Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

[JeremyBrown4]

I have been searching the community site for a while looking for an answer to this question, but every time I see it asked there is no response from ESRI. I will go ahead and @AlixVezina , since she wrote the last article I read on the new Edit widget in ExB. 

My question is, are there any plans to updated the new Edit widget in ExB to include the Copy Features functionality that the WAB version currently has? If not, will there be some combination of features or Arcade functionality to accomplish this task, or will it simply be unavailable in ExB? 

[SDIGITAFB]

Hi, I’d like to share some feedback regarding the new copy/paste functionality. While it’s a step forward, it seems there is still a significant gap compared to what we had in Web AppBuilder.

Currently, it appears we can only copy features from layers already configured in the Edit widget. For our workflow, we need the ability to copy features from external sources (like Living Atlas or other public layers) into our editable layers. The current implementation feels more like a 'duplicate' tool rather than a true cross-source copy tool. Is this a known limitation, or are there plans to expand this to all data sources in the app?

Given these missing core capabilities, I personally don't believe this topic should be marked as "Solved" yet, as the current solution doesn't reach functional parity with the previous tools.

[Bud]

@AlixVezina 

There are limitations with copying/pasting attachments, too.

If the source feature has an attachment, it doesn't get pasted into the destination feature. And we can't manually add attachments to the destination feature until we save the new destination feature, and then update it afterwards.

[AlixVezina · Accepted solution]

@SDIGITAFB Copying features from non-editable reference layers in the map is supported.

Here's a sample you can try out: Create Evacuation Zones

The web map contains the USA ZIP Code Boundaries (a non-editable reference feature layer), along with the Evacuations editable hosted feature layer that you can paste into.

Since the reference layer is not editable, you'll need to use other selection tools than the one included with the Edit widget to select the features to copy. For example, you can use the Select tool in the Map widget.

You can also use the Add Data widget to add layers to the map use copy features from those layers to paste into your editable layers.

[SDIGITAFB]

It seems difficult to make this work because there needs to be only one layer underneath the selection (unless I’m mistaken, but that’s the conclusion I’ve reached after testing).
A useful improvement could be to replicate the Web AppBuilder behavior: when copy is enabled, display the list of features grouped by layer and let the user choose which ones to copy.

When you say “non-editable”, are you still referring to a feature layer? Or does this also include map layers?

[VictoriaC]

This has been one of the more important updates to experience builder, thank you! This is an essential task when getting preplans into a deployment scenario and was not a fan of using multiple apps to use the copy/paste feature. Now we can stay in ExB!

[Bud]

What are the rules when copying/pasting a feature into a different feature layer?