Link Charts In ArcGIS Pro vs ArcGIS Knowledge
@COSPNWGuy - Thanks for the question. You are right about the key distinction you mentioned. The default localized Link Charts in ArcGIS Pro can be thought of as Feature Link Charts, or Map-Based Link Charts. The Link Charts in ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS AllSource, based on ArcGIS Knowledge Investigations, can be considered Investigation Based Link Charts. I've summarized some key distinctions below.
To your ultimate question about when to use which one, that will boil down to how you want to manage the relevant data (more centrally or locally), what kind of analyses you are doing (do you need robust selection and exploration tools), who is doing the analyses (are multiple analysts contributing), and how big and complex is your data. We think of Feature Link Charts as a simple starter tool for simple use cases to start visualizing links without needing to do as much prep to your data. But the limitations will likely leave you wanting more features that come with a knowledge graph based approach.
Feature Link Charts
- Based on geodatabase features (RDBMS), where the data can be local or based on services
- Dependent on Map Items within a project
- Entities and Relationships are defined and stored within each map
- Link charts shows all the linked data from the connected features(no subselections)
Knowledge Graph Link Charts
- Based on the graph database store entities & relationships
- Independent items or views within a project
- Entities and Relationships are defined and created once at graph database level
- Can persist subsets of the linked data in multiple Link Chart views without needing to edit input layers
There are other differences in the selection tools, and kinds of link and graph analytics that can be done on each as well, as summarized in the graph below.
