Controlling User Editing Access On Feature Services

JonathanKolterman52

The situation I’m currently facing is this: I manage the GIS for a small city, and we have a wide range of data that we’d like multiple non-GIS staff members to access. Our data is synchronized across all systems through feature services hosted by a third-party company (I do not have server admin access).

We need the ability to control editing permissions on a layer-by-layer basis. For example, John Doe is a meter technician who needs access to address points, water utility locations, street segments, and water meters in order to do his job. However, I only want him to be able to edit certain attributes within the water meters feature layer.

I’ve looked into republishing the data as hosted layers on our Enterprise portal, but that causes us to lose synchronization. I’ve also experimented with using groups to restrict access, but the problem is that the meter tech can still edit all features within the layers available to his group.

How can I accomplish fine-grained edit control specifically, limiting which attributes can be edited by certain users while maintaining sync with our third-party hosted feature services?

RyanUthoff

Honestly, I think your best bet is to work with your third-party company to provide you with feature services that meets your needs. It might be difficult to implement a solution for services that you do not have any control over.

With that being said, are the feature services the third-party is providing hosted feature services? You said "third-party hosted feature services", but I'm not sure if you meant feature services hosted by the third-party, or if they're actually hosted feature services. If they are hosted feature services, then you'd be able to create a view layer from it which I believe would accomplish what you're needing.

If they are referenced feature services, this documentation might help. However, you mentioned that you do not have server admin access. If that also includes not being able to publish feature services, then I don't believe this solution would work either.

JonathanKolterman52

You understand correctly. The third party company has referenced feature services that we point to via a ArcGIS server connection. That data I cannot change permissions for or set defaults / topologies for. For actual Feature Layers (Hosted) I can change editing rules and create view layers. I'm not entirely sure what "Publishing" is in this context. I can use the sharing tool and it will enter into the Arc GIS server connection in the same place as our referenced data. It seems in that case the work flow you sent may be of use. The concern is that by adding a duplicate layer I will lose the sync across the two editable and non editable layers. Thanks for the response by the way!

JonathanKolterman52

After attempting this work flow it did not work as I only have access to a sever, not the the database itself.

RyanUthoff

Ahh, gotcha. And after thinking about it, the documentation I provided probably wouldn't work for you anyway because I believe it would be created as a read-only feature layer view (which is confusing because you can create editable hosted feature layer views).

The duplicate layer shouldn't cause it to lose sync, because it's still pointing to the original underlying source data. But like I said, it would be read only since it's based off a referenced feature layer.

Unfortunately, that's the only ideas I have. Maybe someone else here will have some other ideas!

JonathanKolterman52

I thought I found a solution, a map service is generate at the same time as the feature service, the map service is non editable layers from the feature service, I am able to import these layers into my enterprise space and use them, rather than views. However, A map service layer and a feature service layer cannot be in the same web map and still have editing enabled. Why? I do not know but they cannot coexist and still allow editing.