Creating a relationship between selected features

This topic applies to ArcGIS for Desktop Standard and ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced only.

You can use the Attributes window to establish a relationship between two selected features (or records in a stand-alone table).

Before adding a relationship between two objects, you must first create a relationship class between the feature classes or tables containing the objects you want to relate. To learn more about how to create relationship classes, see Creating a simple relationship class and Creating a composite relationship class.

If you have feature-linked annotation, you can follow these steps to link annotation to a feature. You must select both a feature and a piece of annotation. The annotation must be stored in the feature-linked annotation feature class, but the annotation does not necessarily need to be linked to another feature. Add Selected links the selected annotation to the selected feature. If the annotation was previously linked to another feature, that link will be removed.

Steps:

1. Click the Edit tool on the Editor toolbar.
2. Select the features between which you want to create relationships. The origin and the related feature (or record in a stand-alone table) should both be selected.
3. Click the Attributes button on the Editor toolbar.
4. Click the origin feature in the Attributes window.
5. Double-click the origin and related features or tables to expand their nodes. You can click Expand All Relationships In Branch to view all the related items.
6. Right-click the related feature class or table listed in the tree under the origin feature and click Add Selected.