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

[MikeMillerGIS]

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. 

[MichaelVolz]

Gregory:

How is the transition going for you from Attribute Assistant in ArcMap to Attributes Rules in Pro?  Have you made significant progress in getting your editing workflows ported over to the superior Pro software?

[GregoryBurda]

We haven't transitioned to Pro yet, but I do have a copy I could try it on to see how it works.

[MarielaDel_Rio]

We use it for address point maintenance. 

Rules include: No duplicate address (text) - display a message -, only one main address per parcel - display a message-, take the underlying parcel folio when creating an address, compose the full address and its parts from the address number and street, if a retired address exists, show a warning - user should use the retired address and reactivate it -.

Use templates for the different type of addresses (main address, alternate address, condo address, temporary address). 

Take the underlying address as the same address and allow for the addition of the unit (for condos).

When selecting a street, and because we want the address parts (quadrant, street name, type, etc.) there is a drop down to pick the correct street, even though it was already selected when creating the point. What I would like is for the drop down to be more user friendly. It currently shows a street with parts separated by pipes and a message that has the field names concatenated with the pipes. Like this:

Select the correct Dir|STNAME|TYPE:

NW| 2ND|ST

SW|2ND|ST ... and so on. Too confusing.

Thanks

[MichaelVolz]

Mariela:

Have you tried to migrate this workflow to Pro as that is the future of ESRI GIS software?  I ask because you need to use Attribute Rules (AR) in Pro instead of Attribute Assistant (AA) and it appears that AR is not equivalent to at this time.

[ArshadAkhtar2]

I've heard about AA for some time now, but didn't have the need use it...until now.

I'm wondering if AA can do arithmetic. I would like to generate the cost of an asset based different attributes. The cost per unit would be populated in a separate table.

For example, I want AA to populate the cost field a PVC pipe of 200mm diameter. Use the geometric length and the cost table and populate the cost field. 

Has anyone done something similar? if so, where would you start?

[MartinPflanz]

Arshad, if you are looking at raw material costs, then that cost increases fairly predictably based on market costs for that material.  For each pipe type and pipe class there would be unique cost tables (this changes fairly often based on market costs for fuel etc).  As a suggestion, if you are looking at actual total construction cost, beyond just material costs, you may want to consider the construction environment - rural vs high density, mid etc - greater complexity and interaction with utilities, pavement etc, increases cost.  This could be derived by a X factor for the type of construction complexity for a particular area (polygon).  

[RichardFairhurst]

In order to do this you would need to have four fields in your pipe feature, the pipe type that relates to your separate table, a field to store the rate on the feature from the separate table, the length of the pipe, and the final pipe cost.  Then you could use the Update Linked Record method of attribute assistant to respond to attribute or manual changes to populate the rate field from the separate table when the user entered a valid pipe type, followed by an Expression method of attribute assistant to respond to geometry. attribute or manual changes of populate the cost field based on the rate and length.  Each Attribute Assistant method is stored in a separate record of the DynamicValue table.and they are executed in the order that the records are stored from the first record to the last record, so methods can be chained together in a logical sequential order.

You cannot write an Expression that uses the separate table directly and avoid the need to store the rate in its own field on each pipe feature, but in many ways it is better to store the rate for each pipe individually than make a user have to execute a join/relate on the related table or divide the cost of a pipe of each pipe type by the length to discover what rates were used anyway.  This also ensures that you would be able to tell if all pipe costs have been updated to the current rate if that is part of your business logic or would show which pipes used historic rates and which used current rates if the pipes represent both past and current jobs that paid different rates for the same materials.

[MikeMillerGIS]

You could also explore using the CIP toolset - https://solutions.arcgis.com/utilities/water/help/capital-improvement-planning/

[MikeMillerGIS]

Or the Cost Analysis WebApp Builder widget - https://doc.arcgis.com/en/web-appbuilder/create-apps/widget-cost-analysis.htm

[ChristyWest]

We have been using Attribute Assistant for over a year now and have successfully created some more complicated expressions that work well. It is the more simplistic methods that I am having an issue and I have researched and researched and can't find a fix for it. It is with the Nearest_Feature method. On most of our layers we are using the method to populate the location from the nearest Addresspoint but when I tried to populate the Addresspoint ID into a field in our Impervious Area layer it doesn't work unless the IA polygon is drawn over the Addresspoint. So it is working as a Intersecting_Feature Method instead of the Nearest_Feature method. Has anyone else encountered this issue? I thought it may be because the IA layer is a polygon layer but we have other polygon layers that the Location is populated correctly on from the Addresspoint layer. I appreciate any comments and/or answers.

Thanks.