ISO 19115-3 Support on ESRI Portal and ArcGIS Pro (and do we need Geoportal server?)

[urquidid]

Hi all!

Writing this post to ask for some help from the community, as we've been finding it hard to find the information we need about ArcGIS and Portal support for ISO 19115-1(-3) metadata on the ESRI website. I was hoping someone here might be able to point me to a good source of information. Ideally, this would be some kind of comparative text or table that delineates clearly the extent to which Portal and ArcGIS Pro support ISO 19115-1(-3) metadata, as well as a clear description of the current gaps in the standard’s coverage.

It’s also very difficult to distinguish where each limitation may reside. Are they inherent to the way Portal stores the metadata records (the metadata superset), or are they merely an issue with the way the metadata editor supports specific metadata styles? That’d be helpful to know because it would determine the approach that my team decides to take in order to address gaps such as the following:

1. No support for the ISO 19115-1 “additionalDocumentation” field  (/metadata/dataIdInfo/additionalDoc/)
2. Aggregation (DS_Series, etc.): Series records: We had hoped that, when publishing a hosted feature service with many layers, ArcGIS Enterprise and/or ArcGIS Pro would be able to handle the hierarchy and reflect this in the metadata editing features. For example, by having feature layers inherit some of the feature service metadata, by producing a series metadata record for the hosted feature service that aggregates the layers as separate datasets. Are you able to point to some documentation as to how one can accomplish this using the platform?
3. Distribution linkages: When importing ISO metadata via ArcGIS Pro or Portal, the online distribution information (mdb:distributionInfo/mrd:MD_Distribution/mrd:transferOptions/mrd:MD_DigitalTransferOptions/mrd:online) does not appear to be imported or exported by the metadata editor on either ArcGIS Pro or Enterprise.
4. According to ESRI documentation (https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/metadata/create-iso-19115-1-and-iso-19115-3-metadata.h...), currently the editor does not export attribute table fields metadata, even though this metadata is automatically generated in ArcGIS Pro.

As we migrate our XML metadata into ESRI Enterprise Portal, we are currently looking at two approaches to address these gaps: Either adding the GeoPortal Server Catalogue as a component of our new system, or creating some custom tools and scripts using arcpy and ArcGIS APIs for Python, to carry out any metadata edits needed to end up with XML records that are fully compliant with our repository’s implementation profile of ISO 19115.

In that sense, any insight/links to resources that folks here may have about the role that the GeoPortal Server Catalogue might play in this (e.g. is it necessary or are there ArcGIS or Portal tools that can do the same) would also be very welcome.

Many thanks in advance!

Alicia

[JordanDuft]

Hi @urquidid!

Thank you for the questions! 

In the ArcGIS Pro documentation, you can find a table with all required elements to create minimally compliant ISO 19115 -1/-3 metadata. As you noted, although we can author most metadata elements, we cannot create a "complete" ISO 19115-1 at this time.

• Are there specific metadata elements that your organization requires that are not currently available in ArcGIS Metadata XML? If so, it would be helpful to know what they are and why they are required for your organization.

No support for the ISO 19115-1 “additionalDocumentation” field  (/metadata/dataIdInfo/additionalDoc/)

This metadata element is actually present in ArcGIS Metadata XML. However, at this time, the metadata editor (in ArcGIS Online/ArcGIS Enterprise or ArcGIS Pro) has not been updated to add this information. If you have a way to edit the XML outside of ArcGIS, the metadata element can be display in ArcGIS Metadata. The team does have this noted, but it would be helpful to provide the user need/requirement if you could!

Aggregation (DS_Series, etc.): Series records: We had hoped that, when publishing a hosted feature service with many layers, ArcGIS Enterprise and/or ArcGIS Pro would be able to handle the hierarchy and reflect this in the metadata editing features. For example, by having feature layers inherit some of the feature service metadata, by producing a series metadata record for the hosted feature service that aggregates the layers as separate datasets. Are you able to point to some documentation as to how one can accomplish this using the platform?

I am not sure if I am fully understanding the ask. This may require further back and forth. What initially comes to mind is the Online Distribution section. If you can, please provide additional context. 

Distribution linkages: When importing ISO metadata via ArcGIS Pro or Portal, the online distribution information (mdb:distributionInfo/mrd:MD_Distribution/mrd:transferOptions/mrd:MD_DigitalTransferOptions/mrd:online) does not appear to be imported or exported by the metadata editor on either ArcGIS Pro or Enterprise.

As long as the metadata element is present in ArcGIS Metadata XML, metadata elements should not be dropped when importing metadata into ArcGIS Pro/overwriting metadata in ArcGIS Online/ArcGIS Enterprise. If you have not done so already, I would recommend contacting Esri technical support to investigate the issue further. 

According to ESRI documentation (https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/metadata/create-iso-19115-1-and-iso-19115-3-metadata.h...), currently the editor does not export attribute table fields metadata, even though this metadata is automatically generated in ArcGIS Pro.

Yes, at this time, attribute fields will not appear when viewing metadata in ISO 19115-3. However, the team is working on this, and it is on our near-term roadmap! If you choose to document attribute fields in the metadata now, once this feature is implemented, the attribute fields will be displayed when viewing ISO 19115-3.