Cannot overwrite HFS with views?

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04-02-2019 05:04 AM
by Anonymous User
Not applicable

First time I've run into this - we've started using views for quite a few of our authoritative datasets. I just went to update one of the HFS source layers from within Pro and was told that I cannot overwrite a service that has views or sync enabled. What is the point of using views if I can't update the source hosted feature service? Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of having a main source and views built off that? So anytime we want to update the source, we have to delete all the views, update, recreate all the views and make sure they were setup exactly the same as before, what maps/apps they were in, etc.?

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6 Replies
by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Nathan,

Absolutely understand the frustration! It's currently possible to overwrite feature services with views when the following are true:

  • The parent hosted feature layer was published from a file in ArcGIS Online, not from ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap.
  • The hosted feature layer view was not generated by the Join Features analysis tool.
  • You did not define an area of interest on the view.

Here's the documentation that discusses this - https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/manage-data/create-hosted-views.htm#ESRI_SECTION1_15FED91513...

Since it sounds like more freedom on overwriting/updating services with views is something that would really help you out, I'd absolutely recommend logging an Idea on our Ideas page (https://community.esri.com/community/arcgis-ideas/). Views are relatively new functionality, so I'm sure this is a great way to expand it!

MichaelVolz
Esteemed Contributor

The functionality that Nathan is looking for really needs to be added to the hosted feature service view capability without having to vote it up.  I think ESRI should perform some use case analysis on real-world customers who would like this capability and build it right into the product.

by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Nathan,

I was trying to help, but I understand your frustrations. 

Best,

Lauren

KellyGerrow
Esri Frequent Contributor

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your feedback. 

The functionality to overwrite source layers with existing view layers is something that was purposefully designed to prevent data publishers from potentially corrupting existing services and their related views. The overwrite function allows you to completely change the data structure and data with a simple action, for this reason we have some logic to prevent this in certain cases. Overwrite removes all of the data and publishes new data (objectIds, globalIDs, field changes, layer changes, etc.) to the same service name with the same item ID. As there is a complete change of data and potentially schema protections were put in place to ensure it wouldn't be possible to potentially affect dependent layers.

The same concept applies to feature layers with sync enabled. If a layer is published and a user of the layer creates an offline copy, overwriting the data will remove all of the existing data and add new data, making it impossible to synchronize the data. For these reasons, we block the ability to overwrite such layers from ArcGIS Pro.

There are some scenarios in which we could look into how to address this, such as if the schema is not changing, etc. Logging your specific use case on ideas helps the product team to understand the specific workflow that you are trying to accomplish. The votes and comments on Ideas are incredibly helpful to the product team as it gives us the birds eye view of issues that are affecting are users and in many cases insight into specific workflows. Supporting an idea also allows the product team to understand who this idea is important to. If an idea has support and we begin the design phase of a related project, we instantly have a pool of customers to contact and clarify use cases. Receiving votes on an idea helps us to prioritize issues that are affecting many people, but the content and access to our customers who are actively providing feedback through ideas is invaluable.

That being said, ideas and geonet are not the only way that we collect feedback for products at Esri, so if there is a topic or specific workflow that you want to discuss with us, there are a few options to get in contact. If you are attending a conference, please come by the ArcGIS Online area and talk to us about the specific issue. If you aren't attending any conferences and want to have a product conversation, get in contact with your account team and request to provide feedback to the product team (if it's ArcGIS Online, feel free to send me a message directly). If you are running into a bug or have something that you want to track, get in contact with support. Both bugs and enhancements are track-able and log-able through a support case: https://support.esri.com/en/contact-tech-support

If you are looking for an informal conversation or discussion with others who may run into similar issues, I recommend submitting ideas or starting a conversation on Geonet, just like you did here. 

Nathan Frazer‌, if you are looking to update your existing source data, try taking a look at the append workflow. I think this will accomplish what you need:

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-online/data-management/whats-new-with-hosted-featur...

Please let us know if you would like to connect to discuss your specific use cases so that we can find out more about how we can help keep your data up to date, without potentially affecting related views.

-Kelly

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

"to prevent data publishers from potentially corrupting existing services and their related views" - So build this into the roles functionality so that only managers/admins who know what they are doing can do this. A checkbox that says "Allow role to overwrite hfs if views and sync are enabled" with a big warning. If our data is managed in an SDE and only used in AGO, why shouldn't we be able to overwrite services that have views and sync enabled? It doesn't make sense that once things are in AGO we have no way of managing them because Esri says it has to be a certain way. If I overwrite a service and screw up its views, that's my problem and I'll fix it. Don't build the system to prevent me from managing my data for my workforce the way I need/want to. It's amazing how much time I waste in AGO trying to get simple things to work because of restrictions Esri has put in place. Reminds me of that saying "we're protecting you from yourself".

Append won't work because Esri basically has the same restrictions in place. If you have Sync or Views, you can't "update" features, only append new ones. This doesn't work for data that might just simply be moved or have attribute updates (like address points, road centerlines, catch basins, etc.) If we were only adding new features weekly, yes append would work fine. But we're not. Not to mention Append requires exporting our SDE data to a file geodatabase and uploading to AGO everytime. Hence why I'd like to see something in Pro where we can simply overwrite data in AGO from our SDE because at the end of the day, the data is being managed in our SDE, not AGO.

I will be bringing this up to the teams at the UC and also our Account team.

KellyGerrow
Esri Frequent Contributor

Thanks for the feedback Nathan,

I'll reply on the idea also, but would ArcGIS Enterprise - Online Collaboration work for you? Collaboration keeps data that is hosted in ArcGIS Enterprise (often SDE) and pushes the deltas to ArcGIS Online. I think there are still some details to work through with how you would create views from there or if you would create them first, but it would be great to talk through this in more detail. Let us know when you have some time available and lets set up a time to discuss at UC.

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-enterprise/sharing-collaboration/whats-new-in-arcgi...

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-enterprise/sharing-collaboration/five-ways-to-use-d...

-Kelly

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