Custom data feeds allow you to access and use data from data sources that are not natively supported with ArcGIS. Data from custom data feeds can be served to web clients, desktop apps, and field apps as feature services. The following are examples of when you would create a custom data feed:
- You want to access data that uses a proprietary format.
- You do not want to register the data source with ArcGIS Enterprise.
- You want to access data that is maintained by a third party.
- The data is stored in a remote location and must be streamed as a live data feed.
You can develop custom data feeds using the cdf command line tool that comes with ArcGIS Enterprise SDK. The tool allows you to use JavaScript to create and test custom data providers that fetch data from your data sources. It also packages your code into custom data package files that can be used to register the data providers with ArcGIS Server. Once registered, the data can be made available to ArcGIS clients as feature services that reference your data providers.
To learn more about custom data feeds, see the custom data feeds documentation.
Considerations before developing a custom data feed
Custom data feeds require knowledge of web development, the JavaScript programming language, and NodeJS. It is important to be aware that the cdf command line tool populates custom data providers with boilerplate code, allowing you to focus on coding the logic to connect the providers with your data source and format fetched data as GeoJSON.
Before you develop a custom data feed, consider how your custom data provider will communicate with your data source. For example, if you need to collect tweets published by a specific X account, you can configure your data provider to use the X API. Similarly, if you need to collect business metrics such as ratings and reviews from Yelp, you can configure your data provider to use the Yelp Fusion API.