Connecting to ArcMap 10

One of my customers, Morehead City, is messing around with GIS and ZonePro so I asked if they would send me their steps for making the connection and they were kind enough to do so. Here is what they sent:

ArcMap 10.3
- ArcCatalog -> Database Connections -> Add Database Connection
- In the dropdown box, select “SQL Server”
- Enter server and database information from Zone Pro -> “OK” (ZP Systems can give you this info.)
- Drag and drop the “vBuildCombo” database (for building permits) and/or “vViolateRep” database (for violations) from Database Connections in ArcCatalog to the table of contents in ArcMap
- Identify a unique identifier (e.g., “parcel” field) ->Click Finish
- Add the layer to the map which contains the parcel identification number. Use the layer to create a relate:
- Right click the layer -> “Joins and Relates” -> “Relate” ->
- #1 Select the field which contains the parcel number from the drop down box.
- Make sure #2 contains the correct table.
- #3 Select “parcel” from the dropdown box.
- Click “OK”

To see the connected information, click the identify tool and select a property. Identify from the layer that is connected to the Zone Pro tables. If permit activity exists, you will be able to see it by clicking the “+” sign under the layer name.

It looks like this:

ArcGIS Interface via OLE DB Connection

I have just been working with a customer who wanted to interface their ArcGIS system with ZP SQL to pull across live violation data. There are a couple of ways to interface with SQL data in ArcGIS. This customer had success creating an OLE DB Connection to the data. These connections are contained in ArcCatalog under the Database Connections option in the Catalog Tree. You can double click on the "Microsoft OLE  DB Provider for SQL Server" to set up the connection. You'll need some information from us to do this including your server name, database name, user name and password. Once the connection is made you can expand the new connection node to view all the available tables. In this case I advised pulling data from the "vViolaterep" table which combines data from the Violations and Property databases. He was then able to use the common parcel number field to join this table with his address shapefile to produce new maps layers.