An overview of the Joins and Relates toolset

Tools in the Joins and Relates toolset create a join or a relate between a layer and a table view. Joins made with the Add Join tool or relates made with the Add Relate tool are temporary and do not permanently transfer the fields between tables. If you need to preserve the join or relate between sessions, you can create a relationship using the tools in the Relationship Classes toolset.

Tools in the Joins toolset

Tool	Description
Add Join	Joins a layer to another layer or table based on a common field. Feature layers, table views, and raster layers with a raster attribute table are supported.
Add Relate	Relates a layer to another layer or table based on a field value. Feature layers, table views, and raster layers with a raster attribute table are supported.
Join Field	Joins the contents of a table to another table based on a common attribute field. The input table is updated to contain the fields from the join table. You can select which fields from the join table will be added to the input table.
Remove Join	Removes a join from a feature layer or table view.
Remove Relate	Removes a relate from a feature layer or a table view.
Validate Join	Validates a join between two layers or tables to determine if the layers or tables have valid field names and Object ID fields, if the join produces matching records, is a one-to-one or one-to-many join, and other properties of the join.