Outfall Evaluation/Inspections Data Management - looking for suggestions

[Tiff]

Hello all! I'm sure folks here have experience with outfall and water-related infrastructure, and mapping/recording information such as outfall inspections and evaluations, stormwater inspections, etc.

I'm hoping to gather input and suggestions about best practices and data management, using two options:

1. A feature layer for storm drains/outfalls/etc. AND an unrelated feature layer to map outfall inspections (e.g., one point for each inspection) with a common ID.

2. A feature layer for storm drains/outfalls/etc. AND a related table containing all outfall inspections.

I know best practices for data management will often point towards #2; however, there are such limitations to visualizing data and trends with related tables using ArcGIS Online as well as other potential data collection issues (bugs associated with AGOL arcade calculations with related tables), I'm wondering if anyone has more to share regarding either option, what their organization does, and any advantages/pitfalls that they've experienced.

Thank you!

[SofiaPiro]

Hi! I have some previous experience examining outfalls and recording water quality. I'm curious to know which option did you proceed with? Based on my limited knowledge, would it be possible to do option 1 and connect the layers by a join? 

[Tiff]

Hi! @SofiaPiro due to capacity/priorities we have not moved forward on this project yet. Plus the technical considerations too and the limitations I've outlined above.

I think the issue with working with dynamic joins in ArcGIS Online (which I haven't done much before) is that you are then locked down with the schema for the parent/joined layers and can no longer make changes to the data... that is what has held me off from using the join.

Maybe what we could do is use Data Pipelines or Notebooks or something to create a joined layer that is updated periodically, and then use that output for the analysis, maybe?