Viewing in-line variable value in model parameter dialog box of ModelBuilder?

Question

I've developed a model that summarizes road attributes (e.g., volumes) across a digitized polyline. The model has input/parameter dialog boxes for a road feature class, workspace, and attribute summary table.

These parameters are entered every time the model runs. I've provided default values but users want to save their latest parameters. I'm using ArcGIS 10.3 with Windows 7.

Instead of providing the entire model, I've provided a part of it below. The image shows my dilemma. I can store and retrieve model parameters in a table called C_Parameters.

Though I can provide the NAME of a parameter variable (e.g., %RoadFeatureClass%) in the input/parameter dialog box in a ArcToolbox tool, I can't display the parameter variable VALUE in the dialog box.

Basically, I wish the Input Features box of the Copy Features tool would be C:\SEWRPC\CORDEN.gdb\Base_out_Link3 instead of RoadFeatureClass.

I've tried using Python's object methods (e.g., %RoadFeatureClass%.title() and print(%RoadFeatureClass%)),which didn’t help.

Do you have any suggestions how to display a variable value in a ModelBuilder input dialog box?

Answer 1

Looks like you want to use the first value in a field to rename the output feature class. I would use the feature class as an input rather than whatever C_parameters is. You can just make the input a user defined parameter and they can choose which input to use. Also set Field as a parameter to allow the user to choose which field this will work on. Copy features won't let you specify an output workspace and so using featureClassToFeatureClass you can make a variable from the output workspace. In model builder the schematic looks like this (with no predefined values allowing the user to set them):

The Copy features settings look like this:

And the Feature Class to Feature Class like this:

When the user opens the model from ArcToolbox they can choose the parameters. Below I'm using a Cities feature class and using the NAME field to set the name of the output:

Running it will name the output as "Managua" (first value in the "NAME" field) and as you can see the input is is the file path as you wanted.

If the user wants to repeat the process values of the last model run are stored in the Geoprocessing > Results window. Double click on the model in that windows to run it again with the same settings as before:

You can also save your results as a .rlt by right-clicking and save as in the results window. To load those results into another session use the add data button. The settings for that model run will be preserved.