I tried searching other areas of the Community but the issues are specifically involving the labeling of the Fabric and making assessment maps (or parcel maps). I'm hoping since Assessors offices are probably the biggest consumers of the Fabric I can get some advice from those in the same trenches as me. How are other jurisdictions labeling/annotating assessment maps using Pro?
Currently my County is utilizing the original Parcel Fabric in ArcMap. About 20% of our data is COGO quality the rest is vectored. We have been unable to upgrade to the current Fabric because of this single issue. We can’t quickly annotate our parcel lines and have found utilizing labeling alone to be insufficient in creating the level of cartography expected with our maps. Reasons we can't just use labeling has everything to do with placement. Specifically when text won't fit and needs arrows to guide the user of said maps.
Quick breakdown of our map creation process in ArcMap. We draw parcels for a particular assessment page, select just those tax parcels that will be on the Assessment page, auto label per desired scale, select newly created labels, copy and paste them into an existing annotation layer of that scale, finally make minor modifications to the new copied annotations as needed. I would guess labeling is able to handle about 90% or more of all line labeling to our satisfaction. Add various other annotations to the page (apn, north arrow, revision notes etc). All annotations are tied to the specific page in the map series they are associated with using the query ability. Page is complete and exported out.
We wanted to continue with this approach, it was quick, easy, consistent and the pages are easy to read, but I can't figure out how to have a similar process in Pro. Once a subdivision is drawn in Pro I can label the parcel lines but I can not copy and paste them into an annotation layer. I seem to only have the option of using "Convert Labels to Annotation". That tool works great except it will create a whole new annotation layer instead of allow me to add it directly to my existing annotation layer for that scale. Having almost 5000 maps I don’t foresee maintaining 5000 separate annotation layers being much fun. If I run Append Annotation Feature Classes to combine these extra layers I now create a whole new Annotation layer. Make matters worse that process took an unexpectedly long time. Far too long to be part of our editing workflow.
I've spent a good week of my time fiddling with Pro to solve this problem. Now I’m sitting here thinking there HAS to be some other way that is just as quick in Pro as it was in ArcMap but I’m just too dense to figure out. There has to be another path to create the same level of quality maps without it taking 10 times as long to complete. I'm really hoping that someone in this community has found the magic way to handle a situation like this.