Publishing feature services
To publish a feature service to ArcGIS Server, just publish a map service and enable the Feature Access capability on it. This generates a URL through which you can use the feature service. The lifetime of the map service controls the lifetime of the feature service. If the map service is shut down, the feature service is shut down as well.
Note:
If you are working with versioned data, by default, only the version in the map document is exposed through the feature service when you publish the service. If you want to query or edit a version other than the one that was used to publish the feature service, you can do so using the ArcGIS Server REST and SOAP APIs. To learn more, consult the documentation specific to these APIs.
To publish a map service with the Feature Access capability enabled, follow these steps:
- Open your map document in ArcMap and choose File > Share As > Service from the main menu.
The Share as Service window appears.
- Choose Publish a service and click Next.
- Choose the ArcGIS Server connection you want to use from the Choose a connection drop-down list. If the server connection you want to use is not listed, you can create a new connection by clicking Connect To ArcGIS Server
. If you need help with this step, see the topic About connecting to ArcGIS Server in ArcGIS for Desktop. - Optionally, in the Publish a Service window, enter a new name for the service. The name cannot be more than 120 characters long and may contain only alphanumeric characters and underscores.
Click Next.
- By default, services are published to the root folder (root) of ArcGIS Server. Services can be organized into sub folders under the root folder. Choose the folder where you want to publish the service, or create a new folder to contain the service, and click Continue.
The Service Editor appears.
- Set the properties that you want for your map service. Here, you can choose what users can do with your service and take fine-grained control of how the server will expose your service. For details on how to manually set map service properties, see the topic Setting map service properties. You can also automatically import properties from an existing service definition or a published map service by clicking Import
. For information on how to best configure your service for deployment, see the help topic Tuning and configuring services.Tip:
If you close the Service Editor during this session, you'll be prompted to save your work as a draft service. Draft services allow you to come back to your service configuration work at a later time. By default, draft services are saved in the Drafts folder of your ArcGIS Server connection. For more information, see About draft services.
- In the left pane of the Service Editor, click Capabilities and select Feature Access. Enabling this option creates an associated feature service with your map service that allows clients to perform feature editing over the web.
- In the left pane of the Service Editor, click Feature Access and set the properties that you want for your feature service. Here, you can choose what users can do with your service and take fine-grained control of how the server will expose your features. By default, the data exposed through the feature service can be queried and edited. Editing allows users to apply changes to the data in the source geodatabase using the service. For details on how to manually set feature service properties, see Editor permissions for feature services.
Tip:
If you close the Service Editor during this session, you'll be prompted to save your work as a draft service. Draft services allow you to come back to your service configuration work at a later time. By default, draft services are saved in the Drafts folder of your ArcGIS Server connection. For more information, see About draft services.
- Click Analyze
. This examines your map document to see if it can be published to the server. - Fix any errors (
) in the Prepare window so you can publish your map document as a service. Optionally, you can fix the warnings and informational messages to further improve the performance and appearance of your feature service. For more information about resolving these issues, see Analyzing your GIS resource.Tip:
To give yourself more viewing area when configuring your service, click the Collapse button
at the top of the Service Editor. - Optionally, click Preview
. This can give you an idea of how your map will look when viewed on the web. See Previewing your map for more information. - Once you've fixed the errors and, optionally, any warnings and messages, click Publish
.Note:
If the feature service you are publishing will be copying data to the server, the size of the data and your network bandwidth will impact the time it takes to publish.
Your feature service is now running on the server and can be accessed by users and clients on your network. If your server administrator has allowed web access to the service, your service is also now available on the web.