incrementing IDs, for example), but one example of the utility of Attribute Rules should be sufficient.
