Exporting data by month/year using ModelBuilder?

Question

Using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6.1. I have a large dataset that I need to view sequentially by month AND year. Instead of using Select by Attribute for each month/year combo (i.e. February 2017-May 2019 for 28 total feature classes).

Can this be done in ModelBuilder?

Data is currently in a file geodatabase and I'm looking to export each date/month as a feature class.

Answer 1

If the field holding your dates are of date data type, then:

• Add a text field
• Use Field Calculator to write year and month to the field, see for example: How To: Extract a portion of the Date field
• Split By Attributes using the field as Split_Fields

(If the field is already text and year-month then all you need is Split By Attributes)

With Split By Attributes you probably dont need to use ModelBuilder and Iterators.

• Susan: Excellent! I actually don't need to extract a date. They are two standalone columns - one as Month and one as Year. Would you suggest I concatenate the two into one new column and then use Split by Attributes?
• Bera: Nice! No you can pass both fields to Split By Attributes
• Susan: Yeah, I tried selecting both fields in Split By Attributes and nothing happened. I just concatenated both fields into one new column and ran it again. It worked! Thanks so much for the help!