What do you primarily do with Arcade, and what is the best use you have seen?

[JonJones1]

Hi all,

I asked ChatGPT for an overview of the Arcade language and received the answer below. I'm just wondering what might be missing from this list, if anything? My personal take on Arcade is that it enables the creation of "fancy symbology" and allows calculations to be generated on the fly, thus enabling that fancy symbology and information presented in pop-ups. Is this primarily what you all use it for?

Here are some of the top uses of Arcade in ArcGIS:

• Dynamic Labeling: Create dynamic labels that change based on data attributes or scale. For example, you can format labels differently depending on the value of a field.

• Data-driven Visualization: Generate complex visualizations based on attributes, allowing for more nuanced and context-sensitive maps. For instance, you can use expressions to create graduated symbols or color ramps that reflect data variations.

• On-the-fly Calculations: Perform calculations on the fly without altering the underlying data. This is useful for creating derived values, such as calculating percentages or ratios from existing fields.

• Conditional Rendering: Apply conditional logic to control the visibility of features or aspects of your map based on attribute values or map scale. This helps in emphasizing certain features under specific conditions.

• Symbol Property Modification: Modify symbol properties, such as color or size, based on attribute values, enabling more dynamic and informative visualizations.

• Custom Pop-ups: Craft rich, informative pop-up content that can include calculations, formatted text, and dynamic content based on the data.

• Time-based Visualizations: Create expressions that consider time, making it possible to build temporal visualizations that reflect changes over time within your data.

• ArcGIS Online and Dashboards: Enhance ArcGIS Online web maps and dashboards with custom expressions for labeling, visualization, and pop-ups, providing a richer interactive experience.

• Constraint and Validation: Use Arcade in attribute rules for data integrity, such as constraining input values or automatically calculating field values during editing.

• Integration Across ArcGIS Platform: Arcade expressions are consistent across many parts of the ArcGIS platform, including ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, and various ArcGIS apps, allowing for seamless sharing and reuse of expressions.

[MobiusSnake]

I've used it for most of these things at some point, but the two things I use it most for most frequently/recently are:

• Data Expressions in Dashboards - These aren't really covered in any of the items that ChatGPT gave you, but they let you manipulate both the schema and the data of query results before feeding them into dashboard controls.  For example you can query multiple layers and perform a client-side join, then have those join results in your dashboard.  You can also do aggregate functions and push those results into your dashboard.
• GDB attribute rules - Besides validating and calculating fields automatically, you can also use these to create new records entirely.  For example, when working with a Utility Network you may have a feature that contains numerous non-spatial objects, e.g. a duct bank contains multiple non-spatial duct records.  Attribute rules are great for triggering the creation of these non-spatial objects and creating containment associations between the feature and its non-spatial objects.

[BernSzukalski]

While there are many "advanced" things you can do with Arcade, I find that I, and many of my colleagues, use Arcade for simpler tasks, such as to clean up attributes when you don't own the layer to make the changes yourself. For example, simple things like changing all caps to sentence case, changing abbreviations to full strings, units conversions, etc. This blog article covers many of the common ones used in pop-up:

Pop-ups: Arcade essentials (esri.com)

[JonJones1]

Thank you, Bren, for the information! Over the years, you have always been a great source of knowledge, and yet again, you have helped me out!