Assigning unique Asset IDs using ArcGIS Desktop?

Question

I have a layer with street lights on it and they all have unique asset ID numbers assigned to them already.

Our data collectors are re-picking up all these street lights again but this time it will have all attribute information we need.

Is it possible to transfer that unique ID from the old layer to the new layer?

There will be 2 point features that are pretty much the same x,y coordinates.

Could it be possible to spatially relate them or something?

I am not a GIS expert. I just do a little data management and cartography.

At this point all I can think of is manually copying and pasting the ID numbers into the new attribute table.

Answer 1

Yes, you can automate the ID/attribute transfer in a few ways.

1. Use Spatial Join, joins two different features based on spatial location (use this method if location is the same but attributes/fields are different).
2. Use Join Field, joins two different features based on common ID field (use this method if location is not updated and if new features are not collected).
3. Near, use this tool for features where location may be slightly different.

Answer 2

If you need to maintain the old Asset-ID field, while collecting new attribute information, an alternate approach would be to create a copy of your street lights layer.

Remove all extraneous fields except Asset-ID, and add a new Status field with coded value domain options of Inspected / Not Inspected (with Not Inspected being the default value). Add attributes for all the other information that you need to collect.

When your data collectors are visiting each street light in turn, they will collect the required information then change the Status field from Not Inspected to Inspected. You could use symbology to flag this for easy visual identification (eg green = inspected, red = not inspected)

This way, there's no need to join your data, which has the (albeit small) potential to introduce errors.