Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

[NickBos1]

There are various approaches to remove the field GLOBALID from a feature class, but this should be something out of the box that takes care of this need.  For those that are quite familiar of the hassle of the lack of current functionality for removal of this field please help by voting to promote this enhancement request.

The below snapshot depicts current esri context menu interface functionality to add Global IDs to a feature dataset's feature classes via a right mouse click on a feature dataset.





The below snapshot portrays what esri could do as one option to help ease the problem to remove the field GLOBALID.





Also request esri enhance their ArcToolbox --> Data Management Tools --> Fields --> Delete Field tool to allow deletion of the field/column of GLOBALID.  In turn this would make the software more robust in model builder and python.

If there is an issue that esri doesn't allow the field to be dropped once created thinking it is still part of versioning, replication or related then esri should likewise enhance their product to unregister as versioned as a preliminary step.

We don't want workaround solutions anymore of VB code, ArcObjects when we don't have an ArcObjects specialist on staff, don't want users have to delete from inside MS Access let alone run a script from within MS Access to remove fields nor do we want to use the Feature Class to Feature Class Tool when we just want to work with the source data.  We just want that straight forward solution that is already nearly at our fingertips per above request.

Thanks for your read and consideration.

Nick

[ChristalHigdon_USFS]

I was searching on how to remove globalids and would add the use case here @SSWoodward -

We are migrating into Parcel Fabric and in order to publish our data as a service, it needs to have GlobalID. A database developer had added a field called globalid as text and then the python script went to prepare the data for publishing and used AddGlobalIDs tool. This added a globalid column as globalid_1. I want to delete the text globalid field AND the actual globalid_1 field so it can be properly named. I literally just added it and need to 'undo' and 'redo' the globlalid without wiping out all of the data or going through a bunch of steps to export and reimport as there are relationships built to these tables, so can't just delete and recreate. And there are many of them, so literally if there are no replicas or other things using globalid, why can't I delete it more easily?

[SSWoodward]

Thanks for that additional use case @ChristalHigdon_USFS 

The team is currently reviewing this idea and the use cases shared by users.  Thank you for sharing your use case.

We hope that users continue to share their use cases so we can better understand how this enhancement would improve their workflows. 

[AlisonWieckowicz]

We too have had situations where developers have evaluated adding global ID to several feature classes that are part of a complex geodatabase schema with a parent feature dataset (controller class), coded value domains, attribute rules etc.    After evaluation it was determined that we would like to remove global ID from the tables.   The guidance to use "feature class to feature class" to basically recreate the feature classes without the Global ID is not at all practical in these situations.  

Consider creating an option to remove them that includes plenty if disclaimers and requires GDB administrator account or something.  

[HanRit]

Also made the mistake of adding a Global ID field when meant to do GUID. Now it looks like I cant get rid of easily and will lead to confusion when I try to pass this on to the next person as I will not always be the owner of this. Yes, documentation and communication help but also agree with this needing to be an option for these kinds of instances.

[PaulHoefflerGISS]

I've run into this issue, as well. Very difficult to remove GlobalID fields.

In my case, I exported the geodatabase to an XML workspace document, used an editor to remove references to GlobalID-related indexes and GlobalID fields, switched some GlobalID references from true to false, saved it, imported it, and the GlobalIDs were all gone/disabled.

You need a decent editor to be able to do this, and it may still lock up. My schema is over 8 million characters in one line of text, as Pro exports it. You also have to be in a situation where you're looking to translate it to a new geodatabase for this approach to work.

This is far too difficult to remove, as observed with enterprise geodatabases (SDE) and file geodatabases, and likely also with mobile geodatabases.

It would be great if this could be addressed within 15 years of the original post, but I don't want to be overly optimistic here. It's been over a year since esri staff commented, perhaps they're working on it. Any BUG or ENH numbers to share? 

Thanks in advance...

[LindseyGreidanus]

Just ran into this issue experimenting with enabling a layer for offline use. 

The actual conversion to offline use failed, but it still created a new field called globalID that caused issues with an append script, because now the fields didn't match. Trying to overwrite the layer failed, and I ended up adjusting the appending script to ignore the extra field, because it doesn't seem possible to delete the unused global id field.