I've duplicated a layer and have no problem viewing them online or on the Field Maps app. Once I go to download an offline area through the app I get a "download failed" message. I'm able to open and use offline areas created under the settings tab for the web map online in the Field Maps app. However, only the original layer that the duplicates were made from will appear in the offline area. Looking to see if there is a way to create duplicate layers that are viewable offline through the Field Maps app.
Solved! Go to Solution.
As far as I know, this is a limitation in Field Maps currently. Only way around it is to create a view of your layer and add the view to the map.
Each layer becomes a mobile geodatabase based on the layer, so that is probably where the limitation comes into play - duplicate layers would bring down duplicate mobile geodatabases (and each mobile geodatabase syncs with a unique replica on the server.)
How views of a layer are handled also leads to some problems when updates are made to the different layers - such as users not seeing differences in symbology when one layer is updated even though it is based on the same source data, the layer's data is in a different mobile geodatabase on the device, so it would take multiple syncs for the changes to appear. (At least, that is how I believe it to be working from our experience so far.) So even though creating a view and adding it to the map is a solution, it may not be a perfect solution based on what you need to do with it.
I hope this helps.
As far as I know, this is a limitation in Field Maps currently. Only way around it is to create a view of your layer and add the view to the map.
Each layer becomes a mobile geodatabase based on the layer, so that is probably where the limitation comes into play - duplicate layers would bring down duplicate mobile geodatabases (and each mobile geodatabase syncs with a unique replica on the server.)
How views of a layer are handled also leads to some problems when updates are made to the different layers - such as users not seeing differences in symbology when one layer is updated even though it is based on the same source data, the layer's data is in a different mobile geodatabase on the device, so it would take multiple syncs for the changes to appear. (At least, that is how I believe it to be working from our experience so far.) So even though creating a view and adding it to the map is a solution, it may not be a perfect solution based on what you need to do with it.
I hope this helps.
Thanks for the solution, just added a view of my layer instead of duplicating and was able to get the functionality I was looking for.
Using a layer view along with the source layer in offline Field Maps is behaving exactly as you described, requiring multiple syncs for edits to a view layer to be reflected in the source layer.
You're welcome, happy to help and glad it worked for you.