If you’re using the Attribute Assistant, we need your help!

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02-23-2016 07:37 AM
MikeMillerGIS
Esri Frequent Contributor

We’re doing some research into how the Attribute Assistant is being used. We’d like to see what rules you are using and how you configured your dynamic value table. 

This information will help us plan for the future. We want to know what are the most common rules.  We also want to see your gnarly and complicated rules to see how far the Attribute Assistant is being pushed.

So please share your dynamic value table along with any comments you have in this thread. We appreciate your help on this effort!

Thanks,

Mike

ArcGIS Solutions

PS: If you don’t know what the Attribute Assistant is (or aren’t sure if you are using it already) no worries.  You can learn more about Attribute Assistant on the ArcGIS Solution site here

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239 Replies
AlexBellak
New Contributor III

Here is the City of Troy, we use it primarily for our Water,Sewer & Storm Utilities for some of the spatial attribution tools. As well as Addresses points and transportation features for the same reason. The most important feature for us is it helps us manage our unique asset ID's within our features.

Its very helpful and perhaps the most useful tool that ESRI has ever offered. It should really be in the core product.

-Alex

GIS Administrator

City of Troy Michigan

ChristineBlouin
New Contributor

Attached is an export of our
DynamicValue table

Here at City of Nanaimo we use the following Attribute
Assistant methods:

  • GENERATE_ID
  • TO/FROM_JUNCTION_FIELD
  • INTERSECTING_FEATURE
  • JUNCTION_ROTATION
  • LAST_VALUE
  • MULTI_FIELD_INTERSECT

Comments:

A parameter to only include
unique values would be useful for the MULTI_FIELD_INTERSECT method.  We
currently use the method to record the names of streets that meet at street
intersections as an attribute on the intersection point feature. 

So currently we get this:

ROAD1: “Oak St”

ROAD2: “Elm St”

ROAD3: “Oak St”

ROAD4: “Elm St”

And we’d prefer to get this:

ROAD1: “Oak St”

ROAD2: “Elm St”

ROAD3: null

ROAD4: null

Also it would be great if we
could use python instead of VBScript in the Expression method.

AlbertoPinilla
New Contributor II

Hi, Michael and everyone,

I'm configuring a water supply network right now, so my contribution maybe is not the most valuable. I realize that, after creatig the geometric network, the Attribute Assistant is a great tool, crucial, to maintain the data. So far, the methods i've used most are:

-ANGLE

-EXPRESSION

-FIELD TRIGGER

-JUNCTION ROTATION

-INTERSECTING FEATURE

I'd like to make a couple of questions:

1.-I realized that tools that validate connectivity just warn you if there is a wrong connection once you use the validate tool. I wondered if the "VALIDATE_CONNECTIVITY" method of the Attribute Assistant would prevent of wrong connections, but I confess I don't understand how it works after scrutinizing the documentation of this method.

I would really thank if someone could share a better example of the tool or, at least, inform about a workaround for what I'm looking for.

2.-The method INTERSECTING_FEATURE works fine when two features of different classes intersect, v.g. a main_pipe feature and a lateral feature. This way it is possible to transfer the "id" of the main to a field in the lateral. But, what if I want to transfer any field value from a lateral to another lateral feature that intersects the first one? I haven't been able to make the INTERSECTING_FEATURE method work fine in this case.

Thanks in advance

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MarcyLaViollette
New Contributor III

I gave a presentation about Attribute Assistant to our local 2015 GIS Day meetup for local and state GIS staff, and no one had ever heard of it, but they were very excited about it.

Here at the City, we use it for:

* Populating the upstream / downstream IDs of point features to the pipe.  (Very helpful because early on, we were constantly flipping pipe flow directions and this kept the up/down correct.)

* Populating the Water Zone from a polygon dataset into each valve and hydrant's attributes.

* Pulling the parcel ID from one dataset to another as we're editing the second dataset.

* Most complex: Populating the lowest invert value of the upstream pipes into the sewer manholes.

None of these sound all that impressive, but let me assure you that this tool has been a lifesaver.  So nice to let the computer do all this mundane work in the background as you're editing.

-Marcy LaViollette

City of Olympia, WA

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KenBeville
New Contributor III

We are currently using Attribute Assistant for generating out unique facility ID's on all of our point-based electric features like poles, transformers, lights, switches, etc. 

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BrianO_keefe
Occasional Contributor III

I just spent 30 minutes with Allison Muise at Dev Summit and I believe we will be using this as soon as I have time to deconstruct everything she told me into a form suitable for our GIS team. Very excited... We hope to use it for Streets and Road management.

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JerryCorum1
New Contributor III

Here's our Dynamic Values table!  We've been using it to replace some old production mapping 3rd party extensions and it's working beautifully.  Doesn't quite do everything but we wrote some python tools for the rest and it all balanced out!

Thanks for making a good Swiss army knife of data entry and data hygiene!

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YaroslavZaitsev
New Contributor III

How would one begin to use this tool? I have downloaded attribute assistant as part of 260mb file. I followed installation procedure and I kind of sort of assumed it would work right out of the box and yet in the ESRI's overview it says something about dynamic table and then it talks about just using it. So how do you just use it

Blank map. Random layer with attribute. Attribute Assistant toolbar shows a red exclamation sign on first button. How do I turn it green in abovementioned map?

Thank you.

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MikeMillerGIS
Esri Frequent Contributor

The tool is included in a number of solutions. Which one did you download? Make sure to unzip the solution and open the map included. It should have all layers and the required tables in the TOC. Just start editing. The dynamic value table defines the rules.

YaroslavZaitsev
New Contributor III

Thank you. Got it working. I assumed it would have some sort of wizard on a blank map. Now that I skimmed over the campusediting thing I downloaded for learning purposes I can see how it works.

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