Feature Editing

Insertion or editing features happen in the browser only one record at a time. Once a user has committed an edit, Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst updates the source table. Other users who subsequently request the data can see the updates.

The following table lists supported data sources for editing with Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst.

A user can edit or delete the record if the following conditions are met:

1. The functionality profile referenced by the map project has editing enabled as a capability (either Full Editing or Attribute Editing Only).
2. The tables are present in that map project and are one of the types that support editing (listed in the previous table).
3. Edit permissions are assigned on namedTables in Spectrum Spatial™ Manager to the user who is logged into Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst or to one or more of the roles that they belong.

All of these conditions must be met for a user to add new records or edit existing records in Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst.

Primary Key Requirements

For Oracle data source, the primary key column must be configured to increment automatically for a successful add record operation by applying a sequence in the database.

The following example calls the cycleparks table using a sequence to create a trigger for auto-incrementing the primary key column MI_PRINX.

CREATE SEQUENCE STRATUS.cycleparks_seq 
START WITH     44 
INCREMENT BY   1 
NOCACHE 
NOCYCLE;

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER STRATUS.cycleparks_auto_inc
BEFORE INSERT ON STRATUS.CYCLEPARKS 
FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN  
SELECT STRATUS.cycleparks_seq.NEXTVAL  
INTO  :new.MI_PRINX  
FROM   dual;
END;

As SQL server and Postgres takes care of auto-incrementing the primary key, there is no additional step required.

Configuring the Feature Edit/Insert Validation Form

Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst provides a layer of validation rules that are the default values to apply when editing a table. They define whether or not to include a column, use default values, use value ranges, show a picklist, and so on. These rules are defined in an XML file for each editable table.

Administrators have the flexibility of choosing which attributes of the table a user can edit including the geometry of the current feature and what types of geometry should be allowed. They also have the fine-grained control on what information a user can submit for inserting a new feature. This is a manual step that sets the rules via an XML file. If the admin does not specify any XML, then by default, all the columns of the table will be presented for insertion/editing.

Validation XML files must be saved to the customerconfigurations\analyst\theme\featureEditTemplates folder where Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst is installed. You can assign a validation XML file to a named layer in Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst on the Project Settings page, under the Templates tab for the business maps.

The following sample XML applies validation rules when editing a feature from WorldTable:

<FeatureEditing>
  <table>
      <table>/Samples/NamedTables/WorldTable</table>
      <showAllAttributes>false</showAllAttributes>                       
        <primaryKey>
           <includeInInsert>true</includeInInsert>                                   
           <hidden>false</hidden>                                   
           <showDisabled>true</showDisabled>
   </primaryKey>                       
          <geometrySupported>                                                                   
               <line>false</line>                                   
               <point>false</point>                                   
               <polygon>true</polygon>                       
          </geometrySupported>                        
          <columns>
	      <column>                                               
               <dbColumnName>Column_1</dbColumnName>                                               
               <name>Column 1</name>                                               
               <required>true</required>                                                                                
               <defaultValue>Enter Unique Value</defaultValue>                                               
               <minLength>4</minLength>                                      
               <maxLength>25</maxLength>                                
             </column>
	   <column>                                               
              <dbColumnName>Column_2</dbColumnName>                                               
              <name>Column 2</name>                                               
              <required>true</required>                                               
              <pickList> 
                   <Option></Option>                                                          
                   <Option>Option 1 </Option>                                               
                   <Option>Option 2</Option>                                                           
                   <Option>Option 3</Option>                                               
              </pickList>
          </column>
	        <column>                                               
               <dbColumnName>Column_3</dbColumnName>                                               
               <name>Column 3</name>                                               
               <required>false</required>                                               
               <showDisabled>true</showDisabled>                                               
               <minValue>1</minValue>                                                
               <maxValue>365</maxValue>                                   
           </column>
	 </columns>           
   </table>
</FeatureEditing>  

Please refer to the below table for more information about the XML elements and their usage.

You can use a single XML file to combine map configuration with a table. However, multiple XML configurations can exist for the same table when map configurations are different. Mapping between map configuration, table, and XML configuration is done in the Spectrum Spatial™ Manager under the Properties menu option.

A column in a table may be set to read only. A read only column should not be in the template.

Applying Style to Inserted/Edited Features

A feature’s style is not defined when inserting it into a table (when editing a table). When the data source has table-level styling rather than a style column per row, the feature adopts the style of the table. If the data source has per row styling enabled, then the feature adopts the default style of white fill and black outline.

We always recommend that the administrator applies a style override to the table while uploading it using MapInfo Pro to ensure that all features are shown in the desired style in Spectrum™ Technology Platform and Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst regardless of per row styling.