A comparison of feature-level metadata and editor tracking (Defense Mapping)
Both Esri Production Mapping and ArcGIS for Desktop provide ways for you to automatically populate the user name of the person who has created or modified a feature, as well as the date on which the feature has been created or modified. Both methods allow you to define the fields that are populated when a feature is created or modified and determine which action populates the field. However, there are some differences between the ArcGIS and Production Mapping functionality, which are described in the table below.
Functionality | Editor tracking | Feature-level metadata |
|---|---|---|
Choose fields from a feature class or table to store date and user name values | Yes | Yes |
Date values stored in Date field type | Yes | Yes |
Date values stored in Text field type | No | Yes |
Date and User Name values populated only when a feature is created | Yes | Yes |
Date and User Name values populated only when a feature is updated | No | Yes |
Date and User Name values populated when a feature is either created or updated | Yes | Yes |
Date populated using current user system date and time | No | Yes |
Date populated using the date and time from the location where the database is stored | Yes | No |
Date populated using standard UTC date and time | Yes | No |
User name populated from Windows login | Yes | Yes |
User name populated from database connection user | Yes | No |
Ability to set more than one field on a feature class to store each type of value (create date, create user, update date, or update user) | No | Yes |
Ability to choose fields to populate with values other than data and user name | No | Yes |
Ability to toggle population of fields | No | Yes |
Ability to batch set the values for fields (for example, set the update date for all features in the selection set) | No | Yes |
Property of database | Yes | No |
Available before 10.1 | No | Yes |
Available for feature classes | Yes | Yes |
Available for feature services | Yes | No |
Available for stand-alone tables | No | Yes |
When to use one method instead of the other
Editor tracking is recommended for the following situations:
- The data is stored in a feature service.
- The database login name needs to be used as the value for the Creator Field or Editor Field.
- The creation date or edit date needs to display the time in UTC.
Feature-level metadata is recommended for the following situations:
- More than the date and user name need to be defined as metadata, for example, the originating data source.
- You want to manage the type of control that is used to populate a field.
- Date fields need to be stored in text fields.
When both feature-level metadata and editor tracking are enabled on the database
Feature-level metadata is written as an extension to editing functionality, while editor tracking is built into the geodatabase. The fields selected as the Creator Field and Create Date Field for editor tracking are populated as soon as the feature is initially created. If one of these fields is also set as a feature-level metadata field that populates when a feature is created, the final value will be from the feature-level metadata because the extension is applied after the feature is created.
Fields selected as the Editor Field and Edit Date Field for editor tracking are handled differently than the create fields. These fields are designed to have their values set after a change occurs to a feature. If one of these fields is also set as a feature-level metadata field, the feature-level metadata value is applied, which triggers a change to the features. This means that the editor tracker will apply its value after the feature-level metadata and will be the final value.
Because the behavior is not consistent with the fields used for create and those used for updates, it is recommended that you choose one approach or the other.