Deleting features based on matching attributes in Feature Service using FME (similar to row selection)

Question

I am trying to recreate something I successfully did using geodatabases, but I want to edit in a Feature Service on Portal instead.

Essentially, I am performing bulk edits in a feature service by deleting and replacing features that have been updated and identified using a matching ID field.

I used this blog post to get the initial FME workbench working: https://www.globema.com/how-to-do-a-bulk-database-update-with-fme/

I have a reader for the update data in a geodatabase. This fed into an AttributeCreator transformer that used the fme_db_operation as an attribute and would Insert the updated data and delete the old data based on a matching ID field. The writer is the geodatabase with data to be updated, and selected by using the Row Selection option in the writer parameters.

If I change the writer to the feature service on Portal, Row Selection is not an option.

Is there a way I could select the features I want to delete, based on a matching ID field, and delete those?

I've played around with FeatureJoiner and Testers with no luck so far.

I am a beginner/intermediate FME Form user and an advanced Esri ArcGIS Pro and Portal user.

Answer 1

I have not tested this, but if I interpret the docs correctly, it will be done based on the objectid.

From the documentation:

Object (Feature) IDs When a Feature Service is created, ArcGIS Portal will add to all layers a new field that serves as the primary key. This is called the Object ID field. Typically, ArcGIS Portal will name this field OBJECTID, but it is possible for layers to have a different name for its Object ID field. Note that the value of this field is always assigned by ArcGIS Portal: values provided for this attribute during Inserts are ignored by the server. Alternatively, a Global ID field may be used as the primary key for write operations, instead of Object ID. This field may be necessary to use some ArcGIS features, such as Feature Service Sync.

When in the feature operation is set to Update or Delete, a value must be provided for the attribute that corresponds to the Object ID field. If the attribute is not present, the writer will output an error message that specifies the name of the required attribute.