More questions about connecting a ms access database to GIS

[SloanCampi]

I replied to a post originally asking some questions about how the user was able to update their layer that is connected to an MS Access Database here: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-questions/connecting-access-database-from-arcmap-to-arcpro/...

I have a layer in ArcGIS Pro that has an inventory of all bus stops in our transit system, which is connected to an Access Database. We regularly have to update the Access Database based on Service Changes, etc. A couple questions 

1. How do you get the layer to update when you update the Access Database? Is this done automatically?

2. We have hyperlinks in the MS Access Database to photos, but when I added these to ArcMap, the attribute table doesn't read the hyperlink correctly, and the fields just populate with "Blob."

[ABishop]

Hello,

From what I see online currently there isn't a way to maintain GIS data in an access database.  So you have two options...

1. convert the access database to a file geodatabase or put it in an SDE with option of multi editor versioned editing.

2. export the data from the access database and update the feature class or shapefile with the latest information.

As for the attachments, I don't think you will be able to read those in ArcGIS Pro (somebody correct me if I'm wrong).  So if you decide to convert your access database to a file geodatabase or SDE, you can create an attachment table and store them with the feature class.  If you keep it in Access, you may have to take the photos and store them on a server with IIS access then provide a hyperlink in the GIS feature class.

[SloanCampi]

I was able to set up the OLE DB Connection in ArcGIS. Since we have Lats/Longs for the bus stops in the database, mapping them was pretty easy. I can run an update for each service change once our scheduler makes the changes and that would update all of the information. However, this doesn't really solve the "Select" issue or the  hyperlinks coming out as 'blob' in the Attribute Table.

We'd really like to at least have the filepath to the hyperlinks in the Access Database available to click on in our GIS data.

[ABishop]

You could try setting up a pop-up for the hyperlink in ArcGIS Pro.  When a user identifies a feature, they would be able to hyperlink to the image.  I use this method in my pop-ups in AGOL for the New Map Viewer and it is an arcade expression like what you would use in ArcGIS Pro.  The arcade expression is pasted below.  Let me know if you need help getting this set up.

'https:'+TextFormatting.ForwardSlash + TextFormatting.ForwardSlash+'www.pa.marion.fl.us/PRC.aspx?key='+$feature.ALT_KEY+'&YR=2021'+'&mName=False'+'&mSitus=False'

[MikeJensen]

Here is another option to working with hyperlinks in ArcGIS Pro. Check out the blog entitled: A suite of sample geoprocessing tools for managing hyperlinks. We hope it is helpful in meeting users needs in accessing media files with their data moving forward. 🙂