topic Re: Create Polygon Layer ArcGIS Online in ArcGIS Online Questions

Create Polygon Layer ArcGIS Online

HannesBaade — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 13:52:37 GMT

Hello,

I want to create Polygon Layers with ArcGIS Online from Excel Data. Whenever I import the data to ArcGIS Online it creates Point Layers automatically.

I don´t know what I´m doing wrong. I simply need an instruction on how to create Layers to visualize specific Areas with different color shades in order to express various information (like in the picture below).

Hopefully, you can help me.

Thank you!

Yours

Hannes

Re: Create Polygon Layer ArcGIS Online

MobiusSnake — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 18:12:47 GMT

How are your polygon boundaries defined in your Excel spreadsheet? Do you have a column containing well-known text, or a variable number of columns depending on how many vertices each polygon has? In my experience, Excel isn't often used for polygon or polyline data, it's typically either point data (with X/Y columns or latitude/longitude columns), or non-spatial data that can be linked to geometries from an external dataset using an ID.

Re: Create Polygon Layer ArcGIS Online

HannesBaade — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:13:26 GMT

Hi Mobius Snake,

thanks for your reply. I use a column with text for defining the position. In my case I use the for example the cantons of Switzerland and in anoter case the states of Austria. What kind of data do you import for creating polygon layers? I don´t see another option for me than importing with Excel as I got the data from the internet or some organiszations but not in geogrpahic formats like JSON...

Hannes

Re: Create Polygon Layer ArcGIS Online

MobiusSnake — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 21:48:03 GMT

Hi Hannes,

I believe you'll want to do some pre-processing of this data before you upload it to AGOL, using a desktop application such as ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap. It sounds like your data as-is doesn't have polygons defined, and you'll need to get those from somewhere.

There are a few ways to do this and it'll depend what data and software you have access to, but I would recommend something like this in ArcGIS Pro:

Find a geographic dataset containing the polygon boundaries you need from the internet. For example, for Swiss cantons, I'd check the Swiss federal government's open data site (I'm not really familiar with Swiss data sources) and look for shapefiles, File GDB feature classes, GeoJSON files, and so on.
You'll need to perform a "join" (aka an "attribute join") between this geographic data and the non-spatial data you have in Excel. Here's some reference material on how to do this in ArcGIS Pro. One thing to keep in mind is that the names of each record have to be an exact match between the geographic dataset you're using and your Excel data, if the names deviate in any way (long form vs. short form, abbreviations, etc.) the join won't work as expected, in all likelihood some of your polygons will be missing. I would recommend making the join's output a File GDB feature class, in a new File GDB, but a shapefile would work as well.
Open the new joined dataset to review the output, make sure it looks okay, and delete any fields you don't need.
Zip the File GDB containing the joined dataset and upload it to AGOL, publishing it as a hosted feature layer.

It's also possible to perform joins without using a desktop tool - AGOL also has join tool - but since AGOL joins consume credits, I'd use a desktop tool instead.

Re: Create Polygon Layer ArcGIS Online

HannesBaade — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 06:07:37 GMT

Hi Mobius Snake,

thank you very much for your reply. I used the AGOL Analysis tool to create this layer and it worked pretty good.