JTX 9.3.1 and compatibility with replicas (disconnected editing)

[GerickeCook]

Our plan is to use JTX to manage a large editing project, some of which requires physical validation from a remote office. I successfully set up JTX for ArcGIS 9.3.1 for a SQLserver enterprise SDE geodatabase and finally got a workflow with all the custom steps/notifications/etc that I wanted working (after some permissions issues).  Good so far.

Now comes the fun part. I set up a personal SDE geodatabase on the same machine, registered the JTX tables for versioning, and created a replica from enterprise to personal SDE. The thought here was that the remote user could "check in" his laptop to the network, synch the two databases, and then work on some jobs from his replica database while disconnected from the network. We know that there would be some challenges in having the database connections pointing to his replicated database on the laptop, as well as potential hassle of JTX tables updating during the sync process (especially from two different database connections).

After creating the DB replica to personal SDE, I tried setting up a JTX database connection from ArcCatalog (and also from Post-Install and the Config Manager) with no success. I can create the initial database connection but when trying to create the data workspace I got the following error:

Objects in this class cannot be updated outside an edit session [GwssVersion.DBO.JTX_DATABASES]

After a few more attempts, I finally realized that my JTX installation was then hosed. I cannot view open jobs in the JTX Application without getting this new error:

External component has thrown an exception

and the same "cannot be updated outside an edit session" for the job_types table if I try to copy an existing job type from the enterprise data connection (that was formerly working). So I feel like my JTX application is now corrupted and I would have to delete the tables and rebuild everything from scratch again.

So here is my question.... Does JTX actually support disconnected editing in a replicated environment? What workarounds would have to be employed to make this happen? And I know that this is supposed to "be easier" in ArcGIS 10 but our agency is a long way from implementing the next version (we're typically a year behind).

[TopeBello]

It is stated in the JTX documentation that the JTX system tables must not be registered for version. There are chances that you application will not work, hence the errors that you started seeing after you did that. Based on this, you will not be able to replicate your JTX repository using the SDE replication tools for creating an instance of you system tables on another database.

There is no support for disconnected jobs at 9.3.1, however at 10 we have tools that allow you to accomplish a distributed workforce/ system. Here is a link to our documentation on how this works.
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Replicating_Workflow_Manager_Repositor...

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have more questions on this.

Tope

[GerickeCook]

Thank  you for the quick reply, Tope.

I had hoped that a workaround existed for 9.3.1, but eventually came to the conclusion that it's not possible. It's good to know exactly how and why my JTX setup failed to work after that little replication experiment. It's possible that we'll experiment with expanding JTX in the next version, but I think we might be okay with the solution we have for now.

Best Regards.
Gericke

[TopeBello]

Okay, let me know if other questions come up.

Tope

[MilesHitchen]

Hi,

I have a similar issue - I would like to be able to create a checkout replica from Workflow Manager so that the jobs can be worked on by field users. Unfortunately I can see no options to create these in the latest version 10.2.2. Could someone let me know if this is possible, even if it would require creating some customizations using the API?

Thanks in advance,

Miles.