Create geoprocessing and map packages

You can use ArcGIS Pro to create geoprocessing and map packages, which are compressed files containing GIS data and workflows. These packages can be used in your apps when you use Local Server to create local geoprocessing service instances from geoprocessing packages and local map service instances from map packages.

  • Geoprocessing packages (.gpkx files) enable you to include advanced spatial analysis and data manipulation in your apps when using Local Server. Geoprocessing packages are created from a successful result obtained from running your custom geoprocessing model or script tool.

  • Map packages (.mpkx files) enable you to share complete maps from ArcGIS Pro and include those as map image layers or feature layers in your apps when using Local Server. A map package contains a map and the data referenced by its layers or can optionally persist references to the original datasource of each layer.

Authoring packages

Packages are created using ArcGIS Pro. Refer to the ArcGIS Pro documentation topics below for details about creating packages.

Data source considerations

If your ArcGIS Pro map includes data from an enterprise geodatabase data or referenced by UNC path, pay attention to the following paramaters in the Package Map geoprocessing tool when creating map packages for use with Local Server:

  • Include Enterprise Geodatabase data instead of referencing the data specifies whether input enterprise geodatabase layers will be converted to a file geodatabase or preserved in their original format. By default this is checked and all enterprise geodatabase data sources will be converted to a file geodatabase inside the resulting map package. If the data will remain referenced in the source enterprise geodatabase, you must ensure the appropriate database drivers are installed or included with your application deployment and the Local Server deployment includes the appropriate database components. For more information, refer to Deploy Local Server.

  • Reference all data for Runtime specifies how the data is referenced by the map package. If the option is checked, the map package will reference the file-based datasources in the local filesystem or reference them using UNC paths. If the option is unchecked, all file-based data sources will be copied and converted to a file geodatabase inside the resulting map package.

Licensing considerations

Your app must be licensed at the appropriate level to use the tools included in a geoprocessing package. Refer to the Supported geoprocessing tools topic to see the geoprocessing tools supported at each license level.

Next steps

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