Latest Contributions by AletaVienneau

ArcGIS Desktop is in mature support and will be retired March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. We recommend that you migrate to ArcGIS Pro, our fully supported desktop GIS application. See Migrate from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro for more information. Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas.  We truly appreciate your contributions to continuously improving the software to help you do your work and look forward to what ideas you have for ArcGIS Pro. ... View more

You must have permission to edit the data for the feature class or other geodatabase item in order to modify the item's metadata. This includes upgrading the metadata content. Once you have confirmed you have sufficient privileges in the geodatabase, the only thing I can recommend is to try running the Python script provided in the response above to try upgrading the FGDC CSDGM metadata content a second time. Since you see properties of the dataset in the item's metadata in Pro and not a message telling you to upgrade, the Upgrade button on the ribbon will not do anything further. Some other operation has modified the metadata in such a way as to tell Pro that you already have ArcGIS metadata, and the buttons on the ribbon will not override that. However, using the Python script you can force a second upgrade of the FGDC CSDGM metadata content to the ArcGIS metadata format. ... View more

You can upgrade FGDC CSDGM-format metadata in ArcGIS Pro. The workflow to use is documented in the help topic Upgrade metadata to the ArcGIS format. This capability has been available since the ArcGIS Pro 2.2 release. ... View more

ArcGIS Desktop since version 10.0 was designed to create metadata in the ArcGIS metadata format. If you created ArcGIS metadata in any 10.x version of ArcGIS Desktop, that metadata is automatically available and fully functional in ArcGIS Pro and no upgrade is needed. In the original question, the reason why the full metadata content could not be seen or exported in ArcGIS Pro is because the full metadata content is stored in the FGDC CSDGM XML format. ArcGIS Pro only displays, edits, manages, and exports metadata stored in the ArcGIS metadata format. This behavior is by design. See the View and edit metadata help topic, specifically the section "View standard-format metadata content". In ArcGIS Pro, if only FGDC CSDGM-format metadata content is present as the item's metadata, no metadata content will be visible and the Edit and Export buttons are not available at all. However, ArcGIS Desktop allowed FGDC CSDGM-format metadata content to coexist with ArcGIS metadata. It is likely a small amount of ArcGIS-format metadata content is present in the item's metadata, such as a geoprocessing history entry that describes how the item was created. The presence of this content can tell ArcGIS Pro that ArcGIS metadata is available. Only the ArcGIS metadata format content is visible in Pro, while the more complete metadata content stored in the FGDC CSDGM XML format is invisible and unavailable. In this way, various metadata operations might be available to you in ArcGIS Pro, but those operations will only use information present in the ArcGIS metadata format. Since the full metadata content that you wanted to use is stored in the FGDC CSDGM XML format, that content is not be available to any ArcGIS Pro metadata operations. The recommended solution is to do a full upgrade of the item's FGDC CSDGM-format metadata content to the ArcGIS metadata format. This transfers the full metadata content to the ArcGIS metadata format and makes all that content available in ArcGIS Pro. This can be accomplished in ArcGIS Desktop using the Upgrade button in the metadata display or using the Upgrade Metadata geoprocessing tool. It can also be accomplished in ArcGIS Pro from the Catalog view using the Upgrade > FGDC CSDGM Content command  on the Catalog tab on the ribbon, in the Metadata group. Alternatively you can use a Python script to upgrade metadata for one or more items using the upgrade method in the ArcPy Metadata module. import arcpy from arcpy import metadata as md archive_item_path = r'Data_with_FgdcCsdgm_notUpgraded.shp' archive_item_md = md.Metadata(archive_item_path) archive_item_md.upgrade('FGDC_CSDGM') archive_item_md.save() Even though ArcGIS Desktop 10.0 and newer were designed to create metadata in the ArcGIS format, accommodations were made to allow some FGDC CSDGM-format content to be displayed, if it was present. This facilitated migration from ArcGIS Desktop 8.x and 9.x that natively managed some metadata content in the FGDC CSDGM XML format. This includes the ability to see FGDC CSDGM-format title, theme keywords, purpose, description, credits, and use limitations directly in the metadata display. The workflow suggested in the Reply only does a partial upgrade to the ArcGIS metadata format--only the FGDC CSDGM-format metadata content that appears automatically at the top of the metadata display is converted.  Once any type of upgrade has occurred or any ArcGIS metadata format content is added, the Upgrade options are no longer be available directly in the ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Pro applications. It is possible to do a second upgrade that transfers all FGDC CSDGM-format metadata content to the ArcGIS metadata format, but this process will overwrite any information that was typed using the ArcGIS metadata editor. Therefore, upgrading a second time can only be accomplished using the ArcGIS Desktop Upgrade Metadata geoprocessing tool, or by running a script in ArcGIS Pro that uses the ArcPy Metadata upgrade method.  This means if you followed the method suggested in the reply, it is then more difficult to do a full upgrade and have all of the original FGDC CSDGM-formatted metadata content available to you in the ArcGIS metadata format. The best practice is to convert all FGDC CSDGM-formatted metadata content to the ArcGIS metadata format the first time using the commands available in the applications. A similar Esri Community post addressed the same general issue via a different question. My colleague Jill provided a link in her response to a video of her UC tech workshop, ArcGIS: A Practical Approach to Metadata, Catalog, and Search. This resource may help people who used metadata workflows in ArcGIS Desktop that stored metadata in the FGDC CSDGM-format to make the transition to ArcGIS Pro, where storing metadata in the ArcGIS metadata format is a requirement.  ... View more

Whether or not the geoprocessing history is recorded in an item's metadata (for feature classes, raster datasets, etc.) is controlled by a setting in the Options dialog box on the Geoprocessing tab as illustrated below. When the Write geoprocessing operations to dataset metadata option is checked, operations that modify a dataset are recorded in the dataset's metadata. This geoprocessing history is visible in the item's metadata in the Catalog view when you use every metadata style except the default Item Description metadata style. It is available not just for FGDC CSDGM Metadata, but also for all ISO-based metadata styles that support creating metadata compliant with ISO 19139, ISO 19115-3, INSPIRE, and the North American Profile. In the metadata display, you can find the geoprocessing history underneath any manually-defined lineage for the dataset, as illustrated above. There is no need to switch back and forth between the FGDC CSDGM Metadata style and another metadata style to see this information. When you choose a different metadata style, the metadata display in the Catalog view immediately updates to show you all metadata content. The default Item Description metadata style is deliberately very small. It intentionally shows only the same content that you see on the item details page in a browser when you are exploring content in ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise. Many organizations find that this level of content is sufficient for their needs, and they do not have requirements to view or author more content. The purpose of the Item Description metadata style is discussed in the Pro help topic View and edit metadata. ... View more

For performance reasons, this capability will not be supported in ArcGIS Pro. Enclosing documents within an item's metadata was originally provided in ArcCatalog 8.0 as a stop-gap measure to help people transition from recording an item's metadata in Word or text files, to creating true standards-based metadata XML documents. Over time the use of enclosures has been extended and continued beyond its original intent in some organizations, which is understandable since it provides convenient access to files that are relevant to a specific dataset or cartographic product. However, while enclosures can be useful they have a negative consequence. Adding enclosures increases the size of a metadata document unnecessarily. We recently determined that when an enterprise geodatabase contains larger metadata documents, the overall performance of working with data in the enterprise geodatabase is decreased for drawing and analyzing spatial data and data management operations. Now that we know larger metadata documents affect data performance, we can't encourage anyone to continue the practice of enclosing files within an item’s metadata. Full standards-based metadata documents with a thumbnail generated by ArcGIS software are a small enough size that they do not impact performance. We encourage people to move any enclosed documents out of their metadata using ArcCatalog. Place existing files on your internal network, or publish the documents to a Sharepoint, OneDrive, or Google Drive site. Set privileges for sharing the document appropriately on the network share or on the file sharing site to determine who can access the document, and reference the shared document from the item's metadata. You can embed the link within the item’s description, or explicitly cross-reference the file on the Resource > References page in the metadata editor. ... View more

@IlkaIllers1 Please give the drag/drop of maps and layouts from an existing project to a new project a try in Pro 2.9, if you are using that version. I believe we fixed this for maps, layouts, reports and some other items in that version of Pro. We fixed this for other items like folder connections in 3.0, but can't remember exactly which items are supported for this in which release.  ... View more

Maybe you've tried this already, but you could try accessing your OneDrive content in a browser, selecting the geodatabase or selecting all the files within the geodatabase, and then choosing to download the folder or files. That should give you a ZIP in your Downloads folder. From there you should be able to unzip it and get your file geodatabase back without relying on OneDrive's Sync capabilities. ... View more

Changing this idea's status to Closed, since the behavior is expected and the software is working as designed. ... View more

Delete is the correct word. What the project has is a Pro map that was created by converting the web map to a Pro map. The Pro map is independent of the original portal item. If your workflow involves using the web map as-is is, I can see how you might think of Delete as if it were just a Remove. However, it is not a requirement to operate this way. You can change symbology, add and remove layers, etc. from the Pro map without having any effect on the web map. That is, a linked map is a normal project map.  When you delete the Pro map you are deleting the Pro map. It is a Delete operation because once it is deleted and the project is saved you can't get the map back again. Yes, you can start over by importing the web map, then repeating your process of changing symbology, adding and removing layers, etc. But, in the meantime you have lost your changes, and if the web map was modified since you first added it to your project there might be something it had before that you can't get back.  The Pro map is linked back to the original web map for purposes of providing notifications if the web map is updated, and keeping your local copy up to date if this is what you want to do. You are allowed to choose when to accept any updates so you can save a copy of any customizations you made before replacing your local copy of the web map. See Add a web map or web scene from a portal  The linked Pro map is not intended to be used as a proxy for managing the portal item. If the Pro map is deleted, it is expected that you are deleting your local copy of the web map and the portal item remains unaffected. ... View more

The Feature Class to Feature Class problem is a known issue that has a Salesforce number: ENH-000093237. However, you are correct that if you download the data from the web browser the metadata does come down with it. It's a completely unrelated issue. ... View more

Glad you have it sorted out. Just in case someone finds this thread in the future... What I meant was that in the original publishing operation, it was the entire Pro map that was published as a web feature layer. In that scenario the Pro map's metadata goes on the web feature layer portal item, and the feature class's metadata goes on the layer within the web feature layer (the sublayer, if you will).  ArcGIS Metadata is the format used internally by the ArcGIS platform. You create it by creating metadata using any of the metadata editors provided with ArcMap/ArcCatalog, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, or ArcGIS Enterprise portals. ... View more

Since what you published was the map, the portal item's metadata will reflect the metadata that you had on the Pro Map, and that's what you'll see when you click the big blue Metadata button. If you had only authored metadata for the feature class and not for the map, then there wouldn't have been any metadata to transfer to the portal item from the map. The dialog that comes up is the ArcGIS Online metadata editor. You can change the metadata there if you want. Yes, you can upload the feature class metadata here if you want to copy it to the portal item. This would be roughly equivalent to the workflow you followed when you used ArcMap.  However, in ArcGIS Pro, you can simplify this workflow. Try this: right-click the map layer that points to your feature class, click Sharing > Share As Web Layer in the layer's context menu. This way you are only publishing the layer itself, and if the layer is set to use the feature class' metadata it will be placed on the portal item as a direct result of the publishing process. Then you don't have to save metadata to a file and upload the file. In both cases, the feature class metadata is available on the layer within the portal item. So, from the portal item's page, find the Layers heading. Click the layer in that list corresponding to your feature class. It will take you to a page with information just about that layer and a separate Metadata button. Your feature class metadata will be available here in both cases. ... View more

OK, the warning has to do with the layer's metadata setting. This is discussed in the View and edit metadata topic in the Pro help under the heading "A warning appears when you try to edit metadata". The layer can either have its own metadata or point to the data source's metadata. If the layer is pointing to the data source's metadata, then you have to directly access the data source in the Catalog view and edit its metadata from there. At the current time you can't shortcut accessing the data source from the map layer (the data source might not be directly accessible from the Catalog pane/view at all). I'm not clear if the layer whose metadata you are trying to edit from the map (in such a way that you are getting the warning) is accessing the local data or the web layer. Without seeing what is going on, I can't offer any insight into why you don't see the expected results when you upload the ArcGIS metadata XML document to ArcGIS Online. What do you see in Pro if you browse to the saved copy of the ArcGIS metadata XML file and view the metadata it contains in the Catalog view?  Where was the metadata before the web layer was published? How exactly did you publish the web layer? Right-click an individual layer? Publish the Pro map as a web layer?  Edit: where do you see the metadata you created in Pro? 2ndEdit: typos in the description of the layer's metadata property ... View more