Tiled Mapping - Caching Annotation

[JaromHlebasko]

I would like to create a Mapping Service with an annotation feature class that I have so when I add it to my feature service web map, the labels on the Mapping Service will appear on the web map. I guess my underlying question is, can you produce a Tiled Map with just annotation? If you can, what is the workflow and if you can't, are there any other options to try and get labeling appear on a web map? I know labels are not supported as of yet but was just curious if you can create annotation on a base map layer?

Thank you for your help!

[MikeMinami]

I believe you should be able to create a tiled map service with just labels...I've never tried it, but it seems possible to publish from Desktop.  This blog also may be useful...

http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2011/11/21/adding-labels-to-arcgis-online-web-maps-part-1/

Thanks,

Mike

[JaromHlebasko]

Thank you for the information. I looked through the blog that you provided and unfortunately, I do not have ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced license level to perform the mask. I tried creating a tiled map with my annotation layer and used the suggested implementation when you start the share a hosted service option. I received no error warnings and it previewed just fine. I went ahead and shared it to my ArcGIS online account. I then went to my web map and added the new map service, after sharing it of course, and I could not see any labels. Perhaps I am doing something wrong? If anyone can help me with this, I would greatly appreciate it.

[AndrewLand]

You can create a tile package of just annotation (not recommended unless you're going to restrict the display of this using scale dependencies, or by creating a custom tiling scheme only to include the scales in which you would like these to draw), or you can create a tile package of features labeled dynamically but with no symbology.  This is the case for either creating a tile package and uploading to ArcGIS Online then publishing the map service or by using Esri's services to create the tile package for you via the typical publishing workflow.  So either way...create the tile package from an mxd that only has the labeled features in it (either annotation or features labeled but with no symbology)

In the end, a cached tiled map service is just a bunch of 256 x 256 png's (or whatever image format) of your mxd file being drawn as tiles at the scales in the your tiling scheme (hence why the quantity of tiles exponentially increases as your scales get larger).  I would go with Dynamic map labels and no symbology on the features unless you only want the labels to display between defined scales and you want to control the exact placement of those labels within those scales as annotation...as the symbology for your feature class doesn't scale as you change scales in the map...