AGO feature service from shapefile

[Anonymous User]

I need some clarification on two things. First, when creating a feature service by uploading a zipped shapefile, is it possible to simply update that feature service? I'm running into an issue where, after updating a shapefile with a new zip file, I try to re-publish the updated shapefile as a feature service and instead of simply overwriting the service, I receiving an error that the feature service "already exists". I thought the point of creating feature services was so that they could be easily updated/overwritten when needed? Is this not the case? The error says the service must be deleted in order to publish with the same name. This would defeat the purpose since all the symbology, etc of the service has been saved. Deleted it and creating a new one requires to re-symbolize and re-create all the work done already.

My second issue is I have two users in our AGO account - User A is the Admin, User B is a publisher. User B uploads a shapefile and creates a service and shares that service with the organization. From within 10.1, I login as User A, the Admin, and load that shapefile into ArcMap. When I login into AGO in ArcMap and choose to share as -> service -> overwrite service, that feature service User B created from a shapefile is not available. Again, by creating and sharing a feature service, is that not the point to allow the service to be updated? I tried logging into AGO as both User A and User B and, even though the service shows up when logged in as User B, it will not allow me to publish or overwrite the service.

I guess bottom line I need clarification on what the difference is between publishing a feature service from within ArcMap and creating a feature service from uploading a zipped shapefile are. In my mind, it should be the same thing. But in reality, its not.

[MikeMinami]

You need to delete the existing service first. The shapefile and feature service are two separate items. The system doesn't currently maintain a relationship between the shapefile item and the resulting published feature service. You are also correct that there is no way currently to maintain any configuration work done to the existing feature service. So you lose your symbolization and popups. This is an area we need to do more work. Some things are easily maintained, like symbology. However for popups, it gets trickier because field may have been added or removed.

ArcGIS Desktop doesn't recognize the administrator role other than as a publisher. So, you don't have any ability to manage the organization's services from Desktop. Like I mentioned above with the website, services published through desktop currently don't have any relationship with the source service definition (.SD file).

As far as the differences between uploading a shapefile in the website vs publishing from desktop, there are several.

When uploading a shapefile to the website, you can only have the one shapefile in the resulting service. You can't specify any symbology in the shapefile.

When publishing from desktop, you can have multiple layers in the resulting service. You can specify symbology of the layers. You also have the ability to simultaneously create a feature service and a tiled map service. You can also define editor templates that come across in the service.

In summary, I agree that we need to refine this area more. Over time, you'll see changes/improvements.

thanks,

Mike

[Anonymous User]

Thanks Mike. That helps clear up a few things. I guess in the end I'm not sure why a feature service created by a zipped shapefile or published from desktop should be any different. If I publish a layer from desktop, and I change symbols and add fields, its very easy to overwrite the feature service from desktop, and it works great. I guess I assumed creating a feature service from a zipped shapefile would do the same thing, and simply "updating" the shapefile and re-publishing the service would do the same thing. The reason I ask this is I'm the only one in our office with 10.1. My part-time gis tech doesn't have 10.1, so he can only upload things through the web.

I guess until that is enhanced I will have to take on the role of publishing data.

Is there a plan to allow an organization's "admin" to view and update feature services created from other users? My other option is any data/services my tech uploads to his account, I should move to the "admin" account in order to manage. Definitly some room for improvement in linking data and accounts. Thanks.