Add Field (small integer)

[CarsonMorton]

When I look at my existing fields, I have a couple with the type as "Small Integer"

However when I try to add a new field it does not give me the option for a "Small Integer". I see "Big Integer" and regular "Integer"

I can work around this by making the changes locally and republishing, but I am hoping that there is a simpler way to do it directly online.

NOTE: the solution says to drill down into the layer before clicking on Admin. I had to do it the other way around because Admin would disappear when I had clicked on the layer name. But it did work in the end!

[MobiusSnake · Accepted solution]

If I need to add a small integer field to a service, I usually do so using the REST services directory's admin page.  In case you haven't used this before, you can do this:

• On the service's item page, look for the "URL" section in the lower right and click the launch button.  This should open a simple HTML page with a title of "Your_Service_Name (FeatureServer)".
• Under the Layers list, click the layer you want to add the field to, this will open a new page.
• From here, click the Admin link in the upper right.  This will open a new page with a different-coloured header.
• From here, click on the Add to Definition link at the bottom this will give you a new page with a large text box that has a bunch of JSON in it.
• "Select all" on the text box's contents and delete it.
• Enter something like this (replacing names and aliases as necessary) and click the "Add to Layer Definition" at the bottom:

{"fields": [{
  "name" : "MyNewField", 
  "type" : "esriFieldTypeSmallInteger", 
  "alias": "My New Field",
  "nullable": true, 
  "editable" : true, 
  "visible" : true
}]}

You should get a page saying the operation was successful and your new field should be on the layer.

[CarsonMorton]

I may have deviated slightly, here is how and why:

• There was no URL in "My_Layer - Service Definition", so I went to "My_Layer - Feature Layer (hosted)" instead. Clicking "View" on the URL did take me to the "My_Layer (FeatureServer)" page.
• I didn't go into the Layers list because this is the layer I want. (no sublayers) and the Admin link was already in the top right.

Everything else seemed correct, but it didn't seem to work. unless it takes a while to propagate the change?

[MobiusSnake]

The change should be immediate, no time to propagate.

There are two "Add to Definition" pages, one that is used to modify the service and one that's used to modify a specific layer or table within the service.  It sounds like you got the wrong one; the service-level one would be used to do something like add a new sublayer or table to the service (you can do all sorts of cool things through these interfaces that you can't do through the standard web interface), whereas the layer/table-level one is what you need to call to add a field or an index.  If you tried to add a field at the service level, I expect nothing would happen but it wouldn't give you an error, either.

If your service only consists of one layer, you should still go down to the sublayer page; otherwise you're working with the service and not a layer.

[CarsonMorton]

Finally got back to this.

What threw me off was that I had to click admin before clicking on the layer. If I clicked the layer first, then the Admin link would disappear.

So it worked. Thanks!

Also now I have to dig into this REST stuff and see what other nifty tricks can be done with it!