To move some of my Drain Office ArcMap users to Pro, I need to recreate the report templates that they use daily to officially document their work. So I set about the tedious task of rebuilding what I have already invested time in and is working, to hopefully get an identical product stood up in Pro. There currently is no ArcMap report import or conversion tool for Pro, that's a whole other idea though.
In my attempt to recreate my drain inspection report, I hit a major snag and unfortunately cannot move forward transitioning my Drain Office to Pro.
Report Functionality in ArcMap 10.7.1
Following the text portion of the drain inspection report below, I am able to include every attached photo related to the selected feature in the report. The photos appear, one per page, on subsequent pages until they are all included in the report. If there are 23 related photos, there would be 24 pages in the report. Most of our inspections require multiple photos.
Lack of Report Functionality in Pro 3.2.2
In Pro, you are unable to include all attachment photos repeating one per page or multiple in a repeating grid. All attached photos must appear on a single page in a grid. The number of cells in your grid dictate how large the photos will print. I find that a 2x2 grid allows for a balance of detail and space on letter sized media. The more cells, the lower the photo size. As shown below, with a 2x2 grid, only the first four attachments out of the 12 will appear in the report. There currently is no way to repeat the attachment frame until all attachments are included in the report.
This lack of functionality was validated by ESRI support (see below), and they suggested that I post here to drum up support:
- Enhancement Number: ENH-000135312
- Synopsis: Allow multipage reporting in ArcGIS Pro Report Builder to allow attachments and text to be easily editable in ArcGIS Pro
- Status: In Product Plan
What do I want to see?
At a minimum, I want the ability to repeat the attachment frame like I could in ArcMap.
To really improve attachments in reports, I want to have the following attachment handling options:
- Repeat the Attachment Frame
- Include variable number of attachments:
- Arrangement options: by grid, one per page
An example of the enhanced Attachment Frame properties might look like below.
Reports in Pro are good start but still do not have functionality parity and options like reports in ArcMap. Hopefully ESRI can push the needle on this soon.