The Python script grabs a point location from an external site that constantly updates. It then pulls the feature information out, constructs a JSON object and submits an updated point to an ArcGIS.com hosted feature service. A feature service with proper schema must already exist for this script to work correctly.

See more information on the associated ArcGIS Blog post.

1. Download the UpdatePointFromExternalAPI.py (Hint: Click the Download ZIP button on the right)
2. Save the files to your local working directory
3. Setup a feature service with your ArcGIS.com account. The instructions on this blog post explain different ways to create the service. The required feature service for this example is simple, as such the first option of creating a service from ArcGIS Online would suffice.
4. From My Content, click Create Layer.
5. Select from a URL to a feature layer
6. Enter: http://services1.arcgis.com/hLJbHVT9ZrDIzK0I/arcgis/rest/services/issSchema/FeatureServer/0
7. Select next, accept the default extent and enter some useful tags and summary information on the final page. Remember the title, you'll need to enter this information into the Python script.
8. Click done.
9. Set sharing options for the service. You do not need to enable editing.
10. Edit the Python script you saved previously and update the variables at the top of the script.
11. A username and password that owns the service
12. The serviceName, set previously
13. The full URL to the feature service you just created
14. The URL of the service to get updates from (Note - simply replacing this URL with one of your choice will probably require further script updates. See the next section for details)
15. How long to pauseTime before updating.
16. Run the script. As-is, it'll update the point every 5 minutes. Modify this value to your needs.

Different parts of the script need to be updated to make it work for you.

1. Around line 180, a request is made to get updated information from an external source. The response comes back and is loaded into a json object (issPoint). Depending on the API you're consuming, you may or may not have to modify this part.
2. You'll almost certainly have to update the Y, X, and ptTime variables. The code here is specific to grabbing values out of this specific json structure. You may need to grab more information, or append this information to existing features. However you change the code, make sure you appropriately update the updatePoint function (148) and where the function is called from (194).
3. The second bit of code to update will be the jsonPoint function inside the class around line 66. This function is set to return a simple point object with a schema that matches the feature service being updated. Update this code to the modifications made previously so the features will update your hosted feature service.
4. You maye need to update the fillEmptyGeo function as well. If your hosted service is empty the first time you run the script, you'll need to update this function. The entire script works by "updating" existing features. This means you need one or more values to already exist in the service.
5. The script has been hard coded to always update a layer with the index of "0". If the layer you're updating is not the first layer in the service (0), or you have multiple layers to update, you'll need to modify the references throughout the script.

• ArcGIS REST API Update Features

Copyright 2014 Esri

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

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A copy of the license is available in the repository's license.txt file.

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