Symbolise points by Date (not Date and Time)

[LaurenDibben]

HI, 

I am using ArcGIS online to create maps for use in the Collector ap. I have a point layer of cameras deployed over three days. These cameras need to be collected now, but they need to be collected in the same order they were put out so that they have all had 10 nights in the field.

I want to be able to symbolise the points in my layer by Date, so that each date of deployment has a separate colour, however when I select Symbolise by Unique Value, I am automatically getting Unique values for Date and Time combined, instead of just for date. 

Can anyone tell me how I get around this please. Ideally, I don't want to change my field data type from Date because it is so much easier for data collection in the field to use this data type, than to manually enter the date in a text field for example. It also maintains integrity of the data. 

I'm hoping there is an easy solution to this. I know the date is recorded as date and time collectively, but I want to sort by date only. 

Thanks,

Lauren

[Anonymous User]

You can change the date format and remove time stamps. 

[LaurenDibben]

Thanks, but that is not working for me. The time stamp part is already turned off. There is nowhere you can see the timestamp at all until I try to categorise using my date field and select unique values.

[Anonymous User]

Is the data coming from a hosted feature service? Is it public? If so please share the service url.

[LaurenDibben]

It is a feature layer that I have shared as a service to use with ArcGIS online, but it is not public. The data was captured using the Collector ap from an I-phone if that helps.

[XanderBakker · Accepted solution]

You can always use a bit of Arcade if the standard options don't return what you want. For more details see: ArcGIS Arcade | ArcGIS for Developers 

Although it says it's for developers, don't get scared by that. It can be very simple. When you go into the symbology of the layer you can select the option "New Expression" from the list of attributes you have:

(sorry for the Spanish interface)

When select that option the Arcade expression window will pop-up and you can enter the following expression:

return Month($feature.DATE) + "/" + Day($feature.DATE) + "/" + Year($feature.DATE)‍

... and hit the test button to see if it works:

In this case it will extract the month, day and year from the date-time and create a string like the example "4/11/2017".

By default it will assign a different color for each date:

[LaurenDibben]

This did work. Thank you. However, I have no idea how I would find out what expression to have entered if you didn't tell me. 

Lauren