Guide to related geoprocessing with server topics

Building and publishing geoprocessing services requires that you understand some advanced geoprocessing capabilities that you may not have encountered with day-to-day use of geoprocessing in ArcGIS Desktop. The sections below contain guides to topics that explain such capabilities.

Using geoprocessing services in ArcGIS Desktop

Topic	Description
Using ArcGIS Server tools	How to use geoprocessing services and tasks in ArcGIS Desktop
Using the Results window	You execute a geoprocessing service just like any other tool. The service executes on the server, and you can track its progress in the Results window.
Using the interactive feature and record input controls	Many geoprocessing services allow you to interactively create features and rows of data as input using the interactive feature and record input controls. This topic shows you how to use these controls.
Using geoprocessing tasks in Python scripts	You can also access geoprocessing services from a script. This topic summarizes how to use services with Python scripts.

Topics for users of geoprocessing services

Feature and Record sets

Topic	Contents
A quick tour of using Feature Set and Record Set	Your starting point to learn about creating feature and record set variables.
Defining symbology for input feature sets	The schema of a feature set includes information on how to symbolize features the user digitizes. Since the client application is responsible for drawing these features, you can only use simple symbology available on the client. This topic gives you the details on what symbology is allowed.
Using the interactive feature and record input controls	Describes how to use Feature and Record Sets in a tool dialog box. In addition, it shows how to access the newly created features and records in the tool result found in the Results tab of the ArcToolbox window.

Topics about using feature and record sets

Symbolizing output data

Topic	Contents
A quick tour of ArcMap	If you are unfamiliar with ArcMap and how layers are displayed, start here.
Defining output symbology for geoprocessing tasks	This topic describes how to set symbology for output data.
A quick tour of setting output data symbology	Your starting point to learn about setting output symbology for model variables.
Displaying model data	This is another ModelBuilder topic about automatically adding output data from tools to the ArcMap table of contents.

Topics about symbolizing output data

Scratch workspace environment

Topic	Contents
What is a geoprocessing environment?	Your starting point to learn about geoprocessing environments and how they are used.
Environment levels and hierarchy	Describes the three levels of environment settings—application, tool, and process.
A quick tour of managing Intermediate Data	Your starting point to learn about intermediate data in models.
Using the In_memory Workspace	You may want to consider writing intermediate data to memory instead of disk.
Making Intermediate Data Managed Data	This is a ModelBuilder topic that defines managed data and describes how to use it.
Managing intermediate data in shared models	This topic goes into details about how to manage intermediate and scratch data in tools you share with others.

Topics about the scratch workspace environment

Variable substitution

You can substitute the contents of a model variable by using percent signs (%). This technique is demonstrated in GP Service example: Stream network and GP Service example: Selecting Data.

Topic	Contents
A quick tour of using InLine Variable Substitution	Describes the basics of variable substitution.

Topics about variable substitution

Tool layers

Tool layers are how you create geoprocessing tasks in a map document for publishing.

Topic	Description
A quick tour of tool layers	Your starting point to learn about tool layers.
Preparing map documents containing tool layers	This topic shows you how to create tool layers for publishing map documents.

Topics about tool layers

Creating and using script tools

Topic	Description
What is Python?	Python is the preferred scripting language for geoprocessing. This is your starting point to learn about Python and how to access geoprocessing using Python.
What is ArcPy?	ArcPy is the Python site-package you use to access geoprocessing. This is your starting point to the ArcPy technical reference material.
A quick tour of creating script tools	Your starting point to learn about creating script tools.

Topics about creating and using script tools

ArcGIS Server topics

Topic	Description
What is ArcGIS Server?	This is your entry point into the ArcGIS Server help module.

Topics about ArcGIS Server