A workaround for symbolizing a range of dates without using a quantity renderer

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04-09-2021 07:20 AM
ScottRobinson
New Contributor III

Our foresters create new polygon features of harvest blocks they plan to harvest in the future.  Each one is attributed with a start date for the harvest.  I need to group them by year and symbolize them without having go into the layer properties and adding any new dates.  Being able to symbolize a range (ie. 1/1/2021 to 12/31/2021) would be the best solution but I know I can't use quantity renderers.

Anyone have a good workaround?

8 Replies
RickeyFight
MVP Regular Contributor

@ScottRobinson 

Are you trying to do this on ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS PRO, or desktop? 

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ScottRobinson
New Contributor III

Apologies for not specifying; ArcGIS Desktop.

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KoryKramer
Esri Community Moderator

@ScottRobinson If all the dates are in a standard format, you could just split the year out into a new field

KoryKramer_0-1617983464415.png

Using something like !DATE![-4:] in the Field Calculator.

Then just symbolize using Unique Value on the year.

There are probably a number of other ways to do this, but this one should work pretty easily.

 

ScottRobinson
New Contributor III

I've done that and it works.  I've also used year() and that works, too.  Trouble is our foresters are continually adding new polygons with new dates.  Those won't get picked up unless I go in and do the field calculator.

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KoryKramer
Esri Community Moderator

OK, so you need it calculated automatically when a new feature is added.  Have you looked into using Attribute Assistant https://solutions.arcgis.com/shared/help/attribute-assistant/ (for ArcMap)?

In ArcGIS Pro, this would be done using Attribute Rules. https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/geodatabases/overview/an-overview-of-attribute-ru... 

ScottRobinson
New Contributor III

Thanks, I'm going to explore this.

RickeyFight
MVP Regular Contributor

@ScottRobinson 

You could write a python script that would run every night (or how frequently you would like) to run that calc

ScottRobinson
New Contributor III

I'm going to look into this as well, thanks.

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