New field not visible by default

[KatyAppleton1]

When adding a new field to a table in ArcGIS Online, the new field does not appear in view by default - you have to go to Show/Hide Fields and turn it on. I think this may have changed recently as I am sure it used to default to visible. Generally I am adding a field because I want to do something with it, so I need to see it!

[MichaelVolz]

So does this mean that older feature layers published before the bug was fixed will exhibit this missing new field behavior?  If so, does this mean that web maps and web apps using the old feature layer will need to be reconfigured as the old feature layer would need to be deleted and replaced by a new feature layer to work properly?

[Katie_Clark]

Sorry for such a delayed response, Michael. I've been out of the office for a while.

At least based on my experience, it seems that yes, any older layer would exhibit this behavior. However, this is definitely one of our oldest features layers that we work with, so I don't really have another layer that I can verify this with.

If I did republish the layer, then yes all web maps and apps that use the layer would have to be reconfigured. In my case, I think I'm just going to keep the old layer in there and work around it, since so many people use this layer in Collector for field use. Probably not worth the hassle of changing everything. 

Either way, I'm glad I found out what was causing the behavior! 

[MikeMinami]

Enhancement to make newly added fields visible immediately

Pending some ongoing testing, at the next release, newly added fields will immediately be visible in the table. If for some reason our testing fails and we can't release this feature, I'll post here. But, it seems like it should go through. New fields will also appear in popups.

How do you make your field 'permanently' visible today before the next release?

Currently, if your field is not showing up in the table, you have to make it visible. You do this through the popup configuration. So, on the Visualize tab, configure the popup. Choose the Configure Attributes option to display this dialog box. You will need to check the option to 'Display' the field. Save, and you'll now see your field.

In the current release, why are newly added fields sometime visible and sometimes not?

It depends if there is a popup defined on the layer already. If there is, and you've customized in in any way, a newly added field will not be visible. At the time, we were being conservative and didn't want to mess up any custom popup you may have configured by adding a new field to it. (With the enhancement, you'll now get it.) There really isn't any relationship to the age of the layer, but I suppose the older a layer is, the more likely that you may have configured the popup or it got configured automatically in some way. Layers published from Desktop might already have a popup defined too. 

Why does it work this way now?

In the beginning of AGOL, there were only popups, no tables. Then tables were added to the map viewer and it made sense that the fields you see in the table would match what you see in the popup, so the table just displayed the visible fields defined in the popup. I don't think you could even add new fields at this point. Then, the Data tab was introduced, but it still inherited the visible fields defined in the popup.

Hope this helps explain things,

Mike

[JustinConnerWR]

I don't think it's wise to make newly-added fields visible automatically in pop-ups.  That would be a huge mistake as new, unpopulated and/or internal-only fields would automatically be visible in pop-ups for public layers which is not desired behavior for many organizations.  It seems most users of this forum were asking specifically to be able to see the field in the Data view, not in the pop-up!

I had found that new fields weren't actually showing up in the popup configuration in a timely manner to even allow me to check the box to make them visible.  (This is similar to Alex's concern above, although he was missing the check-box in the view and I was missing the check-box in the pop-up within the hosted feature layer itself.)  I adjusted my cache settings back to "never" and waited patiently (after having impatiently changed alias names & such hoping that would trigger it to work), and eventually the field was available to add to the pop-up window.  There may be some other quirks of field names that are causing issues with displaying the fields.

[MikeMinami]

Alison,

Thanks for your feedback. Currently, the visibility of fields in the table is linked to visibility in the popup for the reason I described above. Thus, to make a field visible in the table, it must also be visible in the popup.  I will clarify that the field will only become visible in popups defined as 'a list of field attributes' and not the other popup configuration types. I agree that this is not the best solution to the problem, but it's the best solution we can release in the short term. We have considered other options, but they too are not perfect. We will be continuing to work in this area to improve the experience.

If you are concerned about the public viewing field attributes that aren't for public consumption, the best solution is to use a hosted feature layer view. With these layers, you can explicitly set a subset of fields and features the public can see.

Thanks,

Mike

[JustinConnerWR]

I've had more than one issue like this (where hosted feature classes published awhile ago are exhibiting behaviors that new feature classes aren't).  Unfortunately, tech support will not troubleshoot a problem unless it is reproducible.  Since ESRI tech support isn't able to reproduce creating a hosted feature class with an earlier version of AGOL for testing, it's not possible to get help beyond "please recreate the feature class", which (as Katherine states) is inconvenient if field staff are actually making use of the layer...

[GISOfficer]

An additional question, how does adding a field then propagating to a view work for related tables?  I have republished a service with schema changes and am looking to push these to the view without remaking it.  Define Fields in the Visualisation tab does not show the related table.