Copy Features consistently failing in ArcGIS ModelBuilder?

Question

I'm running a model to convert .txt files to a table, then join that table with a parcels shapefile, and finally export out that join as a new shapefile.

However, the copy Feature's tool is consistently failing and I am unsure of why.

I am iterating through a folder of .txt files -> making those .txt a Table view to be able to input that into a Table to Table tool. -> Joining that newly created Table with a parcels layer -> then copying those features.

I'm not sure if the error is occurring because the Remove Join is incorrectly placed? Or if my issues are happening earlier in the process.

Answer 1

Instead of trying to "Copy Features" the joined data to a new shapefile, I would recommend first limiting your selection set with "Select By Attributes", then "Copy Features" just those polygons for features in question. Now, join the tabular data (from the text files) to your newly exported polygons using the "Join Field" tool. Join Field will automatically append the newly joined tabular data to your destination polygon layer, thereby avoiding the Add/Remove Join dependency.

Answer 2

I had to complete a similar exercise a while back. If you are comfortable with arcpy, the code below should get you the rest of the way. I think I adopted it from GeoNet.

From your model, it seems you are able to create the tables. If you save your tables after the Table to Table step, this code will take the tables and join them to the parcels shapefile and create new shapefiles.

Main thing is to point to right directories.

import arcpy

arcpy.env.workspace = "C:/folder/tables_folder"

inFc = "C:/folder/parcels.shp"
outDir = "C:/folder/foler2/"

#loop through tables
for table in arcpy.ListTables():
  #Create a temporary new feature layer
  arcpy.MakeFeatureLayer_management(inFc, "parcelLyr")

  #Join table to feature layer; Change table JOIN_FIELD to the right fields
  arcpy.AddJoin_management("parcelLyr", "JOIN_FIELD", table, "JOIN_FIELD")

  #get table name for use in new name of shapefile, drop extension
  tableName = table.split(".")[0]

  #Export joined layer to new feature class
  arcpy.FeatureClassToFeatureClass_conversion("parcelLyr", outDir, tableName)