Date fields in data expressions for serial charts

[ChrisH2]

Seeking some assistance with what i think is just a formatting problem.

I've used this script in a data expression to power a serial chart showing the time of day in 24hr format for a dataset collected in ArcGIS Collector. The original reason for doing this as a data expression was to gain access to a field that just had the time of day (or rounded up to an hour value from 1 - 24)

Everything works well at this stage

What I'm trying to do now is include the original creation_date field in the featureset so that I can filter this field with a date category selector. As it is now, the creation date field is being treated as a string and when I attempt to apply a filter a this data expression via the date category selector, there are no valid fields to choose from.

If I change line 18 of the code from esriFieldTypeString to esriFieldTypeDate, the featureset doesn't return any records.

The creation_date field is actually of type esriFieldTypeDate, so the problem must be with my scripting. Any suggestions are most welcome 

//ground activity - time of day
//obtains the hour in military (long) format from the creation_date field

// Write an expression that returns a FeatureSet.
// Documentation: https://arcg.is/3c419TD
// Samples: https://arcg.is/38SEWWz



// Create a FeatureSet from the Feature Layer containing the Ground activitydata.
var fs =FeatureSetByPortalItem(Portal('https://gis.xxxxxx.xx.xx.xx/portal'), '0116ef7ee89c4de0829fe554315e2177', 0)



var dowDict = { 
  'fields': [{ 'name': 'dow_num', 'type': 'esriFieldTypeInteger'},
  {'name': 'OBJECTID','type': 'esriFieldTypeInteger'},
  {'name': 'creation_date','type': 'esriFieldTypeString'},
  {'name': 'militaryhr', 'type': 'esriFieldTypeString'},
  {'name': 'Shooter_Organisation','type': 'esriFieldTypeString'},
  {'name': 'species', 'type': 'esriFieldTypeString'}], 
  'geometryType': '', 
  'features': [] 
}; 

var index = 0; 

for (var feature in fs) { 
    dowDict.features[index] = { 
        'attributes': { 
            'dow_num': Hour(feature['creation_date']), 
            'objectid': feature['OBJECTID'],
            'creation_date': feature['creation_date'],
            'militaryhr': Text(feature['creation_date'], 'HH'),
            'Shooter_Organisation': feature['Shooter_Organisation'],
            'species': feature['species_common_name'] 
        }} 
    index++;} 

// Convert dictionary to feature set. 
//var fs_dict = FeatureSet(Text(dowDict)); 
var fs_dict = FeatureSet(Text(dowDict)); 

// Return case data by day of Hour
return fs_dict;

[jcarlson · Accepted solution]

I've seen this sort of behavior in Data Expressions with date fields.

I don't understand why this works, but try casting it as a Number. In line 33, you'd put:

'creation_date': Number(feature['creation_date']),

Trying to use a date value directly.

Cast as number.

[TimWarfe_MSC]

I was stuck with the exact situation too.   Thank you, that worked perfectly for me also.  🙂

[ChrisH2]

Worked perfectly. Thankyou so much @jcarlson