As organizations seek to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations there is often a need to leverage GIS data in new and innovative ways. This is especially important when you deploy spatially-enabled applications and services which provide the “where” context to a business process. Many of these apps, which may have been developed in-house or downloaded from the Resource Center, enable you to leverage geographic information, visualize trends, and publish Web maps to support business process improvement. For your apps to provide reliable results, the underlying data must adhere to a set of new business rules which may not have been envisioned when the data was originally created.
ArcGIS Data Reviewer can help ensure your data is prepared to support the deployment of these applications. Let’s use the Campus Place Finder application to illustrate this. The app requires specific attributes to be populated for building interior spaces, building floor plan lines, and employee information table. Data Reviewer checks allow you to define rules to quickly identify features and attributes that might cause the Campus Place Finder to produce erroneous results. Let’s explore some sample checks and how they can be configured in a batch job.
Create a batch job:
A batch job enables you to configure, organize and store multiple Data Reviewer automated checks so you can run them repeatedly to validate your data.
- Open ArcMap and add the EmployeeInfo table and BuildingInteriorSpace feature class from the LocalGovernment.gdb.
- Click the Reviewer Batch Job Manager button on the Data Reviewer toolbar.
- In the top window of the Reviewer Batch Job Manager, right-click to create a New Group.
- Rename your group: Employee Info Checks.
- Right-click the new group and choose Add Check > Table Checks > Execute SQL Check.
Configure an Execute SQL check:
The Execute SQL check allows you to validate conditions based on a combination of attribute values. For the Campus Place Finder app to work as designed, you may want to ensure employee locations are not null.
- Add a Check Title: Employee Location Exists.
- Select the feature class on which you would like to run the check: EmployeeInfo – LocalGovernment.gdb.
- Click the SQL button and create a query that describes the error condition: LOCATION IS NULL.
- Enter Reviewer Remarks: Employee location must not be null.
- Choose a Severity: 1.
- Click OK.
Add a Table to Table Attribute check to your batch job:
The Table to Table Attribute check allows you to compare attributes between two tables. For the Campus Place Finder app to work as designed, you may want to ensure that the employee location is valid.
1. Right-click your group and select Add Check > Table Checks and choose Table to Table Attribute Check.Add a Check Title: Employee Valid Location.
2. For Feature or Object Class 1, choose the table to be checked: EmployeeInfo – LocalGovernment.gdb.
3. For Feature or Object Class 2, choose the table against which the data will be checked: BuildingInteriorSpace – LocalGovernment.gdb.
4. Choose Compare Attributes and then click the Select Attributes button.
5. In the Compare Attributes dialog box, choose LOCATION for the Data Source 1 Attribute. Set the Operator to =. Choose SPACEID for Data Source 2 Attribute.
6. Click Add and OK.
7. Check the check box for Not – find rows that do not match.
Note: By choosing Not -…, records returned will be ones in which employee LOCATION is not equal to a building interior space SPACEID.
8. Provide Reviewer Remarks: Employee must have valid location.
9. Choose a Severity: 3.
10. Add other checks as needed and save your batch job by clicking the Save As button.
11. Exit the Reviewer Batch Job Manager by clicking OK.
Execute the batch job:
Once you’ve created a batch job with the required checks you would want to execute it to identify issues in your data.
Note: You must be in a Reviewer session before running a batch job.
- Click the Reviewer Batch Validate button on the Data Reviewer toolbar.
- Under Features to Validate choose: Current Extent.
- Add your batch job from its saved location using Add from File.
- Validate your checks by clicking the Validate All button.
- Click Run to execute your batch job.
The two checks configured above can help you quickly assess whether your data is ready to support the deployment of the Campus Place Finder application. They are by no means the only set of checks you could build; however, they do provide a great starting point for using Data Reviewer. By leveraging Data Reviewer you’re able to gain valuable insight into your data’s overall quality and identify gaps early, which makes the deployment of any application more successful.
Content contributed by Joan Steurer and Karen Lowery
