AGOL Edit Tracking fields

[StephenEJohnson]

What is the proper workflow to avoid addition of unwanted CreationDate_1, etc fields when working in AGOL? If the CreationDate and other edit tracking fields exist in a feature layer when edit tracking is enabled, it will add a new set of fields with the same aliases (difficult to tell them apart) but with _1 appended to the names. It will also populate these fields with the date and time when edit tracking was enabled for existing data. The layer had existing values in the original fields when it was uploaded from ArcGIS Pro but it won't re-use those fields. I can maybe see why it does this (to avoid overwriting user data) but it makes it difficult to start with existing data for which you want to maintain the old tracking in a layer. If, for example, you want to filter on date created. You have to choose between using CreationDate for older data in the layer and CreationDate_1 for the new data in the layer.

[PeterKnoop · Accepted solution]

When you are sharing from Pro to ArcGIS Online, there is an option to "Preserve editor tracking info." It sounds like you may not have enabled that when sharing?

If you had editor tracking enabled for the data in Pro, then to carry that through to Online, you must check the box for "Preserve editor tracking info" when you are sharing your data. For example, see Configure a web feature layer for how to enable the option in that workflow.

[LindsayRaabe_FPCWA]

The key point in @PeterKnoop's reply is that you also had editor tracking enabled. Just having the fields present isn't enough.