Thanks,
Have you seen Dynamic Situational Awareness for Qt | ArcGIS for Developers? I think that it's something that you might be interested. Even though it's in QT you can do the same with .NET as well.
You can distribute your data and maps to a runtime app in many ways. We have been focusing quite a bit lately on the online based workflows (taking maps offline based on services and online maps) but if those don't fit well into your use cases, then you can sideload required parts to the devices. Runtime has wide support for offline use cases and it's very versatile on the data deployment strategies as well. I think that the challenge is to understand all the options available and how the data/maps can be created.
I think that you get the best value out from the offline maps if you are using ArcGIS Online / ArcGIS Enterprise (on-premises) as part of your information infrastructure as a service layer that your applications use to extract the data for the offline use. This way you can use your applications offline but still use synchronization framework to get and push changes to the centralized data stores (feature services). You can also work totally in disconnected environments with your devices as long as you have some way to create the required data, for example, using ArcGIS Pro, Python or another Runtime application. These cases you have to take care how the data gets deployed to the device yourself. In some cases, you might want to use a mix of different methods as well.
We did a presentation about the high-level strategies in last dev summit and you can the recording from here ArcGIS Runtime: Working with Maps Online and Offline - YouTube. That should give you the basic concepts between on-demand/preplanned/fully disconnected workflows. You can also find more information about the topics on following guide pages:
- Offline—ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET (WPF) | ArcGIS for Developers
- Create an offline map—ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET (WPF) | ArcGIS for Developers
- Create an offline layer—ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET (WPF) | ArcGIS for Developers
Note that not all the options are documented in those topics but we are trying to improve them so all the feedback on the confusing things or things that are missing are more than welcome.
Have you already looked into our samples as well? You can find them from GitHub - Esri/arcgis-runtime-samples-dotnet: Sample code for ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET – UWP, WPF,...
Here are some more information about the core concepts and ways to get data to your apps
Mobile map packages
Mobile map package—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS Desktop
Create Mobile Map Package—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop
Tile packages
Tile package—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS Desktop
Vector tile package—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS Desktop
GeoPackages
Work with SQLite databases in ArcGIS Pro—Help | ArcGIS Desktop
Create SQLite Database—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop
Rasters support
Add raster data—ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET (WPF) | ArcGIS for Developers
Scene layers (3d)
Scene layer package—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS Desktop
You can also use Local Server component if you are deploying to Windows devices (WPF applications)
Local Server—ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET (WPF) | ArcGIS for Developers
I know that there is quite a bit to take in but if you have any specific areas that you want to get more information, please let us know.
