Edit Creator field of hosted feature service

[Anonymous User]

I have a hosted feature service with creator and editor tracking enabled. I am the owner of this hosted feature service. Our fieldworkers are using Survey123 to collect into that hosted feature service. Recently one of them had issues syncing some of their collected data. I followed the instructions here to pull the SQLite database from their device and synced those collected points from my computer. This worked very well! However, even though I did not collect these points, because they were uploaded from my account, the Creator field shows my username. I want that field to show the username of the person who actually did the collection. I tried to use field calculator to replace my username with the fieldworker's username. I also tried to manually input values. This seems to not work because editing is not enabled for the Creator field. I have tried to enable editing for this field in ArcGIS Pro and using the admin interface for ArcGIS REST services (<host>/arcgis/rest/admin/services/<service> -> Update Definition). In both cases, there is some indication that the Creator field should be editable, but the field remains uneditable.

Is there any way for a user to edit the Creator field in a hosted feature services with tracking enabled?

I understand why this wouldn't normally be desirable, but as the owner of the item it seems like there should be a way for me to do this.

[KellyGerrow]

Hi Ryan,

The Creator filed isn't editable as you mentioned, in everyother case than your own, you wouldn't want this updated. I'm adding James Tedrick‌ in case he knows of a solution. It is possible to publish data and maintain editor tracking so I'm wondering if there is something we may be able to look into during this recovery process.

Re: Publishing to AGOL overwrites editor tracking data‌

[JamesTedrick · Accepted solution]

Hi Ryan,

This can be done through desktop tools like ArcGIS Pro.  You can Disable Editor Tracking—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop to turn off editor tracking, manually edit the Creator fields and then Enable Editor Tracking—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop to restore editor tracking.  This is commonly done in data migration workflows.

[LorettaWinton1]

Hello James,

I have the same issue. However, the Disable Editor Tracking tool doesn't seem to recognize the hosted feature layer created by my Survey123 survey. It says it will only work on a feature class, table, or mosaic dataset. How can I get it to work on my hosted feature layer?

Thanks,

Lori

[GoulburnBroken]

As Loretta Loretta Winton has experienced we are also unable to Disable Editor Tracking on our hosted feature layer with ArcGIS Pro.

James Tedrick‌ disabling editor tracking is possible with data stored in file geodatabases, ArcSDE etc but it does not seem possible with a ArcGIS online hosted feature layer. Is this the case?

The capability to edit the 'Creator' and 'Editor' fields for administrators would be of high value to our organization.

A work around is to append data within ArcGIS Pro 'Signed In' as the user you wish to fill the 'Creator' attribute with.

However this process is very timely, particularly if you have many unique users that require appending of related data. Not a recommended work around - only if desperate.  

[JamesTedrick]

Hi,

With hosted layers, editor tracking can be managed on the item's detail page in the ArcGIS Online/ArcGIS Enterprise website.

[WrightKennedy]

I'm surprised this is marked as "Answered." The "answer" (i.e., Disable/Enable Editor Tracking) does not work for Feature Service layers.

We are having the same issue -- we cannot disable editor tracking on the hosted feature layer with ArcGIS Pro. While this can be done on the item's detail page in AGOL, the fields remain read only online and in ArcGIS Pro, which prevents edits to the tracking fields.

[LorettaWinton1]

Hi Wright,

Brandon Armstrong answered this for me some time ago on a different thread. Here is what he worked out

Hi Lori,

After speaking with you over the phone and then doing some additional testing, we found the following workflow to successfully append the data from your exported file geodatabase to the existing feature layer referenced by your survey while maintaining the Editor Tracking information.

These steps start after data from all previous surveys have been exported to file geodatabase format using ArcGIS Online...

1. Login to ArcGIS Online or your portal in ArcGIS Enterprise and select 'Content' from the top panel of choices
2. Select the survey folder which contains the feature layer and form of the survey which you will be appending data to
3. Select the feature layer within the folder > Settings > disable 'Keep track of who created and last updated features' > Save

4. Open ArcGIS Pro
5. Add the previously downloaded file geodatabase data and any table containing attachments to the Current Map

IMPORTANT: Instead of using Field Mapping in the Append gp tool options, ensure that the source field(s) have the same name as the target field they will be appended too. For instance, if Field_1 of the source dataset (file geodatabase feature class) will be going to Field_2 of source dataset (feature service), rename Field_1 within feature class, to Field_2 prior to proceeding.

6. Run the Disable Editor Tracking geoprocessing tool against your File Geodatabase data.
7. From the Contents pane—Right-click the feature class from your downloaded dataset > Design > Fields.
8. Check 'Read-Only' for all editor tracking fields (CreationDate, Creator, EditDate, Editor) > Save
9. Run the Append geoprocessing tool with your file geodatabase dataset as the input and the feature layer as the target

10. Login to ArcGIS Online and navigate to feature layer to ensure that all editor tracking information from file geodatabase has been preserved
11. Re-enable the option to 'Keep track of who created and last updated features' from the Settings of the feature layer > Save

The editor tracking information from the appended data should now reflect it's original information and any new records will record the appropriate editor tracking information at time of collection.

[Claire_Peterson]

Does anyone have any new information on this issue? The above method described in Loretta's post by Brandon did not work for me - Editor Tracking fields in hosted feature layer captured my username and todays timestamp instead of retaining the tracking information already in the file geodatabase dataset.

We have 5+ feature layers that we host on our server that I am trying to transfer over to AGO but with 1000s of records involved, I do not want to go record by record fixing the editor tracking information.

[MingHome]

Hi, James,

 Is it possible to select other fields for the user and time stamp of editing, tracking?  Or change the name of these fields, either on the item detail page setting page or using Python API?

Ming