In Product Plan
Score11350
It would be nice to be able to create a group layer for several feature services. I tried to create a group layer for the shape files that I was about to upload to my subscrition account, hoping that the user would be able to better control what they saw and what they wanted to work with in the the group. It would also help to clear up the clutter in the TOC, allowing for more features to work with on the same map. It seems to me a no brainer to add this ability, especially if it is controled from Desktop.
This is a must have feature in AGOL especially if one is dealing with many layers that need to be grouped.
Most of us working with real world applications have realised this is a feature needed and demanded for by clients.
This should also be merged to: Group Layers in ArcGIS Online Maps and Apps
Given a water utility like us, we end up with a HUGE TOC and this is just not workable for a mobile application. Not to mention that all the users are used to having grouped layers from our web apps based on ArcGIS Server.
Below is the perfect example of where this would be necessary
Habitats (Folder)
Dublin (subfolder)
point habitat layer
linear habitat layer
polygon habitat layer
Mayo (subfolder)
point habitat layer
linear habitat layer
polygon habitat layer
By having "hidden layers" on the subfolder all the habitat layers (point/line/polygon) would be turned on when a user wishes to view Habitats in Dublin.
If you have a new idea, be sure to always create a new Idea, so it can receive votes and attention. I think this would be a great idea.
Not all of us can use the API for developers. I may need to pursue other software, as this app needs to develop into something even larger and more robust, and I will need this layer list to look more professional and organized.
Are there any updates from ESRI as to how long this needs to be in consideration?
Right now you can toggle layers on and off in the layer list, but they cannot be cached. So I have to publish each one separately, but then I cannot group them in the layer list... There are no alternatives and it is unacceptable for our purposes.
It would be great if it was possible to group all storm and all sanitary and toggle the group on and off at once instead of having to click 8 or 9 times to see just one of the utilities.
Having moved to the ESRI Product at our Local Council and relying on AGOL for our external viewer it would be fantastic to allow grouping of layers and in some of our viewers we have a large number of web services in the map (largest 52). This viewer does take a while to load even when all feature services are turned of.
Cheers
I need!!
This is really needed. At the moment it's stopping us from replicating the functionality of our public facing map viewer (which uses ArcIMS) where we have around 60 layers grouped nicely into about 6 or 7 different categories.
Let me add my name to THIS VERY LONG LIST of people seeking this functionality. It is a must have. Please, Esri, make this happen for us. I've personally lost some "face" with a client when I discovered that this basic functionality - which I rightfully assumed was available in AGOL web maps, since it's so basic - was not.
Yes! We need this to make our maps more user friendly to various end users. This would help to novice user to navigate the layers better and not be initially overwhelmed by a lot of layers.
I can not support a Client's needs until this is implemented. What's the hold up?!?!?
Perhaps it would be better to educate your clients expectations as to what you can do with ArcGIS Online
NOTE: We still get group layers with Map Services, just like in the past.
It's Feature Services that get "flattened out."
I totally disagree on educating your clients!
This is not the case of something that "doesn't make sense", or it is "impossible to implement". ESRI keeps pushing on selling ArcGIS Online to every organization. I think it's fair that organizations expect such a basic (and very helpful) feature.
I can't think of what makes it so difficult to implement. Perhaps it's simply matter of a really big and powerful organization threatening to drop the use of AGOL.
I think one of the most common times I get the request to "Group" layers is when the User would like to take layers from multiple sources and bring them together into functional groups. For instance - if I have a water utility dataset from multiple neighboring agencies and an energy facility dataset from more than one provider for an emergency management map - I'd like to Group them in the web map since I do not have control over how those layers are published. This would make the Table of Contents and Legend a lot easier to follow.
I agree with Paul. We are really starting to hit a turning point in the geospatial data arena, thanks adoption of the tools Esri has created like OpenData Portal, ArcGIS Server, and AGOL there is rapidly becoming a time when agencies will not need to serve up other organizations data to make a given web map. Having direct access to authoritative data is a wonderful thing, and not needing to pay to upkeep that data is a huge cost savings. This is incredibly powerful, as Esri/Jack have pointed out many years ago (15+..) when they first talked about these tools. The missing link in the consumption of others web services is a means to organize this data within ones own web maps in groups, so it can paint the picture your end user want to see. Being able to organize content into groupings is critical and hopefully Esri will here our needs.
Sorry likely more preaching to the choir..
This is a must have. I have tried to work around creating my desired webmap in ArcGIS Pro but once shared my groups are no longer honoured. This makes our web maps very messy looking and not very user friendly, causing ArcGIS online product to be unsuitable for use.
Pretty Please.......
This is badly needed!
This is a great idea and one that we need. And we are working on it. On the surface, it seems like this should be a simple fix. After all, how hard can it be to group a few layers together in the TOC? Unfortunately, this issue is a little more complicated than that, and it ties directly into how ArcGIS Online draws layers in the map.
With our current technology (JSAPI 3.x), we utilize the web browser graphics drawing capabilities to draw layers like hosted feature layers, shapefiles added directly to the map and map notes. You may have noticed before that you can't freely reorder layers in the map's TOC, like you can in ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap. It's because these layers drawn in the browser's graphics layer can't be drawn below other layers, like those based on Tiles or ArcGIS Server Map Services. That's just the way the browser works. This makes grouping hard, because you wouldn't be able to group a tile layer with a feature layer and have it to draw "under" another group layer that's above it. I suppose we could allow you to group layers strictly for organization or "hiding" purposes, but I think the expectation would be that the drawing order would be equivalent to Pro and ArcMap, which we wouldn't be able to achieve.
So, when will this issue be addressed? You may have noticed with recent releases that we've been updating the look and feel of pages in ArcGIS Online. For example, there is a new Item Detail page. This work is slowly progressing through the website and we'll continue to update the site over the coming releases. As you might imagine, the Map Viewer is scheduled to be updated as well. At this time, we'll migrate the app to the JSAPI 4.x environment, which has a different drawing engine that will allow us to better support layer ordering and thus, layer grouping and have it work as you expect it should. Unfortunately, I don't have a specific release date as this is a big project that involves reworking a lot of the code.
Thank you for your continued patience on this issue.
Mike
Mike Minami, your feedback and detailed description of this issue is greatly appreciated. I hope that some day this is implemented to the extent that we have total control of grouping and ordering layers, regardless of their type. When I was thinking about this idea, I had feature layers in mind more than tiled layers. This is because, when you add an individual layer from a map service into your map, it comes in as a feature layer. So it would be nice to be able to specifically group feature layers. Wouldn't this be much more achievable because of the way feature layers are rendered, vs tiled layers?
Again, the answer isn't so simple. The ArcGIS Platform increasingly has more and more complex interrelationships between applications. First, the JSAPI 3.x environment doesn't support group layers. While we could add logic to the AGOL Map Viewer to allow layer grouping, it would only be supported in this application. Other applications would not recognize the grouped layers, unless they also wrote specific application logic. In order for there to be consistency across applications, the functionality has to be built in at a lower level, so that applications can just inherit it, rather than build it individually. Layer grouping required changes to our web map specification and has been implemented with the JSAPI 4.x environment. Ultimately, the decision to implement this feature or not is based on time and resources. In this case, we've decided to spend our resources moving forward and adopting the 4.x environment rather than trying to fix what we have, which will be obsoleted soon. We do understand the importance of this issue and are trying to resolve it as best as we can.
Thanks,
Mike
"I suppose we could allow you to group layers strictly for organization or
"hiding" purposes"
That would be perfect! That's all I'm looking for really...organising and
hiding layers. While extremely powerful already, I don't think anyone
should ever expect ArcGIS Online's features to mirror the desktop
offerings' features.
I 2nd that functionality, it’s all I need too!
I 2nd this! Quick easy fix, make grouping work simply for organization.Buy yourselves some time to make it work the same as arcmap.
Hi Mike, Thanks for explaining the situation in depth, that's very helpful. I was frustrated that this "basic" mapping function is still not available in AGOL, but now I understand the technical challenges after reading your feedback. Most importantly, It also gives users like me some hope, that this issue will get resolved sooner or later.
I understand we can't make the group layer work as it does in ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Map now, can we take some small steps and make it partially working? for example:
1. Only group tiled layers / image layers/image map layers and don't worry about the feature layers (my understanding is the feature layers will be drawn in as graphics in the browser, but not the aforementioned layers)
2. Allow people create group layer as an item. so I can add a group of layers in one go and in the intended orders. I am still talking about the tiled layers / image layers/image map layers
At least this will help some people in some cases I suppose.
Regards
Mike Minami, absolutely love the detail and insight here on all this. Is there any update on when Esri is looking to update or implement JSAPI 4.x for the AGOL Map Viewer?
Thanks!
Nicklas Richards
This is an active and ongoing project. Group layers are already supported in JSAPI 4.x and available in the Scene Viewer of AGOL. Work is progressing on the Map Viewer redesign, but it's a big project. In the interest of providing you with some level of transparency on this important issue, our goal is to release the updated map viewer in mid to late 2018. This is our goal and not a guaranteed delivery date. Again, thanks for your patience.
Mike
Thank you for your response Mike!
As the Danish distributor of Esri software we are also very interested in the possibility of grouping layers in web applications build with standard functionality (Web AppBuilder). We have a key costumer who would like to have layers from multiple sources brought together into functional groups in a web application. This customer has an ArcGIS Enterprise Portal. Therefor, we would like to know your goal and release plan for this issue in regards to ArcGIS Enterprise.
Thanks,
Lea
Perhaps I shouldn't have made that "hiding" comment... It's the same issue as I just described above. It would work in the map viewer but nowhere else. Everything is interrelated and there isn't a quick fix. Sorry.
Mike
Mike:
Thanks for providing the detailed explanation about the difficulties involved.
Can we add the ability to configure all the popups at once for each group of layers as well???
Aaron Craig I spoke with Esri UI UX team at the Dev conf this year on this. We're in the same boat as you. I have 600 layers that lose popups each time I republish after adding a new layer they all lose popups because we are on Server 10.2.2 (layerIds). This would save me half a day of time almost. As you know all too well I am sure... it snaps back to the top after each popup! I am voting for your idea.
Aaron,
I created this Idea. Its not exactly the same as yours, but it is similar.
Copy popup Template on ArcGIS Online and Portal for ArcGIS
Chris
I add my name to this list of people seeking this functionality. It is a must have. Please, Esri, make this happen for us. I've personally lost some "face" with a client when I discovered that this basic functionality - which I rightfully assumed was available in AGOL web maps, since it's so basic - was not.
I’ve been waiting and anticipating this for 2 years now. Would love to see it in fruition.
This is big for us, too.
I am bumping into this serious limitation now, now that I'm moving all old sites that used AGS JS TOC to WAB.
It is needed in conjunction with ability to group layers and the UI/UX overhaul on the JS API / WebApp Builder's LayerList interface. (need partial checkbox and ability to turn a layer in a group in a group on in ONE click, end users to not want to click several parent groups plus the layer in question, if it's inside groups in a tree!) This is our highest priority for improvement to AGOL / WAB. Could use Moxie and Alan level of attention and care to detail.
AGOL is a fantastic resource but the in-ability to group items in the TOC really must be addressed ASAP. The US Army Corps of Engineers has an ELA with ESRI and we have been discussing using AGOL as our outer facing web presence. Currently, we maintain a DMZ but want to transition to AGOL. The biggest issue we have with the transition is AGOLs in-ability to retain grouping in the TOC.
How long, O' Lord, How long?
We need this! Pleeeeeease!!!!!
We would like to transition to AGOL. However, we cannot until the ability to group layers is available.
I commented a while back about creating a web-based utility map and how being able to turn all the layers on or off for a utility with one click is crucial. After some exploring, I found this work-around. I've never dealt with custom widgets before so it was a day-long process to figure things out but it's almost working for me. Had to download and set up web app builder, download the custom widget, build the app using WAB, download my own custom app when complete, and then deploy using server. I don't have rights to server so it's only working on my machine for now but hope to work with our IT GIS people to test it out soon.
One widget "button" each for toggling all layers at once for sewer, stormwater, and drinking water:
Please, please, please make this happen. Our transition to AGOL & Web App Builder is contingent upon this functionality. The GIS User Community has been requesting this functionality for over 2.5 years now. Please Esri, hear our calls!
PLEASE, implement this!!!!! It should have been there from version 1.0 !! In "old days" ArcIMS had the same missing functionality even though the users really wanted it. Hopefully ESRI will understand one day how important this is for the users!
Creating a Group Layer, wherein you can group together many layers, such as is possible in ArcMap, is implemented in AGOL when authoring a SCENE. All you do is click Create Layer Group, then drag your layers into the group. So Very Easy. But WHY can't this functionality be implemented when authoring a MAP, and have it carryover into your APP???
If you ADD data to your MAP using ZIP file that contains many shapefiles, AGOL automatically groups them for you. WHY can't we group layers from our hosted feature services in the MAP????
It was explained by Mike Minami in a comment here back in October 2016 that the ArcGIS Online map viewer will eventually be updated and migrated to the JSAPI 4.x environment. That's when we can expect to see this feature implemented. It's taking a lot longer than any of us are satisfied with and it would be nice if they could keep us more informed on the progress of this, but that's the situation.
I noticed the same thing as you Greg Bazhaw about being able to group and move layers around when authoring a scene. A web scene is a JSAPI 4.x feature, so the ArcGIS Online scene viewer must already be written in the JSAPI 4.x environment, which is what Mike was talking about for the ArcGIS Online map viewer. What we see in the scene viewer is what we should expect to have eventually for the map viewer, it's just a matter of WHEN, and it can't happen soon enough.
I just can't wait for this to happen!!!!
Honestly shocked upon learning this is not possible today.
TO THE TOP OF THE LIST!
My boss yells at me all the time because I can't group the layers the way we want them in a web map. Esri, please make it so I don't get yelled at about this at work anymore!
:-)
ESRI just confirmed at the conference that they will include this ability in 2018 when they change to the 4x JSAPI. Finally!
Brett,
This is awesome!! I can't wait!!
Thanks for letting me know
Alix
I just ran in to this problem. In a viewer I have I wanted to add a few layers from some federal agencies. But group them in to a Federal folder. I went to the web map, realized this is still not possible. Having them all listed out in the LayerList is messy. Users not like. This would be highly helpful to implement, next ArcGIS Online update. 2018? I got around it by tucking them away in to the Add Layers custom WAB DE widget. I will outgrow that though. Also it's not available for hosted apps or regular webmaps. It would also be key to see the AGOL web map folders carry through to any and all templates with a layerlist widget i.e story maps, other template viewers, etc.
For my workaround, I added a second instance of the layer list widget. It has a layer from another agency and my map tips layers. All the other layers are hidden.
So, Ryan... Very good sir. For some reason I had not thought of that! Yes I will do that with and with a second web map. You hide with the Config right? Though longterm it would also be neat if WAB could use more than one webmap, and perhaps each LL widget have its own. Also could provide a measure of redundancy / reduce points of failure, in thinking about emergency mgmt type of viewers. But yes thanks that's a great way to engineer around it.
Hi Kevin
We have slightly modified version of WAB that we can inject webmaps in to using a query parameter, eg the id of the map. Once in the map we also have a webmap switcher widget (see the switch map widget) that lets you switch out the current web map with a different one, the maps in the . See the link here
https://s3-aws.demos.eaglegis.co.nz/LocalMapsViewer/?map=98afc615ecbc47488257a3f1687519d7
It may or may not be useful
Sounds interesting. Is there a password that is needed to see this app demo?
Yeah, you hide the layers in the config. Very quick and easy to do in the UI, and I gave mine a different icon. I also like the idea of some kind of map or theme switcher.
Ryan Kelso Ok that will be perfect for some apps thanks again for the idea. However for this app I am doing now I have an additional requirement. The second set of layers are to have a different password and from a second webmap. So, they can't be in the same one. It would be helpful for Esri to allow a LayerList widget to be able a different webmap. In other words have that as one configurable parameter. Sure, warn if it's a different projection, and that project on the fly may impact performance etc. Grant Carroll that is an outstandingly good app and user interface design. I love how the toolbar icons are large. The ones from Esri are too small. Also they are 50% opacity. So they're very, very dull and hard to see and differentiate, with no color. I have commented on that since WAB 1.0. I changed all of them, and added color to them all. I have not gotten around to killing the 50% opacity yet and adding CSS like my public site but I will do that soon if it is not fixed. I suppose I will release that as a modified Header Widget on my Custom Widget thread. I will probably enlarge them as you did Grant. Instead of an opacity on mouseover Esri should highlight the background, like my site www.sagis.org. I do like how they have added an "on" indication of the little line over the widget to indicate it's active in WAB 2.0. But I think highlighting the background of the button, like my site's CSS would be more communicative. However Grant, for my site I need to combine layers from both webmaps at once and display. But I sure will keep your idea in my back pocket because that site is just absolutely fantastic! Very good to do "theming" thematic maps, as often public users are looking for groups of map layers. I serve power users for internal viewers and the public for general purpose viewers. The first group want and know how to use layer lists, advanced querying tools, etc. The second group are more the Story Map type of crowd. Fortunately with WebApp Builder we are serving the first group very well. The second group we're now serving well with the Story Map Builder. Nevertheless some core elements on ArcGIS Online such as the ones we're discussing here, moveable popups, can gain improvement with some of the comments from folks in this thread. These AGOL and API UX upgrades will then be enjoyed by users across all the Esri platforms.
Kevin,
Regarding " It would be helpful for Esri to allow a LayerList widget to be able a different webmap." I had a similar requirement, and my workaround was to put all the layers in the same web map. Then I could create multiple layer list widgets and decide which layers are visible within each one of the widgets.
In this way, one of the LayerLists would display District Plan layers, the second widget would display Aerial Imagery Layers, and the third widget would display Property related data.
I don't know if this helps, but it turned out to be a good solution for me.
Alix thank you, yes in some cases that will be the perfect solution. In others, to manage granular security, data sources and collaboration, multiple webmaps will be needed.
One main reason this would be good for Esri to implement as a business case occurred to me. If they had this, you could publish layers once. To use everywhere. Like streets. And then mix and match layers in to viewers from the same service. Because now, each viewer we have has its own mxd and service. So we have a hundred services, yet they all point to the same streets layer. Seems redundant and duplicative of server resources. But we do symbolize differently sometimes. But we could do most symbolization, labels etc on a webmap. But because there are no groups, basically we almost always can't do this. Because after more than a few layers the LayerList gets way too full and crowded for endusers. The only way around this is Groups. As of now, the only way to get Groups in the LayerList widget is to Group from ArcMap MXD. So, adding this as a feature to ArcGIS Online would definitely help Esri to market ArcGIS Online and Portal as a replacement for separate services, in many cases. Which would save us server resources and (hopefully?) thus also result in faster viewers.
The ability to group feature layers in ArcGIS Online would greatly improve the table of contents and overall workability of the maps in our organization.
This is a necessity in a real-world scenario, especially since Portal cannot handle services that contain many layers and need pop-ups configured (the pop-up builder crashes). Please consider this not only for AGoL, but Portal as well.
I agree with all the other users who are claiming this as a must have. I am 99% done with publishing an application but because of the amount of layers (to which there is no other sensable organization other than grouping) I cannot publish it to my users. Do we have any workaround other than utilizing another feature of ArcGIS Online such as Server? Do we have an ETA for when this might incorporated in AGO?
There's custom widgets which you can use with WebAppBuilder developer edition that may help with ideas or solutions:
The app below has a widget with a webmap switcher - to allow you to view different groups of layers with similar content:
http://appsd.daera-ni.gov.uk/RiverBasinViewer/
Similar to https://community.esri.com/docs/DOC-7037
The following has a custom Layer list widget to allow "folders" to group content :
http://maps.seai.ie/bioenergy/
Are these folders in the layer list in the web app (http://maps.seai.ie/bioenergy/ ) customized by you? That's a big improvement if the groups are not based just on being part of the same MapService. But there's not a way to turn all the layers in each folder on/off at once.
Still, a good step forward.
- John
Yup, my company is abandoning ArcGIS Online because of the lack of option to group layers. Going back to ArcGIS Desktop which is mych more intiutive and user friendly.
Abandoning web mapping to just stick with desktop-only GIS sounds like a step backwards to me.
We use both the AGO web application builder and WAB for Dev. and are equally frustrated. But what we started doing was just adding additional "instances" of the layer list widget with each instance containing a list of layers grouped by themes, like natural hazards, community facilities layers, local authorities layers, etc.
This is just a work around obviously, but Esri still needs to add this capability, because non-GIS users get really frustrated at us hackers and developers when they can't turn groups of layers on an off at once.
Don't Lose Hope!
- John
We utilize additional "instances" of the layer list widget, as well. It's not
perfect, but I have faith that ESRI will rectify this oversight.
John,
Heck yea. Great idea for managing multiple groups of layers. How interesting, that it's your EOC COP. I see you have Select. I think I'll fine tune Robert's eSearch and create a few instance of it to employ your concept here, but in how to deal with many layers for selection. Since the Esri Select is..not popular.
I like your toolbar icons. Amazing design. Esri can colorize the toolbar icons and also stop darkening them so they aren't hard to see. Make them normal opacity, and highlight the background, like a button does.
Yes we need folders too. Before we can do Pro or Portal or hosted features.
This is a great trick! You've saved me hours of aggravation. Thank you!!
It's frankly very surprising that this is not a core ability of ArcGIS Online.
Well not really suprising. ESRI is leveraging many Javascript modules and other modules they have no control over. (None of which support this). It doesnt make sense from a larger business scale to customize something you are leveraging then having to forever support it. basically... we all wait until the JS world figures it out... not ESRI. Maybe if we yell enough and loud enough, they will consider... but... so far, hasnt been enough.
Or alternatavely, write your own to your hearts content and make it work in house.
Unfortunately for me and other small or non-profit orgs, I am the only technician/analyst managing many projects and applications. I cannot write the whole thing in developer api and make it work "in house". I am the house, it would be too much for just me to maintain while building new projects. It is hard enough that with every ESRI update, I have to fix stuff that is no longer working, on projects I no longer get paid to work on. The new updates are enhancing my new projects, but boy do I wish they would allow us to simply group layers together.
And that is great that so many of you have that kind of capacity in your organizations, but we don't. I wish we did, or that WAB allowed us to enhance with code. But short of pulling the whole thing into a new program, it seems I will forever wait for a relatively simple improvement that ESRI has no real plans to introduce. What a shame.
Kate Gladstein
GIS Analyst, Sierra Water Workgroup
<mailto:kgladstein@gmail.com>
kgladstein@gmail.com
978.618.5291
Almost 3 years later and still under consideraton? Come on ESRI you can do better!
This would be extremely useful as a basic function - perhaps the most useful upgrade you could possibly make to ArcOnline.
Indeed badly needed - really reduces the functionality and usability of ArcGis Online to not have this! How is it possible that this is not implemented already?? I have been a faithful user and developer of ESRI solutions since 1990, and usually love all the ESRI-systems, BUT here I have been very disappointed ! PLEASE include it in the next release as a whole world wish it (in worst case we have to go to Hexagon or some other vendors for this ;-) ). Yes, I know we can program the Javascript API, but this should not be necessary in this case!!
Greetings from a norwegian user/developer !
This is critical to using Portal and hosted layers on ArcGIS Online to store data. Encouraging users to the Esri cloud I'd imagine would be lucrative.
Without folders (groups) of layers, we have to publish our own services, and one of the biggest reasons, is to have folders in the service, because that comes through in to the layerlist widget. So layers can be organized by groups. This is because webmaps do not support groups and grouping of layers. We need groups / subgroups, for most viewers. A followup to this is, having a partial checkbox to indicate only some layers in a group are turned on. I leave all the top-level groups on, so users have to click a layer only once, and see it turn on and display. That is a workaround because currently both the group parent and the layer itself (sublayer) have to be turned on in order to display. Though Esri ArcGIS Earth gets this exactly right as I have posted in screenshots above. Users have found this not intuitive or discoverable. Overall I love the direction ArcGIS Online and Web App Builder are going. Adding Groups to webmaps and finetuning its interface in the layerlist, along with moveable popups, is our top request.
Such a needed feature
I remember back in the days of ArcIMS 3. & 4.x and a JavaScript example someone built that would allow you to group/place layers into a folder; similar to the way we can within Desktop 10.x. Long time ago... Lol!
Mike, I remember those days with ArcIMS (which actually is not that long time ago though) and use of JavaScript for allowing group/place layers into a folder too well :-( ! I never thought those days would come back again in the ESRI web-world.. Hopefully ESRI will come to our rescue on this serious lack in the software soon, or else we have to go back to JavaScript once again ;-( ... Fortunately a lot of nice ting has entered the ArcGIS Online and Portal I have to also say !
There is a way of inelegantly getting around this- using multiple layerlist widgets. However, there are times when you'd want groups, in a single layer list. Grouping layers would seem an essential part of layer management and with hosted layers for example, from which Esri can make money on credits, but hosted layers and apps are not useful without Groups for advanced viewers with multiple layers - With any viewer with more than a handful of layers, Groups become important to organize. While task-based simple viewers with a few layers are an important part of an enterprise GIS portfolio, there is also need for advanced viewers with a dozen or perhaps dozens of layers, in a layer list. Therefore Grouping is important, at the webmap level. Grouping in an MXD works for local services, but often times we have viewers that also have multiple external layers. Moreover, while local layers from an MXD can be grouped by using ArcMap, hosted layers can't be grouped. Allowing Groups would be a selling point for ArcGIS Online and Hosted Layers and Apps. Esri Team - any timeline toward considering this? I know one of our other requested features.. moving popups, are coming (yay!) this year. And so I hope this Idea for Groups is also moving along, from Consideration to Planned? Any Team Esri folks have news on plans for Grouping?
I'm truly shocked that this isn't built in and working as things are right now.
Even Google Maps gives this users this option when creating their own maps?!
Any updates on when this functionality might be added to the AGOL web map? Like others, my use case is a Utilities map. I'd like to group layers by system - Storm, Sanitary, Non Potable, Potable, etc. It would improve user experience for my field staff accessing maps with Collector and Explorer. Thank you!
Under Consideration and not In Product Plan is my question. If it's coming, like moving popups on AGOL, that would set me at ease. Team E, is it really not a concrete AGOL product plan?
Ditto everything Kalen said! I cringe explaining to field crews, "if you want to see the sewer layers, click these 8 check boxes...", and then inevitably the field crew asks, "can't we have just one box for each utility?".
If you've played around with layers in a web map you may have noticed that ArcGIS Server based layers get positioned differently then layers based in ArcGIS Online. When Esri tackles this, I hope that we can group layers together irrespective of their server origins.
Peter Schoenfield GISP | GIS Analyst
GIS Division | Department of Information Technology
18 N County St | Waukegan, IL 60085 | USA
847-377-2018 | pschoenfield@lakecountyil.gov<mailto:pschoenfield@lakecountyil.gov>
Peter Schoenfield Indeed - it has been noticed. That is a need to have fix; allow re-ordering layers. It is limiting the use of Esri software by people truly in the field. For example we have a emergency management viewer with some layers from state and feds, some of ours, and the layer order is all hodge-podge. I have done the best I can, with using multiple layer lists, using MXDs to group our own services, etc. But we need groups, and ability to re-order any and all layers, including externally hosted layers. And if I'm doing it wrong or there's a way to do it, I'm sure we'd all love to know, if anyone can share!
What would be even better would be ability to let users re-order and group inside the WAB layerlist. (as an option programmers could enable/disable) That would be a far lower priority, yes, but that would also be nice. Dashboards with one or two layers are great, but we also need the swiss army knife viewers with many layers. Also, along with Groups, I hope they add re-ordering, partial checkbox, and turning on in one click (even if parent is off).
It may set many of us at ease to see its status upgraded to In Product Plan, if it is in the pipeline. For example, we know moving popups are coming. I'm looking forward to them and I am feeling good they'll hit a home run on that! Esri has been great at communicating on this feature. Hopefully these improvements are in the pipline for the web map and WAB Layer List.
Absolutely a must! Is this going to be possible soon? Would be tremendously helpful for us at the Department of Water Supply in Maui. We have dozens of infrastructure layers that would be better organized if grouped into relevant categories. Otherwise, it becomes too cluttered and hard to keep track of layers (especially for non-GIS users who only need to look at maps every now and then).
If you dig back through the comments on this idea, you'll get some answers to some of these questions, though you may not like what you read.
To sum it up, this feature will be implemented once Esri finishes migrating the AGOL Map Viewer from the 3.X JSAPI to the 4.X JSAPI. This is a huge project, which I assume also includes updating all of their apps that depend on the map viewer. Mike's unofficial guesstimate on a timeline was mid-to-late 2018, but his post was seven months ago. It's still only early 2018 but Esri's silence on the progress of this project doesn't look like a good sign to me.
They seem to have taken a hard stance that they aren't going to implement this feature in the current version of AGOL Map Viewer. I understand that what seems like a simple feature is actually quite complex under the surface. But considering the magnitude of their project and the time it is taking, I think their stance is ridiculous. A company as big as Esri should be able to absorb the costs of creating an interim solution for a basic feature that EVERYBODY. WANTS.
Adding the functionality to group layers is a priority item in ArcGIS Online.
In order to support this feature, Map Viewer will need to be upgraded to use the JavaScript 4.X API, where this functionality is currently available. Re-designing Map Viewer is a high priority with the ArcGIS Online team. Currently this project is tentatively targeted to be completed later in 2018/early 2019 but may change as we work through the project.
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
Katie,
The Army Corps of Engineers is transitioning our external webpages (DMZ) to AGOL. The transition is slated for next month.
The in-ability to group layers is a huge impediment (show stopper) for some of our external web pages.
The deadline needs to be moved up not slipped. USACE has an ELA with ESRI and we provide you with a non-trivial amount of business.
This change request has been number one for a really long time. ESRI needs to expedite this issue.
Jamie Richardson, GISP
GIS Coordinator
USACE, Honolulu District
Katie Cullen - thank you! That's exactly what we were looking for, was just knowing it was coming, and a very 'approximate' ballpark timeline. Thanks - I see it is now "In Plan"!
Jamie Richardson agree.
Well it only took 4 (maybe 5) years for this basic idea to be "In plan" but I am glad to see that this function will be added soon.
I total agree, I miss this function!
We would like this functionality added to ArcGIS Server. We do not use AGOL.
This functionality does exist in ArcGIS Server. Publish a grouped layer map service and then reference that map service in AGOL via REST end point
Thanks for the input Brett. After your statement, I revisited the issue and found that our problem was not with server publishing the group layers but with how our custom website was consuming them. We are good to go now.
I see that the web scene specification supports group layers. When will the web map specification do so? Ah, I just looked at the earlier discussion and see the JavaScript API issue.
This is a sticking point for some in that Geocoretex can do it, and for maps with many multiple layers / sublayers it gives us a much cleaner solution.
Geocortex essentials?
How exactly does that work? Is Geocortex combining multiple services to create one, which is then added as one layer in Web Maps?
No, it’s just in the way it displays data. You feed it the services / data, and specify parent groups. On the display side it (ie browser javascript level) it adds a parent menu item. There’s no changes to services etc happening here.
Simon Webster
Senior Strategy Officer, Hazard Mapping and Mitigation
Community Resilience and Risk Mitigation
I am working with a client who has to move from Geocortex to Portal. Very frustrating how difficult it has been to reproduce some of the grouping she is accustomed to.
Not difficult, impossible.
Geocortex also puts a transparency slider next to each group which controls transparency / opacity for all layers in a group. Simple feature but really useful.
Hi Pete!
I though I've seen this capability in WAB already? Or maybe you are fereing to something different? Please see my screenshot attached.
Pete is referring to soemthign different. The transparency slider in geocoretex is immediately to the right of the layer name and not buried in a sub menu
Yeah, it isn't much more work in WAB (though obviously doesn't support groups!). WAB can be great, particularly for turning a web map in to something a bit more friendly for end users.
This is a critical feature enhancement. I'm involved in a project providing access to over 1500 layers of parcel data, and performance takes a huge hit with all parcel layers grouped together. By organizing them into groups by State, performance is greatly enhanced.
This should be at the very top of the list for AGOL enhancements.
Agree with you Chuck. Or for example, if you needed to merge in layers from other sources and servers. Only way to make sense of them now, is by grouping layers in ArcMap MXD in to a service. The lack of layer Grouping single-handedly prevents me from considering hosting any layers on Esri AGOL. (credits = $$! I am thinking of Futurama's Fry Shut Up and Take My Money meme ) Because if I could group, then I could host layers and mix and match in different webmaps for different viewers. Host once, use everywhere. But each viewer may have different ways to organize and group the layers, which is why we need Groups. And reordering (sometimes they won't reorder, if anyone's seen that) Icing on the cake, would be even letting users reoder and group layers by themselves, in the WAB layerlist. (as perhaps an option we could disable)
Lack of grouping is the major sticking point for using hosted layers or feature layers, but from my perspective there is another issue that is nearly as bad: labeling. Labeling in AGOL is way too simplistic. It needs to be closer to Maplex in functionality. This is off topic here, but I just wanted to mention that for me, it's these two issues together that makes hosted layers or feature layers unusable.
This is a serious problem when creating maps that serves as information portals in our projects. Please add this feature to a release soon.
Any update on the timeline for this feature? We are just getting started with AGOL, and without this feature it is unrealistic to use this platform for our more substantial projects.
And maybe an option to freeze some groups of layers (so the public cannot switch them on and off) while others can be operated by the public.
Marije,
What I do to not "freeze" a layer on is within a web app. In the layers
widget, you can just not show that layer and in your web map save it when
the layer is turned on.
David Alger, PE
Planning & Technology Engineer
UDOT Region One
166 W Southwell
Ogden, UT 84404
Monday - Thursday 6 AM - 4:30 PM
801-620-1654 (Office)
yes, you are right. but we do need a grouping option asap :-)
Money is being left on the table every month there is no Group layers and allowing re-ordering of all layers. So we can combine multiple data sources into a webmap. We can not host data on AGOL or use credits until this is implemented. When it is added we may migrate some things to AGOL.
I have been asked to reorganize raster data in a portal web map. After trying several different ways of organizing services, including the awkward method of publishing a map service comprised of image services, I am about to send a message saying it cannot be done in a practical way.
I hate saying no to requests that are reasonable (or should be).
It is hard to explain why I can't just organize the data the way we organize everything else.
This is very basic stuff.
Adding my voice to the crowd of posters above. My User Story is that I have been tasked to create a web app for internal and public use that contains several dozen data layers. The layers relate to a number of different categories (eg. health, housing, leisure etc). The users of this app will be non-GIS people, and I have been asked to group the layers by category in order to make it easy to find the desired information. Currently I have used the workaround suggested upthread, using multiple instances of the Layer List widget, but this is not entirely satisfactory, especially as the icons are so small. We don't a have a developer in the organisation - I am the sole GIS operator and as such, my time is pressed, so finding time to learn to develop apps 'from scratch' to do things like make icons larger to enhance what is already a 'meh' workaround isn't an option right now - I need out-of-the-box configurable solutions.
Right on all. Was this discussed at UC?
For now I create multiple MXDs, and configure the WAB layer list, to exclude literally everything but the layers I want, for each and every instance of a LayerList widget. (I use LaunchPad to have multiple layer lists) All of this is to re-create what would be simple if ArcGIS Online had layer grouping. And sometimes it's not just possible at all. External servers at present sometimes won't let you move layers up or down in the web map table of contents but that should be rectified along with grouping.
Here's an example of a common layer grouping scenario: I grouped layers by ESF (emergency support function) for our Emergency Operations viewer.
However there is still a problem: Because each ESF was its own MXD to accomplish a 'group' it still a sub-group in the layer list. I have to tell end users the ESF layers are in a folder. Which has its own set of problems because remember, there are still no partial checkboxes! And layers do not turn on unless the parent group is on. Which is why I turn on the parent group, and turn off the sub-layers. So users have to only click one to turn a sublayer on. But that makes the parent have a checkbox, telling the user they don't need to expand the parent group. Very non-intuitive. I'm probably going to modify the widget CSS at some point for partial checkbox. But this problem only exists, because there is no grouping in ArcGIS Online. If there was grouping, the ESFs wouldn't have to be in a sub-group ie ESF 12 or ESF 1 or Common Layers. They'd just be in the layer list. At top level. And be able to click on or off. One click. No need to explain groups, and Esri's checkbox issue and sublayer/parent layer issue to end users (I've been doing that for about a decade).
This is the single biggest thing Esri could do for me and our local end users at this point. Literally I have to spend 10 minutes explaining the layer list when I train any audience. General public on up to engineers. Partial checkbox, ability to turn sublayers on in one click (force visibility, at least optionally and leave up to us), and most of all - Groups in web maps. Will we see this in 2018?
Andrea, it would be neat to make icons and controls bigger universally yes. Robert has a nice thread on the Anchor. But I had some issues and elected to have users browser zoom the app. And if you save the pngs larger, they will look good when you zoom. So, users have kind of literally abandoned using browser menus at all. Like Plus/Minus zoom, back/forward, etc. I think it is due to Chrome shoving the whole menu bar in to a cryptic '...' right under the close button. (a Google UI special) So I put the browser zoom in to the site Help manual.
I talked with Katie Cullen at the UC and she said group layers are coming 2019.
This has been promised before and not delivered. We can believe it when we see it.
Thanks for asking though
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This is true. I asked the ESRI Reps about grouping feature layers at the 2017 UC and was told this would be done by the next UC 2018. Well that's now come and gone. This post has been hanging around since 2014 and has to be one of the most upvoted posts here, yet many of the ESRI Reps don't even know what I'm talking about when the subject is brought up, and when I explain it to them they never really grasp the importance or why anyone would need this so badly, quite frustrating.
This subject was brought up again at this years' UC in one of the What's new in Feature Services meetings and was again told it's the map viewer support for JS API 4.1 that's the issue, and the upgrade from 3.1 to 4.1 will happen this year. ArcScene viewer currently supports JS 4.1 and grouping of features, but publishing all content to ArcScene has it's own drawbacks, mainly the lack of support for most common widgets. Like you said, I'll believe it when I see it - it's been over 4 years now and counting. I just hope somebody at ESRI understands why this important, because it sure doesn't seem that way.
I talked with Derek Law at the 2017 UC and was promised it would be released by the 2018 UC. So yeah, believe it when you see it. In the meanwhile, we can't move forward with critical workflows.
ESRI - can you provide clarification on progress and anticipated delivery date? The value of using feature services and publishing from Pro is greatly reduced for many users due to this issue. While the benefits of using map services may not be as great as feature services, at least the content in map services can be organized in a way that's at least usable.
We're dying for this as well....
note --- this feature must be able to group sub-layers. For example, combining sub-layers from one service and a second service, in to a new 'group'. A related issue to resolve is ArcGIS adds sub-layers as a feature layer. It needs to be able to add them as a map image layer aka dynamic layer. I understand it may need some refactoring. However dynamic layers will be the workhouse for some time so dynamic sublayers are crucial for Layer Grouping in AGOL.
Hi all,
I wonder if someone has any news regarding this. Is there any beta/test app or widget to look at?
Regards,
Sebastián
This seems to be basic GIS functionality to me, I am totally surprised AGOL does not support this.
Sorely needed, at least in e.g. the 'web app builder' widgets!!
Yes, why not implement it through Javascript/etc. for a New Group layer widget (before we get the real thing ;-) ) ? Individual peoples har managed to develop this before .. Why not share it in a easy way (without needing the Developer edition)? Hopefully this would support both feature layers and image layers (ArcGIS Enterprise just give you the "Map Image" layers for making Group layers but no Feature layer grouping. ArcGIS lacs Map Image layer service when Publishing and has no group layer on this type of layer as we know). I hope ESRI is working hard on such initiatives while we are waiting for the real Group layers (in JS 4.1 like for the Map Scene services?).
I hurts every day to explain the users why the map TOC is so long and confusing!
It says at the top that this idea is In Product Plan, but not here, yet.
Here's the GeoNet Customer Advocacy team:
Customer Advocacy: Who’s who and what do we do?
Maybe the ArcGIS advocate, Katie Cullen, can tell us where this is at.
There's an ArcGIS Pro Roadmap, here: https://go.esri.com/ProRoadMap
Is there an ArcGIS Roadmap somewhere that tells us what's coming up and where this idea is at?
For some BIZARRE reason, every time I type ArcGIS "" in the previous comment, when I post the comment, the word "" is removed from my post so that it doesn't make sense.
Ok, just to make this new point clear, every time I use the word "O N L I N E" in a comment, GeoNet deletes it from the final post. Any ideas on this?
I'm losing faith in the value of this forum when ESRI provides no input. One way or the other, some response would be appreciated. I would think ESRI would be all over this much needed improvement and letting people know what the plan is.
ESRI really does pay attention to GeoNet. I created the Idea for Catalog functionality in Pro and ESRI has done a lot of work on that. This idea has more that twice as many points and the catalog idea. I'm thinking there must be a major technological hurdle holding this back.
ESRI did address this at the UC and said that they will include this ability in late 2018/early 2019 when they change to the 4x JSAPI. Apparently it does require a major re-build on the back end to include this functionality (somehow).
Brace for impact!
becarefulwhatyouaskfor
suddenmajorchange