Choosing operational map layers

A mobile map is composed of two primary types of map layers—operational map layers and basemap layers.

Operational map layers contain the transactional content of your mobile map. They are the layers in your field map that you need to receive more frequent updates for, that you need to query, and that you might need to update and/or collect features for in the field.

For your mobile project, you can add more than one operational layer to your map. It is critical, however, that the layers you add share the same spatial reference. If your mobile map will include basemap layers, note that the spatial reference of the basemap layers define the spatial reference of your mobile map. This means that you will need to ensure the projection of your operational layer map equals the projection of your basemap layers.

There are two types of operational map layers that can be added to your project:

• ArcGIS Server Map Service—a map service that includes mobile data access capabilities.
• Mobile Cache—a cache of map data that was created using the Create Mobile Map Geoprocessing tool.

It is important to note that basemap layers do not support query operations inside of the ArcGIS Mobile field applications. If you would like to add vector basemap content to your project and not edit the layers, simply add them as operational map layers (either from a mobile cache datasource or a map service) and ensure that for each feature layer in the service or cache that the layer does not support editing.