Spatial join without creating a new feature class

[JakeKrall]

We used to be able to do a "spatial join without creating a new feature class" in AV 3.x.  This would be a most useful tool for everyday use it seems without creating useless feature classes that you have to go back and delete.

Esri, can't you bring this tool back from the archives for ArcGIS 10.1.x???

I would really like to see it added to the Toolbox!

[JamiePetersen]

It would be nice to be able to create a simple spatial join without having to make a new output feature class.  Many times I find myself needing to populate an attribute from one feature class into another feature class based on location.  It'd be great if I could make a spatial join similar to the normal table-table join, and then simply "remove join".  Because there are times when a new output is desired, maybe a radio button to choose between "New Output" or "In-Process". 

[ErikK]

hear hear. I couldn't agree more. 

[Public_HealthObservatory]

Yet another example of something that worked fine 10 years ago and never should have been 'fixed'. PLEASE bring this back. The workaround is so inefficient.

[Public_HealthObservatory]

I have seen this request for years. Please ESRI, bring it back.

[EricTurer]

Even older and perhaps more useful.... the old AtlasGIS product (bought out by ESRI I believe and retired) had a great tool called ASSIGN DATA BY LOCATION which simply copied the values of one or more attributes in one layer to another based on a spatial relationship.  It was not even a permanent join but  it's often all you want and also allows you to copy the ID of the target layer (FIPS code, etc) to the source layer and then do a simple attribute join.  PLEASE bring back - huge time and space saver.

[SebastianCastorina1]

Esta, si, seria una muy buena herramienta

[RichardKennedy2]

Still no solution for this?

[JakeKrall]

Since, requesting this (ALMOST 2 YRS AGO), I was hoping to have more votes on it or a response from Esri by now.  And a correction on ArcGIS version needs to be updated to something other than 10.1.x, maybe 11.x.x or something.

Esri, can you respond?

[RobynGingerich2]

Any further update on this?  We just had a need to accomplish this very task of updating an attribute in one feature class from a field in another spatially joined feature class without creating a new one to complete the field calculation.  

Thanks...

[DanielMakridakis]

Was just about to post this same Idea/request. It was be extremely useful to be able to perform a simple field calculation using a temporary spatial join.

I often need to populated town names or census blocks in a point feature class. Currently it’s a multiple step process of producing an unnecessary new feature class that then needs to be inner-joined to the original desired feature class to carry out the field calculation, and lastly needing to delete the unnecessary feature class because all I wanted was that one field of attributes.

ESRI Please....Thank You