ArcGIS Pro Project Design and Workflow

[LetaRogers]

The company I work for is currently migrating from ArcMap Desktop to ArcGIS Pro. None of us does GIS for a living, but we have plenty of experience. I am wondering, "How do you organize the maps and layouts in a large ArcGIS project file, assuming you are starting from scratch? What is the typical workflow?" I have searched the internet for this, scanned chapters in books, and thought about it a lot. I have yet to find any solid information on this topic.

Let me know if I got this right and how/where things can be fixed or problems to be anticipated. A simplified example follows.

Starting Point:

• You have a geodatabase with all of your data from the GPS taken within site locations
• You have Site_1, Site_2, Site_3, ... Site_50. Within these, some have sub-features Site_1_Locus_1, Site_1_Locus_2
• You know the figures you will need for your study (the layouts)
• You have an ArcGIS Pro style for your project (.stylx) as a starting point (symbolizations, fonts, north arrow, scale bar, etc.)
• You do not have any templates yet
• You have never set up a large project in ArcGIS Pro

Workflow, as I think it would be:

• You create a project and populate your database
• You import the your styles into your project
• You create a working map and add your GPS data to it with a basemap
• You add your custom styles, symbology, and label types
• You zoom to each site, pick the best scale, and add a bookmark. Within that you zoom to each locus, if it exists, and add a bookmark for that at the desired scale.
• It's clear that you will need both 8-1/2 x 11 portrait and landscape layouts and an 11 x 17 layout that will be folded in the report
• You zoom to Site_x from which you will create your 8-1/2 x 11 portrait template. The site is complex enough that it will be using a lot of the symbology on it. You symbolize it and label the features you will want labeled in your layout.
• You create a layout from this map, adjusting symbology, fonts, frames, north arrow, legend, titles, text, etc. (Use Maplex engine? You will need to reposition callouts to look tidy)
• You save this layout as "8-1/2 x 11 Portrait Template"
• You find a site shown best in landscape and also one that will need 11 x 17. You create these two templates based off modifying the first one
• At this point, you have your three templates. I'm thinking you zoom to each bookmark in your working map, save that as it's own map, apply the template, and adjust as needed--e.g., a NW-SE site map might need to be rotated. Thus you will have one map and one layout for each figure in your project file.

Thoughts?

[DanPatterson]

too much zooming and bookmarking .... you could label your points

[LetaRogers]

I guess my most important question is, am I correct in assuming that you might make one map (set scale, center point, and rotation, plus symbology and labels) and one layout (made pretty and prepared for exporting to report) for each "figure" you are making in your project? I have not been able to come across anything about the best practices for large mapping projects are handled in an ArcGIS Pro project.

[DanPatterson · Accepted solution]

sounds like you are wanting to create some form of map series (there is a sample tutorial as in the link that follows)

Introduction to spatial map series—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

and there is a publishing component as well

[LetaRogers]

Thanks! I did not see the notification of your reply, and came back here to post that I'd figured out that I should use a map series and post that link. There used to be white papers on the ESRI site for things like this, but I don't know how they've reframed that sort of content. Just occurred to me there must be some articles in ArcUser on setting up a large project using this.