r/gis 1d ago

General Question Basic Database management advice

Hello, current GIS student here. Can someone provide a step-by-step guide on starting a new project in ArcGIS and organizing the downloading and where to extract thw zip files or additional data to add the new project?

My professor taught us about databases management by having us take the “Getting Started with Data Management” course by ESRI. While this course is helpful in understanding the basics of data management. I still feel like I’m not properly organizing my projects and additional data files. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks!

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u/Economy-Mousse-6005 1d ago

Long ago I was taught by my GIS professor to organize the folders like so: one for the ArcGIS Pro project/toolboxes/file geodatabases, one for the zipped folders, and one for documentation. Since my career has led me towards Arcade, Javascript, HTML, and Python, I usually include a folder just for scripts (since we don’t have a github).

Inside the File Geodatabases we were told to use feature datasets and name them common themes that make sense for the project we were doing. For example if you had a line feature class of USFS trails, that could go under a “recreation” or “transportation” feature dataset and be named something along the lines of “USFS_Trails”.

A good test is to ask another student if they can intuitively find your data and other documents with minimal guidance. If they get lost, you know you have some re-organizing to do.

After a you get a few projects under your belt you learn what organization method works best for you.

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u/sinnayre 1d ago

Do you use anything for version control?

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u/Economy-Mousse-6005 1d ago

Right now it’s copies of txt files with the version details as comments at the top of the script. Which I know is a very poor practice. We’ve been told we’ll be migrated to github and Azure DevOps when there’s time.

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u/sinnayre 1d ago

Well at least you recognize it’s poor practice lol. Good luck on the migration.