Create associations

Available with ArcGIS Maritime license.

The Association Manager tool allows you to create associations from existing features. Associations can be either feature associations between two or more features, or information associations between a feature and an information type. You can use the S-101 Feature Catalogue to determine what features and information type can be associated with a particular feature. For example, you may want to create a feature association for a BuoyIsolatedDanger feature. You can refer to the Feature Bindings list for the feature to determine valid feature associations, such as LightAllAround or LightFogDetector. Similarly, valid information associations are listed in the Information Bindings section for each feature in the catalog.

The S-101 Feature Catalogue is provided in the ArcGIS Maritime data installer in HTML and XML formats at <installation location>\ArcGIS Maritime\Product Files\<version>\S-101.

Note:

Before creating features, user and agency identification must be defined in the EditingProperties table, and the display scale must be set on the Maritime S-101 tab.

Complete the steps below to create associations:

  1. Start ArcGIS Pro.
  2. Open a new or existing project.
  3. Add maritime data to the Contents pane, if necessary.

    The Maritime S-101 tab appears.

  4. On the Maritime S-101 tab, in the S-100 Editing group, click Association Manager Association manager.

    The Association Manager pane appears.

    Association Manager pane

  5. Before creating associations, ensure that the features you want to associate are visible in the map view.

    You can either select features on the map or identify features by extent and use the context menu options to select features.

    If you have already selected the features you want to associate, skip to step 9.

  6. In the View Associations By section, choose Extent to determine what features exist in the area visible on the map.
    Tip:

    Check the Show Only Existing check box to view only features with existing associations.

  7. Click Refresh Refresh to update the Association Manager pane.

    The list of features in the Association Manager pane is static. This allows you to continue to work with the features in the pane regardless of your current extent or selections on the map. Clicking Refresh Refresh refreshes the list of associations based on what you chose in the View Associations By section.

    Note:

    If the pane remains empty, it means there are no features that meet the criteria in the View Associations By section.

  8. Do one of the following to select features:
    • In the Selection group of the Maritime S-101 tab, click Select and click on or draw a selection area around the features for which you want to create associations.
    • Complete the actions below to select features in the Association Manager pane:
      • Expand a feature node and right-click the feature you want to create an association for, then click Select Feature Select Feature.
      • Right-click the names of the features or information types that you want to add to the association and click Add to Selection Add To Selection.
  9. Choose Selection in the View Associations By section and click Refresh Refresh.
  10. Expand a feature node to view the individual features.
  11. Expand an individual feature to build associations.

    Expanded feature in the Association Manager pane
    Tip:

    Open the Attributes pane to view S-101 Attributes for the features you want to associate.

  12. Under the feature that you want to associate, click Associate Selected Features Associate Selected Features next to the type of association you want to create.

    The selected features are associated with the expanded feature.

    If you try to associate a feature to something it cannot be associated with, one of the following error messages appears, depending on the type of association:

    • Feature Associations
      Feature Association error
    • Information Associations
      Information Association error
    Note:

    Creating an association is a database edit and is saved to the active workspace.

  13. Expand the association to review the associated features.
    Association Manager pane with expanded features showing successfully created associations

The associations are created and can be viewed in the Association Manager pane by choosing Extent in the View Associations By section and checking the Show Only Existing check box. You can hover over an associated feature to verify the role of the association and the GUID of the associated feature.

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