Hundreds of shapefiles!

[davidchamberlain2]

Hi,

I have downloaded some utility point data. This includes the locations of individual poles/towers/overhead lines etc. Each item is separated out into individual shapefiles for each 20km square. So to cover my County it means using every square for that area and every square(shapefile) contains hundreds features. I have tried to merge the data from each square but its taking far to long. Has anyone got any ideas on how I can bring each 20km shapefile together to make available from the central database as one complete layer and share in a webapp?

Thanks

Dave

[RobertKrisher · Accepted solution]

If the processing is taking too long, make sure that your source and target data are local to the machine/server that is processing the files. Even if the final destination is an enterprise geodatabase or layer in AGOL, it will be faster to process everything locally (NOT on a network drive) and then put the resulting product in its final resting place once you've finished your analysis, processing, and quality assurance.

Have you tried using the Merge geoprocessing tool? You should be able to run that tool to consolidate all the shapefiles into a single layer in a local geodatabase using a single execution.

[BobBooth1]

Could use ModelBuilder, with the Iterate Feature Classes iterator, connecting up to the Append tool, to append to a target feature class.

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/modelbuilder-toolbox/iterate-feature-classes...

[davidchamberlain2]

Thanks to you both,

I moved the data to a local folder on our admin server and it made the world of difference. I have now merged all the shapefiles. I will consider the model builder option as well though as it could save time when it comes to updating it all.

Thanks again

Dave