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What is the point of creating a relationship class in ArcGIS Pro i.e. how can I "actually" make use of this relation?

When I add a layer to the map, suppose I want its label to show a field that is in a related table. But none of the related table attributes are listed, I must manually recreate a join in the layer to have access to the related attributes.

Why is this? Am I missing some software capability here? Is it not what a relation is meant for? Can I use the relation to get a related label?

PS: I'm using a 1-N join that works succesfully, many features point to one tabular row in another table.

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    Relation allow for 1-N, join work only for 1-1, labelling get a bit more convoluted : gis.stackexchange.com/questions/50106/…
    – J.R
    Oct 25, 2022 at 23:59
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    Relations will also cause related tables to be copied along with the source table (eg, when copying/pasting between databases within the application) Oct 26, 2022 at 0:46
  • My relationship is 1-N, and it works fine. It's many map features to one tabular data row. There is no confusion in labeling. Oct 26, 2022 at 14:47

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Relationships maintain data integrity and separating your data into related tables is good practise. For me when using a relationship I'm using it primarily to pass selections around. For example I have a point dataset of farm locations but the ownership is held in a related owners table. I do a spatial selection of farms in a district and then relate that selection through to the owners table for further analysis.

Relationships don't really have anything to do with the visualisation of the data and that includes labelling. That said if you type into Google arcgis pro label from related table you would have found the technical article How To: Label a related table on the ESRI website. It's a fairly simple python work around to overcome the limitation, but ESRI are pushing Arcade as the de facto scripting language as its cross platform. I am unsure if it is possible to do this in Arcade?

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