Updated: 1/30/2026

No one is perfect and workflows have changed. This may have resulted in data within Element Occurrences (EOs) to become out of sync with component Source Features (SFs). Let’s fix it!

The Review and Update EO Data.atbx contains a single tool to:

  • Compares Visit Dates within SF, and First Observation Date, Last Observation Date, and Survey Date within the EOs
  • Comparisons include including data from Principal and Sub EOs, related to the Source Features in a Working List.
  • Generates a spreadsheet containing tables of invalid dates, conflicting dates, summarized and detailed dates, and truncated surveyors for your review.
  • Generates a SQL script to populate the following fields within the EO record:
    • Survey Date, Last Observation Date, and First Observation date fields according to the calculated minimum and maximum dates
    • Surveyors, based on Visitors
    • References, based on SF References
    • Formatted Visit Date, if Update Biotics with formatted dates? indicated

Need help? send an email to biotics@natureserve.org to submit a ticket to the Help Desk.

Troubleshooting

The following error is caused by using ArcGIS Pro version earlier than 3.4. To fix it, comment out line 29 in the script with a # at the beginning of the line. This will require that you manually refresh the input spreadsheet in the Catalog any time you regenerate it, as that line of code cannot do so automatically.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\temp\Review and Update EO Data\Review and Update EO Data.atbx\UpdateEOData.tool\tool.script.execute.py", line 29, in <module>
  File "C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\Resources\ArcPy\arcpy\management.py", line 24242, in RefreshExcel
    raise e
  File "C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\Resources\ArcPy\arcpy\management.py", line 24239, in RefreshExcel
    retval = convertArcObjectToPythonObject(gp.RefreshExcel_management(*gp_fixargs((in_excel_file,), True)))
                                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\Resources\ArcPy\arcpy\geoprocessing\_base.py", line 512, in <lambda>
    return lambda *args: val(*gp_fixargs(args, True))
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
arcgisscripting.ExecuteError: ERROR 999999: Something unexpected caused the tool to fail. Contact Esri Technical Support (http://esriurl.com/support) to Report a Bug, and refer to the error help for potential solutions or workarounds.
Table already exists [table [T_Query_Output$_] already exists] [main.T_Query_Output$_]
Table already exists [table [T_Executed_SQL_statement$_] already exists] [main.T_Executed_SQL_statement$_]
Failed to execute (RefreshExcel).


Failed script Update EO Data based on Working List...
Failed to execute (UpdateEOData).