Time animation of multiple layers

[AvaFarouche]

Greetings!

I have a two-fold question here, which will make my inexperience obvious. 

I created a LOT of different feature layers to show water monitoring data collected on different dates. For each location point, I needed to tie multiple pollutant attributes, and multiple date attributes, and the only way I could think to do that was to create a separate layer for each date. In retrospect, I think there must have been a better way to do that. But I'm still not sure what it would be. A one-to-many join?

Now I have WAY too many separate layers (...about 50) and it would obviously be best to display this in a timelapse animation, but it looks like that only works within one layer, not across multiple layers. I posted the project to a Web map so folks can go click the layers on and off, but with this many layers, it's clunky for agol. A timelapse would be best.

So it looks like I need to go back to the drawing board, and it looks like a one-to-many join might be the key, but I'd love pointers or suggestions from anyone with knowledge of this.

Thank you!

[AyanPalit]

@AvaFarouche This is a god use case and thanks for providing the details.

Key considerations:

• How large is the current dataset?
• How will this grow over time? Perhaps based on the frequency of sampling?
• What kind of visualization do you need for the time-enabled layers?
• What kind of analysis, reporting do you need for the time-enabled layers?

Modelling options:

1. A point feature layer showing the water monitoring locations. This should have a primary key/unique ID field along with other required attributes.
2. Pollutant Monitoring table that uses the Location Unique ID as a foreign key. Include the collection date and optionally an expiration date (if applicable). This is the basic one (location) to many (samples) design in a geodatabase.
3. You may create a Relationship class if needed.  
4. You can enable Time on the Pollutant Monitoring table using a single time field (collection date) or double time fields (collection date and expiration date).
5. You may then publish this as a service and use it in webmap.
6. The time slider should show up in ArcGIS Pro and or Map Viewer when a time-enabled layer is detected.

[AvaFarouche]

Thank you so much!!

I got the point feature layer and the monitoring table w/Location Unique ID.

I'm still a little stuck on one thing: For each date, at each location, I have 9 samples, and I'm still confused about how to make that many-to-one join or relationship. I just need to do more research on relationship classes and figure out how to make it work.  I've been making maps for a number of years but they're relatively simple and I haven't done this kind of work before. I could do one table that shows a total pollutant amount, leave out the individual pollutant measurements, and include a date attribute, and that would be an easy fix.

Thank you!!

[AyanPalit · Accepted solution]

@AvaFarouche glad that you got going on this approach.

At the Pollutant Monitoring table, you should have its own Sample Unique ID. This allows to relate how many samples are tied to a location. The date attribute is simply another way to filter or narrow down the search. It's OK to have multiple samples for the same date; they will have different Sample Unique ID's. You can summarize total pollutant measurements for certain time period for each location. There are multiple ways to roll-up or drill down through this type of data.

[AvaFarouche]

Interesting. Thank you!

I wish I could see what that would look like to have Sample Unique IDs - but I will see what I can find and experiment with my spreadsheets.

Thank you for your time!