Sharing SDE Connections Amongst Users

[BrianO_keefe]

Alrighty then...

So I'm trying to figure out a way to share connection files with my users.

Currently we have a folder with a list of *.sde files.

We copy these files to: C:\Users\<insert user name here>\AppData\ESRI\Desktop10.2\ArcCatalog for each user.

We are starting to get some more advanced GIS components in place for other departments... Lucity for WaterSystem mgmt, CrescentLink for fiber... and we need to have tiers of users. SO... I did some digging looking for ideas. My thoughts were to have some way to control SDE connections amongst users.

For ArcGIS 9.0 they offered this advice: 34530 - Distribute saved spatial database connection properties to clients

And the USE CASE option of accessing connections via 'Folder Connections' in ArcCatalog would actually work. But it would be a LOT easier if there was someway to 'hijack' the pathing to C:\Users\<insert user name here>\AppData\ESRI\Desktop10.2\ArcCatalog and set this path to whatever we wanted. However, this doesn't cover what to do when a super user with editing rights to various datasets gets a new position and needs to have his editing rights revoked? Those connection files are still out there.

Does anyone work with large user groups (we have around 70-100 ESRI users that my co-worker and I manage) and connections files that might have some good ideas? Suggestions? etc.?

Message was edited by: Brian O'keefe for grammatical corrections.

[JakeSkinner]

Hi Brian,

I believe the second Use Case in the mentioned article would best suit your needs:

Use case:

A database administrator wants to maintain a common set of database connections in one shared location and manage them, as user names and passwords change periodically.

1. Create a network share that all users can access.

2. Place all SDE connection files in that shared network folder (if necessary, give read-only access to the share so that users cannot edit them).

3. Have all users make a folder connection to this network share in ArcCatalog to access the .sde connection files.

4. This way, all users can access connection files from one single location instead of every ArcCatalog user physically copying the .sde files into their user profile. This gives flexibility to the administrator to add/delete/modify connections to sde databases in one location.

This will be ideal when using Windows Authentication for your SDE connections.

[xander]

What id some of the connection files are for editors? How are you handling this scenario?