Syncing content across multiple cascading story maps

Question

I am writing a variety of SOPs using cascading story maps to present the content. What is the best way to sync content across different story maps?

My goal is to create a specific SOP in cascading story map form that each role of the organization can reference. So if you are a publisher, there is specific content that you need to know the standards for where a user doesn't need to know but there are sections of content that will be duplicated and I would like to sync those sections.

My current workflow that works temporarily (I will explain later) is below:

- Create a PDF with the section content

- Upload the PDF to My Content in AGO and I will update that specific PDF as needed

- Add a media section in the Cascade Builder

- Select Link to Content

- Paste the really long URL provided from the Amazon storage service

....

This works up front but after a couple of minutes or refreshes, I get a message where the PDF should be saying something like this: AccessDeniedRequest has expired3002016-12-01T16:18:08Z2016-12-01T16:29:15Z912DACC1813AB284psU4cjJ8CpOfnS9Z7hPaz+EDtD7M6dj0UmgETXwn9BNalTguwiyb/HRmBSBk3SIVRQM0juknD1g=

Is there a way or better way to do this?

Also, when you try to select the media type, the items under My Content only show only web maps. I would think that other forms of media would be in that section like the PDFs or images that I have in My Content. Is this in the works?

deleted-user-lPToQDelsaap · Answer

Just tried it, the URL doesn't show up unless it's shared to public and I don't think we want all of it to be out there.

deleted-user-lPToQDelsaap · Answer

Thanks for the info.

I looked into doing a tabbed Map series, but since I am not using an maps in the SOPs, I found it easier to be able to type directly into the document. If I did go that way of using PDFs, would I need to make every PDF public? If I just shared the PDFs to the organization would the URL be persistent to the Org or would it still timeout since it isn't public?

oevans_storymaps · Answer

Brian,

The links you are using (copied from your browser's address bar, I presume) contain tokens that expire after a certain period of time. You'll need to share a document item publicly to get a persistent link. When you share the item with everyone a URL field appears at the bottom of the right sidebar that you can copy and add to your story map.

> Also, when you try to select the media type, the items under My Content only show only web maps. I would think that other forms of media would be in that section like the PDFs or images that I have in My Content. Is this in the works?

Yes, we are considering adding other types of items to the media picker in the future, but we don't have a timeline on when that would be available.

> I am writing a variety of SOPs using cascading story maps to present the content. What is the best way to sync content across different story maps?

One other comment/suggestion I might make about this idea. I'm not sure what else is going in your story maps, but from the information you've provided here it sounds like you might be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. If your result is a set of Cascade stories that just have a bunch of embedded PDFs, maybe Cascade isn't the right story map app to choose. Map Series might be a more effective way to present a series of sections/PDFs to multiple audiences. It works better in the role of a simple container to hold multiple pieces of content.

I hope this info is helpful!

Owen