Manage feature layers

Organization administrators and owners of feature layers (feature services) that reference registered data can control editing access, allow data exports, and configure advanced editing options.

Note:

If the feature service is published on a federated server secured with web-tier authentication, for example, Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), or client-certificate authentication, you cannot configure service and layer settings through the portal website. In such cases, you must use ArcGIS Server Manager on the federated server to manage service and layer settings.

Control editing access

As the owner of a feature layer that references registered data or as an administrator, you can change the settings on the layer to control whether editing is allowed and what types of edits can be made.

The settings described in this section affect users who are not the layer owner, not an administrator, and not a data curator. To perform the editing operations enabled on the layer, these users must be members of a default or custom role that has the privilege to edit features.

Enable editing and configure the types of editing that are allowed

Follow these steps to enable editing on a feature layer that references registered data:

1. Sign in to the organization as the item owner or an organization administrator.

   If you sign in as the item owner, you must be a member of a role with the privilege to publish server-based layers.

2. Open the item page for the feature layer.
3. Click the Settings tab.
4. Scroll to the Feature Layer section and expand the Configuration heading.
5. Check the Enable editing box.
6. In the What kind of editing is allowed? section, choose from the following options:
   • Add—Allow editors to add feature geometry. Editors can also provide attribute values when they create the feature.
   • Delete—Allow editors to delete features.
   • Update—Allow editors to update feature geometry and attributes. To allow editors to update attributes only and not update feature geometry—in other words, they cannot move features or alter feature shapes—choose Attributes only.
7. In the What features can editors see? section, choose one of the following options:
   • Editors can see all features—Enable this option when the editor should be able to access all features in the feature layer.
   • Editors can only see their own features (requires editor tracking)—If the source data is from an enterprise geodatabase and has editor tracking enabled, you can enable this option to prevent users from accessing sensitive or proprietary information, such as medical records or research data, for features that are added by other editors.
   • Editors can't see any features, even those they add—Enable this option when the editor doesn't need or shouldn't see newly added features. For example, if you have people collecting survey information from the public using apps such as ArcGIS Survey123, you may not want the editor to see the information the survey respondents provide, as it could be private or sensitive information such as the respondent's home address.

     Note:

     When Editors can't see any features, even those they add is enabled, data is not visible through the feature layer to anyone in any ArcGIS apps.

8. Choose one of the following options for the What features can editors edit? section:
   • Editors can edit all features—Allow editors to delete or modify features created by themselves and others.
   • Editors can only edit their own features (requires editor tracking)—Allows editors to delete or modify the features they create but not delete or modify others' features. This option is only supported if the source data is stored in an enterprise geodatabase and has editor tracking enabled.
9. Click Save.

   The edits are applied immediately.

Allow offline editing or collaboration

To allow others to take the feature layer offline and work with it while disconnected from the network, or to share feature layer data as a copy in a distributed collaboration, you must enable synchronization on the layer.

When you enable synchronization, it allows offline editors to get the latest updates to features at the time they connect. Any edits they made to features while disconnected are also applied at the time they connect. It also allows changes made to the layer in the sending organization of a collaboration to be synchronized to the feature layer in the participating organizations.

Tip:

You do not have to enable editing on the feature layer to take it offline; you can enable synchronization to allow users to take a feature layer offline for reference (read-only) purposes.

1. Open the item page for the feature layer.
2. Click the Settings tab.
3. Scroll to the Feature Layer section and check the Enable Sync (required for offline use and collaboration) box.
4. Click Save.

   The edits are applied immediately.

Allow data exports

Follow these steps to allow others to export data from a feature layer when they access the layer in your organization:

1. Sign in to the organization as the item owner or an organization administrator.

   If you sign in as the item owner, you must be a member of a role with the privilege to publish server-based layers.

2. Open the item page for the feature layer.
3. Click the Settings tab.
4. Scroll to the Feature Layer section and expand the Configuration heading.
5. Scroll to the Export data section and check the Allow others to export to different formats box.
6. Click Save.

   The edits are applied immediately.

Configure advanced editing options

Follow these steps to configure additional editing-related properties:

1. Sign in to the organization as the item owner or an organization administrator.

   If you sign in as the item owner, you must be a member of a role with the privilege to publish server-based layers.

2. Open the item page for the feature layer.
3. Click the Settings tab.
4. Scroll to the Feature Layer section and expand the Configuration heading.
5. Scroll to the Advanced Options section.

   You can set the following properties:

   • Allow update of true curves—If the source data contains true curve features, you can enable this option to allow editors to update these features. However, when an editor performs edits from a client that does not support true curves, the true curve features are overwritten with a series of short, straight line segments held together with vertices to approximate an arc (also referred to as densified lines). To avoid this, you can also enable the Only allow true curve updates by true curve clients option. At this time, ArcGIS Pro is the only ArcGIS client that can edit true curves.
   • Allow default z-value when inserting or updating features—Allows you to specify a default z-value. If an editor adds or updates a feature through the feature layer and does not specify a z-value, the default z-value is applied.
   • Allow geometry updates without m-values—Use this setting if layers in the feature layer are enabled to store m-values, but you are not using the m-values. When editors edit feature geometries through the feature layer, NaN m-values are inserted if the client does not provide a value.
   • Add realm to user name when applying edits—This option allows you to specify a value to be appended to the usernames recorded when editing through the feature layer. This allows you to differentiate when a user is editing through the feature layer rather than directly against the data in the geodatabase. To enable this, check the Add realm to user name when applying edits option and type the realm value to add to usernames.
   • Sanitize HTML to remove unsupported entities and attributes—When this option is enabled, it prevents the input of unsupported HTML entities or attributes. This option is enabled by default and, unless editors require the ability to input these unsupported HTML entities, do not disable this option. Disabling this option allows a user to enter any text in the text boxes, which exposes the service to potential cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

6. Click Save.

   The edits are applied immediately.

Considerations for feature layers published from cloud data warehouse data

The preceding settings do not apply to a feature layer published from ArcGIS Pro that references data in a supported cloud data warehouse. Settings for this type of feature layer display the values for parameters that were set when the layer was published.

If you created a snapshot when you published the feature layer, two snapshots of the data were copied from the source cloud data warehouse and placed in a system database—one snapshot for the feature layer and one for its associated map image layer. Settings are available that allow you to update the snapshot for both layers to incorporate changes made to the data in the source cloud data warehouse. See Refresh data for snapshot layers for instructions.