Mention deprecated status of "Preserve Attributes" option in tooltip for "Feature To Polygon" tool

[Katie_Clark]

This is a small thing, but hopefully would be very simple to implement. I was working with the Feature To Polygon tool today and noticed the attributes weren't transferring even though I had the box checked. After some research I did find this Esri Support page which addresses the issue.

https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/problem-creating-polygons-from-a-polyline-feature-laye...

However, it would be helpful if the tooltip for the checkbox would display the message from the "Cause" section of this page:

"The Preserve attributes parameter is no longer supported and does not work when using the Feature to Polygon tool. It remains for backward compatibility of scripts and models."

While I wish I understood *why* this feature was removed, it would at least be nice to be notified that it won't work when running the tool, rather than having to research and find the support article.

[DanLee]

Hi Katie_Clark,

I will check on the tool tip improvement possibility. Thanks for suggesting that.

But I wonder why you didn't go to the tool reference first to see the note below.

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/data-management/feature-to-polygon.htm

Regarding the "why", the tool existed long before I know it. If you think about all the potential input line/polygon combinations, some make sense to carry over attributes, others don't. When multiple features, such as different lines or polygons or both, form an enclosed area, it may not make sense to write attributes out from one of them or all of them.  I guess it was probably too late to change the tool design once it's released, unfortunately; so we hoped that the Note in the tool reference would help people know not to rely on that parameter.

We are aware of the problem and seek for a future opportunity to create better replacement tool(s).

Just curious about your scenario, are your features lines or polygons or both? If you don't mind, could you describe a bit why need to create polygons from them? That would help us see the real world situations while thinking about new tool designs. Other people are also welcome to let us know your use cases.  Thanks!  🙂

[Katie_Clark]

Thanks so much for the response! As for "why didn't I go to the tool reference".....it just didn't occur to me, quite frankly. Since it wasn't working, it seemed like a bug that I needed to troubleshoot rather than something that would be described in the documentation for the tool. My mistake! 

In my particular scenario, I was given line features by a state organization that outlined treatment areas. I needed these to be in a polygon format to merge into a larger polygon dataset. It seemed like they probably had created the line features using Collector/Field Maps as they walked the perimeter of the treatment area. 

Again, thanks for the response and explanation. 🙂 

[DanLee]

Hey no worries. It's not a mistake, but a reminder - to check with the tool reference first. 🙂

Thanks for the description of your use case.  I see why the lines were collected for area boundaries.  Cool!

[MargaretCrawford]

Thank you for this idea, we will keep in under consideration for a future release.

[DrewFlater]

Hi @Katie_Clark ,

You could consider using this geoprocessing sample for converting the lines to polygon. This will maintain the attributes. 

https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=5d99da321d2f4e66a39731a707953b24

If you haven't used a geoprocessing sample in Pro before, it's really easy!

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/3.1/help/analysis/geoprocessing/share-analysis/geoprocessing-sampl...