Collaboration by reference: what changes trigger an update?

[MichaelJenkins]

We are protoyping a workflow in which a Distributed Collaboration between AGE and AGO is used to create items in our Portal that will reference the source hosted feature Views in AGO.

Since we are doing this 'by reference' and not by copy, there is no sync trigger based on data edits.  Besides Hosted Feature View items being added or deleted, what changes to those items will stay in sync?

Early testing is suggesting changes in AGO to Summary, Description, Category, delete protection and authoritative badges are not picked up on the Portal side.  Haven't tested Metadata changes yet, but that would be something we want, too.

Do changes to the *item* properties in a colaboration get synced to the guest, or does the guest just get all of those properties the first time it is created and is then allowed to drift out of sync?

[Scott_Tansley]

By reference means that the data and items stay in AGO.  They are not copied, as you say.  So any items/resources created in AGE will use the AGO 'item' directly, therefore the latest data will always be displayed.  There is no trigger as such.  A pan/zoom by a Web Map hosted in AGE will see the latest data in AGO.

[MichaelJenkins]

Yes, that much is clear about the 'by reference' nature as far as the hosted feature layer data goes.  

Here is what I mean, more specifically.  A hosted feature layer is an Item on AGO, with lots of properties like a summary, description, tags, etc., in addition to the URL to the feature service.  The Collaboration will cause an identical item to be created on the Portal, pointing to the same feature service.

If we change something about that Item in AGO, such as the description text, then the Collaboration should, presumably, see the item was modified and then update the description on the Portal's version of that item. 

Right?   The Items in a collaboration aren't always data, they can be apps, web maps, even PDF documents.   In those cases there is no "data" to update other than the properties of the Items being collaborated.

This page describes what types of items can be shared in a colloration, and under "files" it calls out that "Item comments are not synced with collaboration participants."

So my question, and hope, it that the other properties of the item will stay in sync?   So far, when we change the description on the host item we are not seeing that reflected in the Guest's item's description.

[MichaelJenkins · Accepted solution]

Our conclusion is that the items do not stay in sync in a by reference Distributed Collaboration.   They are only created or deleted.  This is based on both direct observations of the behaviour and on a response from an Esri support analyst.