How do you relate?

Hello Everyone,

As the name of this newsletter states, I aim to bring you a New Geospatial Perspective... Let's see what this topic sparks...

Typically you use related tables correct.?. What if there were another way? I have been seeing a potential change in this logic. Some Esri business partners are even using this logic in some workflows. (Pro-West & Associates) What if I could just pass through related information from a feature and create a new feature in a different data set, while also putting that new feature at the exact X, Y as the original, stacking features?

I assume you immediately feel a feeling of panic, of that, 's not how we do it... I kind of felt that as well but as we went through those earlier Experience Builder Workflows it started to become clear that this could be a perfect fit for local government GIS.

Let's walk through a hypothetical workflow... This time Fire Hydrant Inspections...

Let's say I have a simple feature layer that contains all my fire hydrants in the city.

This layer would have typical fields about each individual hydrant. A unique id, type of hydrant, responsible station, location, etc. But we leave out the operational details of it like PSI or GPM or its current condition.

Then we create a survey123 upon which we are going to use to collect the inspection information.

The first questions we want are some of the information in the parent layer the, unique id, Brand, Station, Location,

Then we're looking to collect the information about the inspection, Inspection date, is the hydrant operational,

Are there any visible defects...

What were the flow test results GPM and PSI and any notes and a photo...

Most Important though to this workflow is to pass through the location of the existing parent fire hydrant to this newly created inspection feature.

This will essentially stack the inspections at the exact location of the fire hydrant and they will contain pertaining information about the unique hydrant be at the same X, Y and contain all the information about the inspection.

Using experience builder we can simply pass through the information and collect the inspection. Just by selecting the hydrant we are inspecting and doing the inspection.

This workflow makes it simple to use the "related" inspection in let's say a dashboard.

In the dashboard above selecting the hydrant, it filters the list of inspections on the right based on the newest date at the top, when you select the inspection you want to see in the list, it displays on the detail pane on the left. You could also add the inspections layer to the map, and filter the to the current year or operational status, however, you see fit and see your whole inspection process from one location.

The fact that geographically the inspections are now a separate feature, then the parent hydrant can help with historical record-keeping as well. If a hydrant was moved the inspection would stay in the same place.

Now for a moment let's hop out of the mindset of this hydrant inspection, and apply that logic to a polygon. Let's say you inspect a 100-acre piece of land. Passing through the exact geometry of the parcel of land to the inspection and keeping the inspection separate from the parcel ensures the actual area of inspection is maintained. If your inspection was in a related table attached to the parcel of land, and the parcel of land was subdivided in the future. When you look at that inspection post subdivision you would be looking at a 5-acre piece of land, and if the inspection didn't contain the original size it would look like the inspection was done on 5 acres and not the original 100 acres.

Even though you are stacking features if you chose smart ways of displaying I feel you can achieve a more robust workflow and historical record keeping.

Keep in mind this is just my thought and you must do your due diligence to determine if stacking inspections is the right workflow for you. However, I feel it may indeed work in a lot of situations. Also, keep in mind that experience builder doesn't work in disconnected environments currently so you may want to keep that in mind also when creating your inspection workflow.

Until next time...

Keep up the good work...