Nonversioned data with archiving

You can use archive-enabled nonversioned data in a feature service that is enabled for sync functionality. When the data is nonversioned, clients always work with the current representation of the data. Back-office processes are not required for clients running offline to obtain the latest changes once they again have connectivity to the feature service.

Prepare nonversioned data as follows to participate in sync functionality:

• Enable archiving on the datasets.
• Include Global IDs on the datasets.
• Relationship classes and attachments must use a Global ID primary key. For more information, see the Attachments and relationship classes section of this topic.

For a detailed walk-through of this scenario, see Tutorial: Setting up feature service data for offline use.

You can publish feature services that reference nonversioned data from a 10.2 or later release enterprise geodatabase, take the data offline for editing, and synchronize changes with the enterprise geodatabase through the feature service.

Versioned data

If your organization requires any of the following, use versioned data:

• The data participates in geodatabase functionality that requires it to be versioned to allow editing. For example, if the feature class participates in a geometric network, the feature dataset must be versioned.
• Your organization has workflows in place that require the data to be versioned, such as having a quality assurance version of the data.

Prepare data as follows if you need to use versioning:

• Include Global IDs on the datasets.
• Register the datasets as versioned.
• Relationship classes and attachments must use a Global ID primary key. For more information, see the Attachments and relationship classes section of this topic.

You can publish feature services that reference versioned data from a 10.1 or later release enterprise geodatabase, take the data offline for editing, and synchronize changes with the enterprise geodatabase through the feature service.

See Offline maps and versioned data for more information.

Global IDs

The Global IDs you add to the datasets you take offline cannot be based on a custom field; they must explicitly use the Global ID field created by ArcGIS. To add Global IDs to your data, use the Add Global IDs geoprocessing tool or the Add Global ID command found on the feature class, feature dataset, and table context menus in the Catalog tree.

Attachments and relationship classes

If the data you want to use offline contains attachments or participates in a relationship class, the relationship between the tables or the table and the attachment must use either a Global ID column or user-managed field as the primary key. If the ObjectID column is the primary key, an error is returned when you download data for offline use. You can use the Migrate Relationship Class geoprocessing tool to convert ObjectID-based relationship classes and attachments to use Global ID fields as the primary key.

Using ArcGIS Server's managed database

If you enable the sync capability at the time that you publish to ArcGIS Server's managed database, no data preparation is required. The publishing process will set up the data to support the sync capability automatically. If you are not publishing to ArcGIS Server's managed database or you enable the sync capability after publishing to the managed database, you must prepare your geodatabase data as described in the previous sections.

Editor tracking

You can use editor tracking with data that is edited while offline. When you download data to the client for offline use, the existing values in the editor tracking fields are copied to the client along with the rest of the data. When working with the data offline, the date and time that features are created or edited are recorded in the create and edit date fields, respectively. These values are preserved when the data is synchronized with the service.

Offline data includes the name of the user who took the map offline. This is used with editor tracking as follows:

• For features that were created while offline, the creator name value is set to the user who took the map offline.
• For existing features that were edited while offline, the editor name value is set to the user who took the map offline. The creator name value for these features is not changed.

Either the person who took the map offline or an ArcGIS Server administrator can connect to the service and synchronize data.

Hosted feature services

If you are publishing feature services hosted on ArcGIS Online (hosted feature layers), the data is always nonversioned and is automatically prepared to use sync when you enable sync capabilities. This is done because publishers do not have access to the ArcGIS Online hosting server and, therefore, could not manually prepare the data to use sync capabilities.

When you publish hosted feature services to Portal for ArcGIS, the data is copied to the managed database of the portal's hosting server. This data is also always nonversioned. If your portal uses ArcGIS Data Store for the managed database of the hosting server, the data is automatically prepared to use sync when you enable sync capabilities. If you are not using ArcGIS Data Store for the managed database, you may need to alter the data manually to synchronize. For more information, see Enable a hosted feature service for offline mapping in the Portal for ArcGIS help.

Operations allowed (capabilities)

Feature service capabilities define the operations that are allowed when working with a feature service. There are two configurations supported for feature services that participate in offline map use:

• Read-only data—If clients will only query the data they download from the feature service to use while offline, set the Query and Sync capabilities on the feature service. With this configuration, the data cannot be edited while offline and synchronized back to the service.
• Editable data—If clients will edit the data when offline and synchronize changes with the feature service when they have connectivity, set the following capabilities on the feature service:
  • Query
  • Sync
  • Any combination of Create, Delete, and Update

Once the feature service is created, publishers and administrators can choose to disable the sync capability. For example, a publisher or administrator might disable the sync capability on the service to prevent clients from synchronizing with the service while data maintenance tasks are in progress, such as rebuilding indexes.

Short transactions

If you are using nonversioned data, avoid keeping edit transactions open for long periods of time when editing a sync-enabled feature service. For example, if you plan to edit nonversioned data in ArcMap that is also used for sync by a feature service, make sure to save edits periodically and stop editing when the edit session is complete.

Geometry updates and true curves

The feature service can be configured to allow geometry updates and edits to data with true curves. These settings are enforced when edits are synchronized from the client to the service. Any edits the client made that violate the geometry updates and true curve settings of the feature service will not be synchronized with the service.

Ownership-based access control

You can control feature access using ownership-based access control. Any edits the client made that violate the ownership-based access control rules will not be synchronized with the service. The login used to synchronize the edits is considered the editor in this case.

Either the person who took the map offline or an ArcGIS Server administrator can connect to the service and synchronize data. When an administrator synchronizes edits made while offline, ownership-based access control is based on the named user who took the map offline, not the administrator.

Invisible and read-only fields

When you author a feature service, you can choose to make some fields read-only or not visible to the feature service. Fields that are not visible to the feature service will not be downloaded to the client for offline use. Read-only fields will remain read-only in the downloaded data.

Map layers

A feature service published to ArcGIS for Server or Portal for ArcGIS that contains two layers based on the same feature class cannot be taken offline, edited, and synchronized.

For example, if you add your roads feature class to your map to display all roads, add the same roads feature class and set a definition query on it to display roads that are under construction, and publish a feature service from the map, you cannot take the feature service offline for editing and synchronize your changes when you are online.

Sync options

When an editable feature service contains versioned data, a version is created for individual clients when a map is taken offline. When a client synchronizes changes to the feature service, edits are applied to this version. The geodatabase administrator must perform reconcile and post processes to share the edits with others.

When a read-only feature service (only Query and Sync capabilities enabled) contains versioned data, no version is created. When a client sychronizes with the published version, changes to the published feature service are automatically available in the client.

By default, a version is created every time someone takes a map offline. However, the ArcGIS Server administrator or feature service owner can configure the feature service so a version is created for each login.

For example, if five different field workers take a map offline, five versions are generated. Each version is specific to an individual login, and the version name is based on the login name and the service name (for example, Joe_ValveFS). If Joe takes the map offline multiple times (for example, from more than one device), the same version is used when Joe syncs from each device. Thus one device has access to edits from the other device. However, new offline maps will only be as up-to-date as the last time Joe's version was reconciled. A version will remain as long as the person who took the map offline still has the offline map.

Follow these steps to set this sync option on an ArcGIS for Server service: