I just moved to a new job at an Esri ELA-using agency three weeks ago. I'd been intrigued by PLTS/Production Mapping for over ten years, but within my first two weeks I was faced with a need for a map series with dynamic tables in layout.
It's not direct to the original poster's question, but the graphical interface that Production Mapping offers to compose Graphic Table Elements works for me. The interface was a head-scratcher for the first three hours, but by the second day I became quite a fan.
I have attended Technical Workshops on PLTS/Production Mapping at the User Conferences since about 2007, but this was the first time I had a chance to test drive it. I haven't had training, just grazed the online documentation.
That said, I never before had a chance to try out Production Mapping at my previous agencies because of its large initial cost and (for me) the vague ways in which it appeared to offer value. Now, with a project that needed detailed annotation on a brief (32-page) series, I've been able to automate the process and focus on getting the data compatible with other systems, and the graphic design tuned to the users' desires---rather than hacking a stack of Map Documents or hand-coding changes in Python because Data-Driven Pages lacked this feature.
I'm attaching a two-page PDF to demonstrate where the Graphic Table Elements from Production Mapping proved useful. Now, I can look forward to the next 32 parks instead of dreading it!
