Is it possible to display temporal data using a one-to-many relate from an external table?

[AndrewFerguson1]

Background: I have an excel table with ~200 records of temporal data for 9 counties (a total of ~1800 records), and I am trying to display the change over time in an animation in ArcGIS Pro. My only spatial layer is a single shapefile with the boundaries of the 9 respective counties (9 records in total).

My dilemma is that this article suggests performing a one-to-many join as a way to connect my temporal data to my spatial data, while this community discussion suggests that a one-to-many join isn't an available feature in Pro. There appears to be a solution posted in the discussion by using a query table, but I don't have a great understanding of coding, thus I am looking for another work-around to meet my deadline. If none exists, I will use this as an opportunity to dive headfirst into my introduction to coding.

Is it possible to use a one-to-many relate to display the external temporal information within the boundaries of my shapefile?

[curtvprice]

Have you tried this tool?

Join Features (GeoAnalytics Desktop)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation 

[AndrewFerguson1]

The Join Features tool fails with the following errors: "ERROR 000368: Invalid input data. ERROR 120053: Parameter 'joinLayer' is not valid".  In this case, joinLayer is my standalone table that holds the temporal data. If I switch the target layer and join layer, I receive the same error messages, but 120053 reads "'targetLayer' is not valid".

[TimOrmsby]

Hi Andrew,

The one-to-many join can be accomplished as described in the help topic you referenced (Temporal data in separate tables). This workflow is used in the tutorial Visualize temporal data.

However, I think all the input data must be in geodatabase file format. I don't think it will work with shapefiles and Excel tables. If converting the data to geodatabase is an option for you, give that a try. Alycia Rajendran‌ may be able to offer more insight.