Publishing feature services

Publishing a feature service involves publishing a map service and enabling feature access capability. Enabling feature access capability generates a URL through which you can use the feature service. The lifetime of the map service controls the lifetime of the feature service. If the map service is shut down, the feature service is shut down as well.

Since the process involves publishing a map service, it is recommended that you first follow procedures for publishing optimized map services. These procedures help improve performance for both the map service and the feature service. You can then go through the following steps to publish the feature service.

Note:

If you are working with versioned data, when you publish the service only the version in the map document will be exposed through the feature service. The version cannot be changed through the feature service.

Start ArcGIS Server Manager and log in. For additional help with this step, see Logging in to Manager.

Steps:

1. Click Publish a GIS Resource under the Services tab.
2. Use the Resource box list browse to the map document (.mxd) or Map Service Definition (.msd) file that you want to publish.
3. In the Name box, type a name for the service. The name cannot be more than 120 characters long and may contain only alphanumeric characters and underscores.
4. There are three options of which folder to publish the service to:
   • You can use the drop-down menu to choose an exisitng folder.
   • Create a new folder.
   • Accept the default folder; this will publish to the root folder;
5. After choosing where to publish the service, click Next to continue.
6. Choose Feature Access to enable the capability for the service and click Next.
7. Review the information about the service you are about to create. Click Finish to create the service.
Note:

By default, the data exposed through the feature service can be queried and edited. Editing allows users to apply changes to the data in the source geodatabase using the service. To manage the properties of a feature service, see Feature service operations.