COGO tools independent of COGO enabled features or parcel fabric

[DarylHochhalter]

It would be really nice if you could give the same functionality as what was available in Arcmap so that we can all use COGO entries whether implementing a parcel fabric or not. I have used them for years without a parcel fabric and would really like to continue doing so. Why would it matter to ESRI if a user wanted to enable the feature class or not? Rather then explaining why I want them, could you please explain why ESRI took functionality away from the tools that existed previously? Load from sketch, used it all the time. COGO is useful for many other features besides parcels. It may seem like a simple thing to say just enable the feature classes, but it isn't always that simple. There is a whole downstream affect when you start changing field names and domains, etc.. 

Because these things are not available in Pro, I still use Arcmap for several editing workflows.

[JeffWard]

You are able to use the traverse tool with polygon layers and non-cogo line layers that don't have cogo attributes.

[DarylHochhalter]

Great! All we need is the traverse from sketch, or can you do that now too? Honestly, it's been awhile since I checked.

[AmirBar-Maor]

@DarylHochhalter 

We recommend you watch this recording about how to  COGO in ArcGIS Pro.

COGO did not go away in ArcGIS Pro - it just got better. If you have COGO values today in ArcMap (those are text fields) you can use this script to convert them to the improved COGO schema in ArcGIS Pro.

If you are using COGO entry to maintain parcels you should migrate to the parcel fabric. It will improve the efficiency and quality of your data.

ArcGIS is a 'System of Record' - so if you go through the effort of manually entering COGO measurements you might as well persist them as attributes. This will also allow you to perform better quality assurance and the parcel fabric has dedicated layers as well as attribute rules (validation) to catch any errors.

Loading COGO from Sketch will fail if you don't have the correct ground-to-grid (combined scale factor) correction turned on. 

Migrating your data to the parcel fabric is easy because the new parcel fabric controls simple feature classes. It also uses a geodatabase topology which you might already be familiar with. Beyond COGO you get many more capabilities that are required to maintain land records / cadastral records.

It only takes a few days to a couple of weeks for most editors to get used to editing in ArcGIS Pro. 

There is also a dedicated training course for parcel editing.

[DarylHochhalter]

So, I've been trying the COGO tools in Pro for a few days, I certainly should have checked into the functionality before posting my original Idea in this forum, but thanks for all the helpful responses. Many improvements have been made since the earlier versions of Pro. I still didn't find the ability to edit the direction and distance of an existing line, if that is somehow available without loading from sketch, I'd like to know. It seems to me that if the correct ground to grid corrections are set it really shouldn't present the problems mentioned in several posts about lines not connecting? It sure seemed to work in ArcMap? 

As for the parcel fabric, It is a great thing as far as I can tell, as with many things there have been significant changes since it was first introduced. I think some of us who have been working with the software for many years have learned to anticipate these things. We are therefore reluctant to be early adopters, especially for those of us who are very short staffed in our organizations. Even at this point, the changes in field types presents a significant commitment in time when considering moving into the parcel fabric for a single person who is already managing an enterprise GIS and updating features for utilities, roads, parcels, boundaries, and all sorts of other stuff. Changes to fields and moving to branch versioning are all complicated things when so many processes are running on scripts to update and publish information for users of all sorts. With that said, I still try to keep our parcel features in a schema that will make it somewhat easier to transition to the parcel fabric at some point.

I have noticed looking at the current fabric schema, that it will not be as easy to label lines from lots and blocks where the direction offset/convergance angle differs from subdivision to subdivision, so that the info very closely matches what is on the plat documents. I have found the one arcade funciton ConvertDirection but seems like there should be some easy funcitons in Arcpy to go from the COGO Direction field to various Direction formats.

Thanks again for all the responses, the community has been helpful!  

[AmirBar-Maor]

@DarylHochhalter 

"I still didn't find the ability to edit the direction and distance of an existing line, if that is somehow available without loading from sketch"

The COGO values are attributes, so you can modify them in the attribute pane and/or the attribute table. If you use the COGO labeling you will see the value update on the map.

Ground to Grid correction works well, but if you COGO the road for example, and then try to create the lot lines individually, they might not snap to where they should be (close, but still off). ArcMap would have the same issue. Good news: we intend to enhance this in Pro  for COGO Enabled lines.

The parcel fabric 'early adopters' are already veterans 🙂 . At this time we know of more than 225 organizations in production, most of which use ArcGIS Enterprise. Just make sure you migrate (that's easy) before 2026 when ArcMap is deprecated.

Using ArcGIS Pro 3.2, add a COGO enabled line feature class to a new map and examine the label expression. It will show you how to use the ConvertDirection Arcade method. The parcel fabric also stores the rotation (basis of bearing) and scale (ground to grid) - so you can account for them, if needed, in your Arcade expression. We usually show the value as entered (true to the record). the COGOType field indicates if the COGO value was 'Entered', 'From Geometry', or 'Computed'.

Editing in Pro and editing Parcel in Pro uses the same editing tools. You just become more efficient and get access to additional tools when you use the parcel fabric.