Latest Contributions by MichelleBoivin

I work in a moderate utility company (~180,000 customers). After Hurricane Michael and due to recent events internally, I am looking for an offline alternative for maps for our field crews. Currently we are using Portal for most everything, which works well as long as the internal network is up and as long as internet access through providers is available. However, in anticipation of a situation where neither of those are working and they need an alternative for the field, what is everyone using? ArcReader and Publisher are one alternative, but the overhead on that for a small 1-2 person GIS to maintain, in my opinion, is not the most efficient. In addition, the field crews begin to rely on that software rather than Portal (past experience). The Mobile Map Package and Explorer are another option, but we are not an ArcGIS Pro shop, strictly Desktop at the moment. The number of layers they need access to are quite a few and some attribute information would be required as well. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.... ... View more

Having a bit of a connundrum....new job, just sent folks through an upgrade from 10.3.1 to 10.5. Prior to upgrading, I would review user's connections (database and folder) in case I had to remap their locations. What I found on numerous occasions was that the users were able to view data from our RDBMS, but when I go to look in Catalog, there is no database connection established (see attached image). I have looked in: ArcCatalog > Database Connections Environment > Workspace Environment > Geodatabase ArcMap > Document Properties Old School Services file, just in case https://community.esri.com/thread/164335 just in case - no help http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.3/manage-data/gdbs-in-db2/preconfigure-connection-files.htm - no help ArcCatalog > Map Document > Set Data Source When you read the data source it simply and properly states the Production database. I just cannot tell where the data is coming from. In addition, when I use the Set Data Source option in ArcCatalog for the .mxd it reads C:\Users\<user>AppData\Roaming\ESRI\Desktop10.2\ArcCatalog\Connection to <db>.sql but this location doesn't even exist and it was from a completely different users profile that had never been logged onto that machine. From what I understand, the one person created an .mxd and copeid it to multiple machines. I just don't know how the're able to access the data in the RDBMS if they don't have ANY connections defined at all. Any help would be much appreciated. I know I can add the db and change their data sources, but I'd also like to do some clean up and understand what is going on. I feel like I am missing something big and obvious here, or maybe not? ... View more

My company is in need of creating and maintaining a Data Catalog for all of our data. Using the Export XML Workspace Document and View Data Dictionary within X-Ray is helpful to initially create one, but I would like to see a way to automate the Data Dictionary portion to .html via Python, Model Builder, something.... This way a job can run on a timely basis and update the html file for our viewers rather than a tech/analyst having to recreate it constantly. If it were just desktop users who can view metadata, this would be a moot point, unfortunately our internal web viewers are unable to access the metadata in 3rd party apps. A continuously updated web page users can navigate to will be beneficial. ... View more

We are in the midst of moving all of our databases over to SQL 2008R2 from SQL 2005 as well as transitioning from AGD 10.0 to AGD 10.1. Recently we moved our RASTER database between SQL versions as well as file store locations (we were running out of space). In other words, rather than a backup/restore, the RASTER database was detached, SQL files were copied to the new SAN and the files were reattached on the original server as well as the new server. We primarily use Image Services for our imagery, however we also keep some of our imagery in SDE as a backup (you never know when a server will go down). What I have noticed after this transition is that I can preview all of the imagery on both servers through ArcGIS 10.0 SP5 (2001, 2007, and 2012), but I can only preview a recent load (2012) on ArcGIS 10.1 SP1. When I try and view the older formats, it tries to process in the Preview window, and then basically kills my session. The imagery that resides on the server is from 2001, 2007, and 2012. The 2012 is the only imagery that can be previewed in 10.1. The other imagery, as you can imagine, was loaded many years ago. Is there an issue or bug with 10.1 reading older raster dataset formats? Reloading the imagery is not exactly an option. We have also tested this on 10.2 and are getting the same issue as on 10.1. Note: these are all raster datasets, not mosaic datasets. Our imagery covers a great expanse of the greater FortWorth/Dallas metro area so reloading is our last resort. Thank you for any input you can provide, Michelle ... View more