joining a table from zonal statistics as table with a layer, problem with reserved names

Question

I have a raster file (percentage of total forest killed) and a shapefile with polygons (municipalities). I thought as a first step I would like to find out which municipality shows the greatest percentage of forest kills (along with other stats).

So I ran a Zonal Statistics as Table, with the idea that I can join the table after with the polygons, so that I can color them accordingly.

I have done that several times before but I keep having to do the same annoying steps and I wonder if there is a smarter way around it.

All the stats names form the Zonal Statistics as Table output are reserved words and cause the join to fail, so I always have to copy and rename all the fields (min, max, count, sum ..) and delete the old ones. Which is not too bad but I was wondering if someone has figured out a way around this?

I am using ArcMap10

Answer 1

Use the Add Join tool to permanently join selected fields you want from the zonal stats output to the polygons. To automate things a bit more - but only for one statistic - you might try (note: not fully updated to ArcGIS 10) the 2.3.2 Zonal Change tool from here.