An ArcMap User's Wishlist for ArcGIS Pro

[Greg_Mattis]

The other day, I decided to start a list on the whiteboard at work of what ArcGIS Pro would need to have before we would be able to consider adoption of ArcGIS Pro in our current environment.

So here are some disclaimers about our environment. We are currently running with 2 - ArcGIS 10.2.2 Server Enterprise Standard (1 for GIS and 1 for Spillman) and we are currently running 10.3 ArcGIS Desktop. We have not deployed Portal and we are only using ArcGIS Online for our Public Mapping applications that are being fed from Map Services hosted on our ArcGIS Server.

So here is our list of items that we would need in order to adopt ArcGIS Pro

1. Support of Parcel Fabrics (I know that this is on the road map)
2. Hyperlinks within Pop-ups to PDF files being user friendly - This is a combination of two enhancements ENH-000107706 and ENH-000107704. Our issue here was that when opening a hyperlink in ArcGIS Pro, it disregards your default web browser settings and opens up IE. If you have Acrobat Pro and Adobe Reader installed on your computer and you are trying to open a PDF via a hyperlink, it can take up to a minute to load the PDF even if the PDF is store on a local file share. Make ArcGIS Pro honor system's default web browser when clicking links 
3. Arcade Expressions being allowed in Pop-ups.  Pop-up Arcade Expressions in ArcGIS Pro 
4. As we are using Spillman and we are publishing to ArcGIS Server directly, we would need to either have ArcGIS Pro be able to publish to ArcGIS Server directly (ArcGIS Pro Publish Services To ArcGIS Server) or figure out a way to still support our Spillman implementation.
5. Support of Attribute Rules and the creation of Dynamic ID's for features (In road map). It would also be great for this to work in a versioned environment as well.
6. We currently have a nightly process that runs every night populating Flood Zone, Zoning, General Plan, and other attributes to our Production Parcel Feature Class that is outside of our Parcel Fabric. As this relies heavily on VB Scripts in Field Calculate, it would be great to have it support VB Script and not only Python. To change our scripts would take many man hours that we just do not have.
7. We currently deploy mxd's across the city and if we were to move to ArcGIS Pro and build the database connections, we would have multiple local database connections floating throughout the city. We would like to be able to access .sde geodatabases how we currently do within ArcMap when adding items to the map in the file explorer window. ArcGIS Pro: Allow connection to .sde files in folders
8. Being that we have many people using ArcMap that don't know our instance name or authentication method, they have no way that when they are creating new projects to build a new connection every single time they create a new project. So this goes back to the above idea as another use case for allowing connections to SDE Geodatabases within the file structure and not through adding new connections. ArcGIS Pro: Allow connection to .sde files in folders 
9. Finally, if Esri insists on connecting to SDE Geodatabases through a database connection in the project then it would be helpful to name the SDE Geodatabase connections based upon the database name and not the instance by default. We have many SDE Geodatabases point to a single instance (Production, Staging, and Development) and if we add the more than one connection from the same instance, it would be named by default instance.sde, insance(2).sde,etc. ArcGIS Pro Database Connection Naming based upon Database not Instance 

This is just my first pass after about 2.5 weeks of testing our ArcMap workflows against ArcGIS Pro. I am sure that as I play with it more, I will find more things that I miss from ArcMap. But overall, I see ArcGIS Pro as a huge step forward in the walk with Desktop GIS software. 

Since I don't want this to only be a rant about what I don't like. Here is a list of features that I love in ArcGIS Pro.

1. Multiple layouts! We used to have multiple ArcMap files for print jobs based upon the size of the print. Now I can have one file for one type of print job and have all my layouts in there! HUGE SPACE SAVER!
2. Dark mode/light mode!
3. 64-bit Multi-threaded Application allowing me run a tool and continue to interact with the map.
4. ArcGIS Solution Deployment Tool (add-in)
5. Tool Ribbon is now more User Friendly
6. Editing workflows are so much easier

[SteveCole]

I've started a running list of things Pro can't do that Arcmap can. Among the features that didn't migrate from Arcmap to Pro that I use:

• Show vertices during editing using the V key.
• Export to Illustrator format.
• Create folder connection to root level of drive
• Move callout leader line anchor point independently of the entire callout.
• Open program without having to create a project.
• Pausing drawing.
• Support personal GeoDbs.
• Calculate geometry as right-click option in table view.
• Summary Statistics (right-click in Arcmap style).
• Can't copy/paste features
• Can't clip map data frame to a shape

Until then, hard pass.

Steve

[Greg_Mattis]

Hi Steve,

You bring up some good ones. I doubt however that ArcGIS Pro will ever support personal geodatabases because that was a Microsoft Access database saved as a .mdb. When Microsoft switched their file format from .mdb to .accdb (Access 2007), to my knowledge, they stopped allowing new versions of Access to create .mdb files.

For the export to Illustrator, have you taken a look at ArcGIS Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud? I haven't used it but I know the premise behind it is being able to bring maps into Illustrator.

[BruceHarold]

Data Interoperability extension for Pro can read and write mdb/accdb tables, you'll need the 64bit redistributable here and if Office is on your machine it will need to be the 64bit edition.

[SteveCole]

Yeah, personal GeoDBs aren't a BIG deal to me since they can be converted to File GeoDBs. Still, I may have a couple floating around that I haven't converted. Anyways, several of the others I listed are larger deal killers. As for the Creative Cloud alternative, I think there's already some sort of limitation with that option (doesn't work with local layers? or something like that).

I'm frankly tired of ESRI's continual pattern of suggesting fundamental workflow changes because they can't be bothered with keeping existing functionality (CTRL-V, Calculate Geometry, etc).

[ThomasColson]

"As for the Creative Cloud alternative, I think there's already some sort of limitation with that option (doesn't work with local layers? or something like that)."

You are correct, the "Creative Cloud" tool only allows you to consume content that is online, not "Local Layers". You can no longer create custom queries of the same local layer for different rendering effects in AI, unless you first take significant time out of your workflow to publish them online. 

[DT]

Ditto, the list is becoming endless... As is my workload from wasting time trialing the app...again.  Strike 2

[AdrianWelsh]

Steve,

This is a nice list. I find myself struggling with many of these same things. The vertices thing drive me nuts, haha! 

I was really not liking the copy/paste omission, but somehow I found it. I am not sure if it was added 'recently' or not but it's there. Here is an article on it:

Copy and paste using the clipboard—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS Desktop 

It's in the Map ribbon toolbar thing at the top:

[Plymouth_CoastalObservatory]

These suggestions are great and need to be included in the next update of Arc Pro!