Alter the schema of a database table

Available with Standard or Advanced license.

You can use ArcGIS to add a field to, drop a field from, or rename fields in tables that you own in a relational database.

To do so, connect to the relational database as the owner of the table and open it in fields view.

Note:

The functionality described below is not supported for tables in cloud data warehouses or document databases.

Add or delete a field using the fields view

To create or delete fields from tables in relational databases other than SQLite, you can use the fields view. For SQLite databases and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) GeoPackage files, you can only create a field using the steps below.

1. Connect to the database that contains the table you need to alter.

   You must connect as the table owner.

2. Open the fields view using the appropriate option below:
   • For SQLite databases and OGC GeoPackage files, add the layer or table to a map, right-click the layer or table in the Contents pane, point to Data Design, and click Fields.
   • For all other supported relational databases, right-click the table or feature class in the Catalog pane, point to Data Design, and click Fields.

   The fields view appears.

3. Alter the schema by doing one of the following:
   • To delete a field, choose the field row and press Delete.

     Caution:

     All data stored in this field is removed when you delete the field.

   • To add a field, scroll to the bottom of the list of fields, and click inside the Click here to add a new field row. Provide a field name and data type. Depending on the data type, also specify a precision, scale, or length.

   Do not use spaces or nonalphanumeric characters in field names.

   Learn more about field names

4. Click Save on the fields ribbon to commit the schema changes.