A quick tour of the Building a geodatabase tutorial

This topic applies to ArcGIS for Desktop Standard and ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced only.

It is easy to create a geodatabase and add behavior to it, and no programming is required when you use the data management tools in ArcGIS for Desktop. When querying and editing the geodatabase in ArcMap, which is the application for editing, analyzing, and creating maps from your data, you can easily take advantage of the data and behavior in your geodatabase without any customization.

This tutorial lets you explore the capabilities of the geodatabase using a Standard or Advanced licensed seat of ArcGIS for Desktop. You can complete this tutorial at your own pace without the need for additional assistance. This tutorial includes eight exercises, each of which takes between 10 and 20 minutes to complete. Exercises are cumulative; you must complete them in order.

In this tutorial, you will use ArcCatalog and ArcMap to create a geodatabase that models a water utility network. You will add behavior to the geodatabase by creating subtypes, validation rules, relationships, and a geometric network. You can use ArcMap to take advantage of the behavior by editing some of the existing features in the geodatabase and adding some new features.

The study area for these exercises is a portion of a hypothetical city.

A geodatabase that contains most of the data, a coverage representing water laterals, and an INFO table representing parcel owner data are provided with the software. You will import the coverage and INFO table into the geodatabase, then modify its properties to give it behavior.

The datasets for the tutorial were created by Esri using a database schema similar to that of the city of Montgomery, Alabama. The data is wholly fictitious and has nothing to do with the actual city of Montgomery. This information may be updated, corrected, or otherwise modified without notification.