Accessibility of related records for symbology (similar to pop-ups)

[nadja]

We have a hosted feature layer in ArcGIS Online with a related table. We would like to access these related records in an attribute expression for the symbology. For the Pop-ups, it is possible to access these records, but not for the symbology.

For the Pop-ups, it is possible to run the following code, click done and to use the result of the expression in the popup. The exact same code can be run for the symbology using F5, but it’s not possible to click Done to run it "properly" and the reference to the related records is marked as an error (line 2).

We'd like to suggest, that esri extends the function from the pop-up to the symbology to enhance the systems consistency.

[KarynaB]

I was just about to post an idea like this, it would be a big help to those trying to symbolize related record information in field maps (where using a dynamic joined layer view is not an option)!

[ChristopherCounsell]

https://developers.arcgis.com/arcade/guide/profiles/

Esri is aware of this but highlights that symbolising or labeling all features from a related table would be incredibly resource intensive, hence why FeatureSets are not available for these profiles.

It's a great idea but technically it would not go down well.

[TamT]

Would be such a help to access the related record info for symbolization. Thanks, Esri, for pushing this!

[Kevin_MacLeod]

It would be possible in theory, provided reasonable business logic. For example logic choosing which record to symbolize. You can even symbolize them all. I join the points to their related table and publish and then all the related fields show in the popup like if they were a real field. The one downside I discovered is attachments like photos don't come through from a joined layer. Kind of a separate issue. And with HTML/CSS in ExB/WAB or Arcade (if and when it can ever render custom HTML/CSS) there could be a way around that. Nevertheless, the workaround of joining data to its related table is rather inelegant and not everyone can do that for various reasons, such as if data is hosted.

Related data continues to be a spot needing further product development. I hope 2024 it can be a highlight for development resources. Field apps and related data are the backbone of GIS, and where a lot of vital data come from. However, while simple conceptually; displaying related datasets in web apps and visualizing the data remains cumbersome in practice.

[aaron_tob]

Thanks everyone for the valuable feedback on this. While the full capability of symbolizing / labeling on related records appears to be technically challenging, it would be nice to see partial implementation of this in the symbology expression builder in AGOL. Symbolizing on the total number of related records for each feature could be a useful visual, or symbolizing on the oldest or newest related record for example.