How it works...

In this recipe, you joined the Owners table to the Parcels table. ArcGIS Pro links these two tables together, based on a key field in each table. The key fields are not required to have the same name, but must have the exact same values and be the same data type. ArcGIS Pro then compares the two tables and where the values are identical, it adds those fields and values to the primary table in the map. Where the values are not identical, it leaves the field values for the joined fields blank or null.

The Join only exists in the map in which you create it. It will not be applied to other maps within the ArcGIS Pro project. It is also not permanently applied to the feature class or table. Join works best when you want to link data which comes from other systems or datasets which will not be maintained in your GIS directly, such as the Owners table, which is maintained in the County’s CAMA system. You just get an updated download of the data on a regular basis and replace the old table with the new one, so that when you open the map which contains the join, you always see the most current available information.