Arcade Filtering With Timeline Widget

Question

Hello, I have a question regarding if anyone has worked out the logic behind how arcade interacts with temporal data using the timeline. I have an arcade script within my dynamic text, it essentially is instructing the text to ignore the 0 values within the data. The arcade script works but displays all of the features within the dataset. My understanding is that the timeline widget is filtering the framework of the layer I am working with. I have made sure that everything is wired up correctly, by using a control of normal dynamic text. This control is filtering as expected when the timeline widget changes. The arcade script doesn't have anything included in it about temporal filtering, because I would expect the timeline widget to filter the data framework which the arcade script is pulling from. Has anyone encountered issues with arcade and filtering with other widgets?

Shengdi Zhang · Answer

@TimHaverlandNOAA

You're right—the filter function in Arcade only applies within the Arcade expression and does not affect the original data source.

Filters applied through other widgets should be synced automatically in Arcade. However, due to some current limitations, you'll need to handle the filtering logic within the Arcade script manually.

TimHaverlandNOAA · Answer

@ShengdiZhang when Filter(dataSource.layer, sqlTimeFilter) in the example is run, does that actually filter the original data source (so widgets using that datasource would show the filtered results) or is it just returning an in-memory featureSet that we can work with in Arcade? Based on my testing it seems like the Filter function is just returning a feature set in Arcade.

Shengdi Zhang · Answer

Hi @quich12345 ,

Currently, Arcade does not support temporal filtering a data source directly using built-in functions. However, you can work around this limitation by reading the time extent of the data source and then building a SQL expression to apply the filter manually.

If your data is in UTC time zone, here is a sample script you can use:

// Retrieve the time extent from the data source
var dataSource = $dataSources["dataSource_1-0"];
var startTime = dataSource.queryParams.timeExtent.start;
var endTime = dataSource.queryParams.timeExtent.end;

// Convert time values to UTC and format as SQL-compatible timestamps
var formattedStartTime = Text(ToUTC(startTime), 'Y-M-D h:mm:ss');
var formattedEndTime = Text(ToUTC(endTime), 'Y-M-D h:mm:ss');

// Build SQL
var sqlTimeFilter = "Date BETWEEN TIMESTAMP '" + formattedStartTime + "' AND TIMESTAMP '" + formattedEndTime + "'";

// Apply the filter to the data source layer
var filteredLayer = Filter(dataSource.layer, sqlTimeFilter);

// Return the count of filtered records
return Count(filteredLayer);

Please let me know if the script doesn't work or if you have other questions.

Thanks,
Shengdi