Configure time settings

Spatial phenomena collected with time information can allow you to see what happened at a specific time or what may happen in the future. By animating time-based data, you can visualize it at each step and see patterns or trends emerging over time. Examples of phenomena with data that are well suited for this purpose include hurricanes, tornadoes, and other meteorological events; population migrations; land-use and environment change; and wildfire or flood event progression.

Not all temporal data represents movement or a change in location. It also applies to static features that have data values that vary over time. You can use a time series to visualize these changes, such as annual percent change in population across census tracts or hourly wind speeds at weather stations compared with the daily average.

Some map layers are time enabled; they contain spatial datasets that include different information for the same location at different times. If a map contains time-enabled layers, it is time aware, and you can configure it to display the data during a specific time period or animate the data over time. You can also set the map time zone for any map to control how dates and times are displayed, regardless of whether the map contains time-enabled layers.

You can enable time on a layer in Map Viewer by doing any of the following:

Configure time-based feature visibility to show only features for which date or time values fall within a certain time range, such as earthquakes by date or hurricane tracks by year.
Enable time-based layer visibility to display an entire layer only during the time period it applies to, such as a seasonal boundary.
Configure time-series animation to show how attribute values change over time for fixed locations using a time series ArcGIS Arcade expression that references sequential date fields, such as population by decade for different countries.

Configure time-based feature visibility

If a layer contains a time or date field, you can control which features appear on the map based on a time or date field, even if you do not own the layer. When time-based feature visibility is enabled, only features with values in the selected field that fall within the specified time extent are shown on the map. Time-based feature visibility is different from time-based layer visibility, which shows or hides the entire layer during a specified time period.

Time settings can be configured in Map Viewer for feature services, feature layers, knowledge graph layers, CSV layers, and GeoJSON layers.

Note:

You can enable and disable time for imagery and map image layers if they were published as time-aware from ArcGIS Pro, but you cannot further configure them.

Tip:

Play the Time-enable a layer video for more information about configuring time-based feature visibility in Map Viewer.

To configure time-based feature visibility, complete the following steps:

Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create, update, and delete content.

Note:

You can explore maps, add and configure layers, and more without signing in. To save your work, sign in before creating a map.
In Map Viewer, open a map containing a layer with a time or date field, or add the layer directly.
Note:

Supported time and date field types include the following:
- Date
- Date only
- Timestamp offset
To learn more about supported field types, see Date and time fields in ArcGIS Online.
In the Layers pane, click the layer to select it.
On the Settings (light) toolbar, in the Properties pane, under Time, click Time-based feature visibility.
Turn on the Enable time-based feature visibility toggle button if necessary.
Choose one of the following to specify how the time data is recorded:
- Timestamp—Data contains a single time field that denotes specific points in time.
- Time range—Data contains two fields that denote start and end times for specific features.
For Timestamp, choose a Field to determine how the data is displayed. For Time range, choose a Start field and an End field.
Under Time extent, click Apply to time slider to set up the time slider with the corresponding time-based feature visibility settings.

Note:

When applied, these settings will replace the time slider's current extent with the layer's time extent. You can change the time slider's extent by specifying start and end points in the map time options.
To turn off time-based feature visibility, see Turn off time animation.

Enable time-based layer visibility

For all layers, you can set a specific time period during which the layer is visible.

To enable time-based layer visibility, complete the following steps:

Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create, update, and delete content.

Note:

You can explore maps, add and configure layers, and more without signing in. To save your work, sign in before creating a map.
In Map Viewer, open the map containing the layer, or add the layer directly.
In the Layers pane, click a layer to select it.
On the Settings (light) toolbar, click Properties .
Under Visibility, turn on the Time-based layer visibility toggle button, and under Start and End, set the date and time ranges to define the time period during which the layer is visible.

Configure time series animation

You can also enable time on certain layers by configuring a time series to create animations from sequential temporal fields. A time series can be applied to data in which each field corresponds to the value of a given feature at a specific point in time. For example, if you have population data by year for municipalities throughout a region, you can use a time series to visualize population change over time.

Note:

You can also configure time series animation using the Time series ArcGIS Arcade expression builder in the Arcade expression editor window.

To configure a time series, complete the following steps:

Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create, update, and delete content.

Note:

You can explore maps, add and configure layers, and more without signing in. To save your work, sign in before creating a map.
In Map Viewer, open the map containing the layer, or add the layer directly.
In the Layers pane, click the layer to select it.
On the Settings (light) toolbar, in the Properties pane, under Time, click Time series with field values.
In the Time series with field values pane, click Add time series.
In the Configure time series with field values window, click Add fields, and in the Select fields pane, check the check box next to one or more fields in the list, or click Select all; optionally, filter fields in the list using the search bar, and click Done when you are finished.
Note:

To configure a time series visualization, the data should be structured as a wide table in which each row represents a static feature with a fixed location, such as a country boundary or a city. The table should have two or more fields, or columns, that represent the same data attributes at different points in time for each feature. Field names should refer to a specific attribute and a specific point in time at regular intervals, such as sequential months or 10-year intervals.

For example, a layer containing city locations in which each row represents a city with the following field structure could be used to configure a time series visualization:
- CITY_NAME
- POPULATION_1990
- POPULATION_2000
- POPULATION_2010
- POPULATION_2020
To configure a time series on the selected fields, do the following:
- Under Time period, select the length of time to which each field corresponds, and specify the start date to match the date of the first field you are using for the time series animation.
- Under Time interval, choose the value that matches the interval between the fields in the data.
- Under Time unit, choose a unit for the interval frequency.
Click Generate to create the time series field-date correspondence.
Optionally, under Display name, provide a name of the time series.
Click Done to save the time series and to return to the Time series with field values pane.
Optionally, click Options next to the time series and do any of the following:
- Click Delete to delete the time series.
- Click Duplicate to duplicate the time series.
- Click Edit to edit the time series in the Time series with field values pane.
Click Apply to time slider to set up the time slider with the corresponding time range and interval.
Optionally, click Add time series, and repeat steps 7 through 11 to create an additional time series.
Configure time slider options in a map as described below, or see View time maps (Map Viewer) to view your time series animation.

Tip:

Once authored, a time series can be used to apply styling and to configure pop-ups and labeling. When configured, styling, pop-ups, and labels will update with the time slider.

Set the map time zone

You can set the time zone of a map to customize how date and time are displayed in places such as pop-ups and tables.

To set the time zone, complete the following steps:

Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create, update, and delete content.

Note:

You can explore maps, add and configure layers, and more without signing in. To save your work, sign in before creating a map.
In Map Viewer, open the map containing the layer, or add the layer directly.
On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Map properties .
Under Time zone, do one of the following:
- Select Device time zone to display the date and time using the time zone set for the device used to view the map.
- Select Specific time zone to display the date and time according to the time zone selected by the map author.
- Select Data's time zone to display the date and time based on the time zone that has been defined for the layer. No adjustments are made to the display of date information.
  
  Note:
  
  Options to configure time slider settings are disabled when using this time zone option.
  
  Tip:
  
  To view the time zone set for the map, on the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Map properties and expand the Time section if needed.

Configure map time options

To customize how time-enabled layers are displayed in a map, complete the following steps:

Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create, update, and delete content.

Note:

You can explore maps, add and configure layers, and more without signing in. To save your work, sign in before creating a map.
In Map Viewer, open the map containing time-enabled layers or add layers to a new map.
Click Time to show the time slider.
On the time slider, click Map time options .
Make any of the configurations described in the subsections below.

Start and end points

Under Time slider mode, choose one of the following to specify the time period for the time-enabled layer, and choose values for Start date, Start time, End date, and End time:

Show current interval—Show data that is within a set time range.
Show features progressively—Progressively show data that is within a set time range. The start time is always pinned to the start of the slider.
Show data at a time instant—Show data that falls on a single instant in time.

Time intervals

Specify how much data to display as time passes. Choose Length of one interval to specify the count and units for each time interval, or choose Total time divided into equal steps and specify the number of intervals.

Playback position

Choose whether to start the time animation at the beginning of the time span or at the time position last saved with the map.

Play rate

Set the speed at which the time intervals play. You can move the slider to increase and decrease the speed.

Turn off time animation

You can turn off time animation on time-enabled layers. When time animation is turned off for a layer, the layer is no longer filtered by the time slider, and all of its features are shown on the map.

Note:

If the map contains multiple time-enabled layers, you must turn off time for each layer individually.

To temporarily disable time animation at the map level, open the time slider, click Map time options , and turn off the Apply time filter toggle button.

To turn off time animation on a layer that has been time-enabled by enabling time-based layer visibility, configuring time-based feature visibility, or configuring time-series animation, complete the following steps:

On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Layers to open the Layers pane.
Select the time-enabled layer.
On the Settings (light) toolbar, click Properties and do one of the following:
- If you enabled time-based layer visibility, under Visibility, click Time-based layer visibility and turn off the Enable time-based layer visibility toggle button.
- If you configured time-based feature visibility, under Time, click Time-based feature visibility and turn off the Enable time-based feature visibility toggle button.
- If you configured time series animation, under Time, click Time series with field values. In the Time series with field values pane, click Options next to the time series and click Delete.
Repeat the previous steps for each time-enabled layer.