idea Save Instance Widget in ArcGIS Experience Builder Ideas

Save Instance Widget

SvenJensen — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:18:32 GMT

Edit:

While I am still actively developing the free, open-source Save Instance Widget.

I have been focusing on developing the The Cloud Widget — a complete redesign that takes the concept much further.

The Cloud Widget is designed to transform everyday workflows in ArcGIS Experience Builder, making it easier than ever for users to save, recall, and collaborate within the maps you build.

It allows users to:

Save their work as Droplets (map states that include extent, layers, drawings, basemap, and more).
Recall work instantly with map screenshots for easy identification.
Share Droplets with colleagues for real-time collaboration.
Access saved work anytime, anywhere.
Take advantage of Draw Widget support for richer map editing.

I’ve been working hard to make this the most intuitive and productive save-and-share widget for Experience Builder. If you tried the Save Instance Widget and found it useful, I think you’ll really enjoy what the Cloud Widget can do.

👉Visit my website JensenGIS or this community post to learn more about The Cloud Widget!

I would also like to specifically thank the following individuals for their feedback:
@Brian_McLeer , @JoelEdgar , @AustinWolf1994 , @JasonBOCQUET , @MarkHoyland2 , @BrettMartin1 , @PierreloupDucroix , @Marshal and @Bloomers3166 .

Thank you!
Sven

About the Save Instance Widget (Legacy)

For anyone still interested in the Save Instance Widget, here’s some background and resources:

Hello everyone, my name is Sven. I’m a university student based in Vancouver, BC, currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science with a minor in Geographic Information Science (GIS).

Inspired by the Save Session Widget for Web AppBuilder, I created the Save Instance Widget for Experience Builder.

The Save Instance Widget lets you save and share the current state of your web map in Experience Builder — including extent, visible layers, basemap, graphics, and more. It was designed as an open-source alternative to help fill the gap left by Web AppBuilder.

Installation (Legacy)

You can download the latest compiled version of the Save Instance Widget from my Github.

Setup (Legacy)

Once downloaded, follow Esri’s guide on how to add custom widgets to your Experience Builder installation.

Place the widget inside your /widgets directory.
In Experience Builder, go to the Insert Widget tab and scroll down to the Custom Widgets section.
Drag the Save Instance Widget onto your toolbar.
Configure the widget by selecting a map for it to interact with.

That’s it — you’re ready to go.

Usage (Legacy)

Save an Instance

Enter a name for the instance and click the Save Instance button.

Load an Instance

Click the Load Instance button to apply a previously saved map state.

Rename an Instance

Click the Edit Instance Name button and enter a new name when prompted.

Download an Instance

Click Download Instance to export a .txt file containing that instance.

You can also download all saved instances using the Download Instances button at the bottom right of the widget.

Clear Instance Graphics

Click Clear Instance Graphics to remove any graphics associated with the instance from the map.

I'd love to get instance-loaded graphics working with the Esri Draw Widget at some point. It’ll take a bit of setup, but if it’s something people are asking for, I’m happy to start looking into it — just let me know!

Delete an Instance

Click Delete Instance to permanently remove it from your saved list.

Sharing Instances

To share a saved instance, simply send the .txt file to another user. They can import it using the Upload Instances button in the bottom-left corner of the widget.

In the future, I’d love to add support for cloud storage of instances — let me know if that’s something you’d use!

Feedback
I’m incredibly grateful for all the feedback, bug reports, and feature requests that came in while I was building the Save Instance Widget. That community input has been the driving force behind The Cloud Widget, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it as well.
Stay tuned — more tools are coming soon!

Re: Save Instance Widget

JeffreyThompson2 — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:48:02 GMT

Looks neat. For the record, this board isn't really the place to post this. The Ideas Boards are designed to request new features from the ESRI build team. We would love for you to come join us in the Custom Widgets Group, which is all about sharing custom widgets and helping each other build them.

Re: Save Instance Widget

JoelEdgar — Fri, 02 May 2025 17:58:01 GMT

Hi Sven,

This widget is very helpful! In testing with our own ExB apps we notice that it does not hold the last state value for for sub groups within the map layer list. For example, it will remember the external group is checked in this case Utilities, but when reloading the instance to the map it will not remember cell tower, gas pipelines, or easements are check and will revert to the apps default state for sub layers. Could the widget be modified to accommodate subgroups?

Re: Save Instance Widget

SvenJensen — Fri, 02 May 2025 19:16:18 GMT

Hi @JoelEdgar ,

Thank you for checking out the widget I am glad you like it!

The Widget should be configure to save the state of sublayers within group layers. This widget was developed in Experience Builder Developer edition 1.17.0

Here is a video of the sublayers working on my localhost experience builder developer edition 1.17.0:

1. Are you running the widget in ArcGIS Enterprise? If so what version?
2. What version of Experience Builder are you using? (The Map Layers UI looks different then in mine)
- I can download your version of ExB and test it again.
3. Are there any error logs if you open up the console (inspect element -> console)?

Feel free to send me an email through the form on my website anytime.
Thank you!

Re: Save Instance Widget

MarkHoyland2 — Tue, 06 May 2025 01:13:40 GMT

This looks great.
When you save an instance where does it get saved? Are the saved instance seen by other users?
Can 'Viewer' users use this to save an instance?

Re: Save Instance Widget

SvenJensen — Tue, 06 May 2025 05:38:18 GMT

Hi @MarkHoyland2,

Thanks for your question!

Currently, saved instances are stored in the user’s browser local storage. This means that instances are only accessible on the same device and browser where they were created. If a user clears their browser data, their saved instances will also be cleared.

Yes, users with the 'Viewer' role can use the widget to save, download, and share their own instances. Downloads are saved as .txt files, which can be shared and re-uploaded.

I'm also exploring the development of a hosted version of the Save Instance Widget. This would allow users to store instances in the cloud, making them accessible across devices and browsers. It would also support sharing via short links instead of file downloads. This version would be compatible with 'Viewer' users as well, since it would include its own sign-in system within the widget.

If a hosted version sounds useful to you, feel free to leave a comment or share your thoughts — I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas.

Thanks again for your interest and support!

— Sven

Re: Save Instance Widget

SvenJensen — Tue, 06 May 2025 05:41:33 GMT

Hi @JeffreyThompson2,

Thank you for the heads-up — I wasn’t aware of the Custom Widgets Group, but I’ve had a look and there are some great projects and discussions there! I’ll be sure to share all future custom widgets within that group moving forward.

Appreciate the guidance!

Cheers,
Sven

Re: Save Instance Widget

BrettMartin1 — Thu, 08 May 2025 16:44:21 GMT

@SvenJensen this is super cool. We are at ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1 and I was able to get the custom widget added to EXB, but when I pointed it to the map I get this below.

Re: Save Instance Widget

SvenJensen — Thu, 08 May 2025 23:11:36 GMT

@BrettMartin1, thanks for the feedback!

The Save Instance Widget was developed using Experience Builder Developer Edition v1.17.

If you're not planning to update your Enterprise environment in the near future, I’d be happy to work on a version compatible with ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1. Which uses Experience Builder Dev Edition v1.10
according to the Esri release version guide.

Just let me know if that would be helpful!

Thanks again,
Sven

Re: Save Instance Widget

BrettMartin1 — Fri, 09 May 2025 08:22:19 GMT

@SvenJensen , we are moving to 11.4 in the next few months. I will keep you posted. Thanks for your help!

Re: Save Instance Widget

SvenJensen — Sat, 17 May 2025 23:52:30 GMT

Hello everyone,

During the past two weeks I have been working with @JoelEdgar and a member of his team Kevin Satterberg to debug the group subLayers bug within the Save Instance Widget.

Kevin was a great help in finding the root cause of this bug, It ended up being the widget not supporting Map Services serving MapImageLayers. Due to the hierarchical structure of the MapImageLayers, subLayers and their IDs, many sublayers have the same ID value. So I rewrote the Save Instance Widget's logic when saving and loading Layers. The widget now utilizes recursive algorithms to navigate the hierarchy of layers.

If you are using the Save Instance Widget, I would recommend downloading the updated Save Instance Widget v1.0.5 from JensenGIS.com.

Thanks!
Sven

Re: Save Instance Widget

AustinWolf1994 — Thu, 22 May 2025 16:34:43 GMT

This is a really great widget. Awesome work, Sven! The only thing I think would be really useful with this widget is to overwrite Instances that already exist. For instance, if I open my instance (Austin's Instance) and move to a different spot or toggle the visibility of a few different layers, I would want to save my Instance with this widget without having to first delete and then save.

Re: Save Instance Widget

SvenJensen — Fri, 23 May 2025 18:52:27 GMT

Hi @AustinWolf1994,

Thanks! I'm glad you like the widget.

Overwriting already saved instances is a great idea. I will implement this feature for the next release.
Thank you for your feedback!

Cheers,

Sven

Re: Save Instance Widget

Brian_McLeer — Fri, 30 May 2025 17:24:10 GMT

This is a great widget, thank you for releasing it!

Re: Save Instance Widget

Brian_McLeer — Fri, 30 May 2025 17:53:47 GMT

Some feedback I would suggest is changing the dialogue boxes like this:

To be something within the widget. This widget offers a function like this when the user clicks delete.

Some feedback I had with working @JeffreyThompson2 on the widget above was adding a user acknowledgment of local storage which the widget above has as well before automatically using local storage. Also a reminder for users that local storage is not a good solution for long term storage.

Re: Save Instance Widget

Brian_McLeer — Fri, 30 May 2025 19:40:42 GMT

Other feedback request:

In the settings in developer edition, enable the option to have the clear instance graphics button be hidden or shown within the widget. If the application doesn't have the out of the box Draw tool, the button doesn't have anything to correlate with.

Re: Save Instance Widget

Brian_McLeer — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 19:14:49 GMT

Enhancement Request: Instances look to be transferrable to any application, not one particular application. I implemented the widget in two testing sites with different URLs, and the saved instance of 1 can be viewed in the other. The request is for saved instances to be unique per application (URL).

Re: Save Instance Widget

SvenJensen — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 19:37:43 GMT

@Brian_McLeer,

Thank you for all this amazing feedback and creating GitHub issues! Your Custom Draw Widget enhancements are an inspiration, very cool.

I am excited to begin implementing your requested enhancements this week! I have been working on an hosted version of the widget and would love to hear your feedback on the idea. The hosted widget stores the user's saved instances on a secure web server, users can access instances from any device/browser and share instances simply by inputting another user's email. I would love to get this hosted version working with the Custom Draw Widget so users can seamlessly update and share graphics in realtime.

However as of right now the Save Instance Hosted is on pause as I will resolve the GitHub issues first.

Cheers!
Sven

Re: Save Instance Widget

Brian_McLeer — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 19:58:45 GMT

Thank you @SvenJensen for putting the time into this widget, I think many organizations will benefit from it! I like the idea of the Save Instance Hosted version.

Re: Save Instance Widget

PierreloupDucroix — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 03:29:49 GMT

Hello @SvenJensen this looks great !

I am using ExB Dev Edition 1.17, I placed your widget in the client\dist-prod\widgets folder but cannot see it in the widget list. I also tried to place it in the \client\your-extensions\widgets folder and run npm run build:prod (but I don't think it is necessary since it is already built) with the same result.

Is it working in ExB developer edition ? Or only in the portal ExB version.

[EDIT] I found that a custom widget should be placed in the client\dist\widget (and not dist-prod) folder after it has been built. Then you have to modify the widgets-info.json file to add information and manifest about it.

Now it is working in the dev edition. And I wonder if you have plan to add translation.

Anyway, great job !