What is the best practice for publishing multi feature layer services ?

[MarwaAlkabbany]

I need to publish like 40 layers as feature services to use as on ArcGIS online. Yet I am not sure which of the following is the best practice to publish feature service :

1. Use ArcMap and publish all layers from a map document as feature service.
2. Use ArcGIS pro, and publish each layer individually (through share as web layer - then feature layer option)
3. Publish the whole geodatabase through arcgis online (add from file and add the whole geodatabase shapefile)

Hope someone has experience

[shan_sarkar]

Marwa,

It depends on how you are going to consume the services in the application. If the same situation would arise in ArcGIS Server where I would need to consume 40 layers, I would simply add them to a single map document and publish it as a single service. It is easier to manage one single service instead of multiple services.

If you use a single map document and publish the service there is an option which will allow you to preserve the layer indexes for the service. 

Refer Map authoring considerations—Documentation | ArcGIS Enterprise 

However, that is my point of view and like I said it is depends how you are going to consume the services.

I hope this helps!

-Shan

[AndyFairbairn]

If you use a single map document and publish the service there is an option which will allow you to preserve the layer indexes for the service. 

Refer Map authoring considerations—Documentation | ArcGIS Enterprise 

I was interested in you comment about preserving layer indexes, so thanks for posting that Shan.  However I don't think this work on ArcGIS Online.  Publishing from ArcMap 10.5 fails if I alter the layer indexes away from 1, 2, 3... whilst Pro 2.0 only works with 1, 2, 3... or 0, 1, 2... (i.e. always have to start index numbers from 1 or 0, and have to be sequential).  I was publishing new services. Anyone know if there's a way to deal with this on ArcGIS Online?

I have multi-layer feature services on ArcGIS Online, which I'm coming to regret due to, amongst other things, the layer index numbers getting changed (in a way that I don't understand yet) when I try to update data from ArcMap/Pro.  This means that I then have to fix any maps and apps that are consuming the data. 

Cheers, 

Andy.