topic Re: roadmap in ArcGIS Experience Builder Questions

roadmap

JérômeCollet — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 16:11:37 GMT

Hello,

Would it be possible to share the roadmap of Experience builder so that we can have an overview of what's coming on and when?

Thank you in advance for your answer.

Regards,

Jérôme

Re: roadmap

DavidMartinez — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 00:08:43 GMT

Hi Jerome,

Thanks for the inquiry about Experience Builder and the roadmap. I adding our product manager to this discussion Jianxia Song.

Cheers,

David

Re: roadmap

Jianxia — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 00:31:14 GMT

Jerome,

We are working on the road map for the next release. What features you'd like to see in the near future? Thanks,

Re: roadmap

Anonymous User — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 13:44:48 GMT

I'd like to know what widgets are going to be included in the next release. I'd be interested in hearing if there currently is, or will be in the future, capability of gathering data from the website used in the URL widget for use in other widgets in ExB. For example, since WAB currently has a lot of widgets, I am using the URL widget in ExB to show an app I created with WAB. But I want to be able to query information in there and display/add to a text box or survey in ExB. Speaking of surveys...I really need the capability of autopopulating a survey with data from multiple fields from multiple layers (and from my web app I'm embedding). Currently all you can add is one field from one layer.

Thanks! ExB is pretty cool, and I'm excited to see it grow!

Re: roadmap

JérômeCollet — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 17:19:01 GMT

Dear Jianxia Song,

Thank you for your answer. Here are some of the main new feature or conversion of widget existing in WAB that would drastically improve our usage of ExB. Most of the new features below have been requested for a long time by WAB users and I guess WAB Widget I have listed below are probably the one which are the most used.

New Features:

Give end user the ability to change symbology and Labels of any Layers loaded in a webmap (like in the portal map viewer)
Give end user the ability to load or remove a layer from any webmap loaded in the map viewer of a ExB app (improvement of "add data" widget of WAB)
Give end user the ability to group layer in the layer list (like in the scene viewer of Portal)
Give end user the ability to load or save a webmap directly from a webapp
Give end user the ability to choose the scale of the webmap by entering the number (eg: 1:50000) without loosing the basemap (needs a "On the Fly" reprojection as in ArcGIS Pro I guess)

Translation/rewriting of WAB Widget

Select widget with ability to save the selection as an hosted feature layer (and not a feature collection or Geojson that is not common for users) and export it as a shapefile or KML
Editor and Smart Editor Widget (a merge a both widget functionnalities in a single widget would be great)
GeoProcessing Widget (to be able to use any geoprocessing tool in a widget)
Drawing widget (with the ability for user to save any drawing as an hosted feature layer)
Analysis widget (the same as in WAB)
Attribute table widget

Thanks a lot in advanced for your feedback and @ your disposal for any questions and/or precisions.

Regards,

Jérôme

Re: roadmap

JérômeCollet — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 16:12:58 GMT

Jianxia Song,

In addition to my previous message, we did develop (or are currently developping) some custom widget in WebAppbuilder (list below) that could be usefull for many user to have at least in Experience Builder. If we do provide the code, could you propose to translate that into an Experience Builder Widget that could be propose as standard widget in the product?

List of new widget or widget extension developped

Save Webmap (new widget)
Load/Change Webmap (new widget)
Modify Symbology & Labels (Layer List Widget extension)
Custom/Modify Pop-up Window (Layer List Widget extension)
Export drawing as an hosted feature Layer (drawing widget extension)

Thank you in advance for your collaboration

Regards,

Jérôme

Re: roadmap

Jianxia — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 23:03:53 GMT

Jerome and Annina,

Thank you so much for your feedback. One big item in the near road map is to integrate Experience Builder (ExB) in ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8.1 planned to be available in July. In addition, to build a robust foundation for the future, we put efforts on the product improvement for the upcoming July release, including ability to copy, paste, and rotate the widget, performance optimization, UI and UX improvement, support for more data type, support for attachments and feature layer symbol in the Image widget, display Arcade and related table in the Feature Info widget, as well as new Bookmark widget, etc. Please noted that the plan is subject to change.

Your suggestions and feedback are valuable. I will reply to your comments separately.

Thanks,

Jianxia

Re: roadmap

Jianxia — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 23:45:02 GMT

Annina,

Thanks for your feedback. From my understanding, you use the Embed widget by passing the app URL to display the app in ExB. Further, you want apps to talk to each other so the embedded app can pass information to other widgets in ExB. This workflow makes sense and an enhancement has been submitted. May I ask you what type of the app is embedded in your case?

For the Survey widget, could you help articulate your use case to automatically populate a survey with fields that are from different layers? Currently we can populate a survey with multiple fields from one layer on the map.

Thanks,

Jianxia

Re: roadmap

Jianxia — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:33:47 GMT

Jerome,

Glad to see these custom widgets addressing popular requests for Web AppBuilder.

Th good news is as ExB is built on JSAPI 4.x which supports saving ( or save as) web map, so it should be a function on the map widget other than a brand new widget. I will add this request to the map widget.
Since changing webmap may break widgets dependent on the layer in the map, could you provide a user case?
As far as modifying symbol and labels, we don't plan to support it n ExB. Could you provide a use case?
The Feature Info widget is designed to display the pop up nicely on the side. Could you provide a use case to modify the pop up?
Could you please provide a user case to export drawing as a hosted feature layer? I think it should be one of the exporting methods.

Thanks,

Jianxia

Re: roadmap

Jianxia — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 03:03:07 GMT

Jerome,

Thanks for the clarification and thoughtful proposals. Regarding new features, #1 is not under the consideration as it is recommended to do so in Map Viewer. You may create a custom widget. #2 you may add or remove a layer on the fly like what the Add Data widget does in WAB, then save the added layers with the web map out as a new web map. It is unlikely to allow you to remove the layers from the existing map. #3 is on the road map once JSAPI 4 and new Map Viewer start to support it. #4 Saving map is doable but loading a new map will break the widgets dependent on map layers as stated in one of the comments above. #5 need to have further evaluation.

Regarding migration of WAB OOTB widgets to ExB, #1 is a common workflow which should be doable. #2 is under our consideration of consolidating functions in one widget. #3 Could you help articulate it with a user case? #4 is similar to #1. #5- Analysis widget is not part of JSAPI 4 yet, once available, we plan to wrap it in ExB. #6 JSAPI 4 may have the feature table ready around UC. We will wrap it in ExB once available.

Hope this helps,

Jianxia

Re: roadmap

JérômeCollet — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 09:12:15 GMT

Jianxia Song‌,

Thanks a lot for your answer and taking these request into consideration. Here are some precision/use case regarding these request. The general idea is that we do built webapp for our business team and would them to be able to work and do (almost) every thing without moving from the webapp like a GIS Professionnal would do with ArcGIS Pro. For example if the user of the webapp want to modify the way a layer is displayed in the webapp (symbology, label, field in the pop-up etc...) and save this configuration in a webmap, he is currently obliged to switch to the mapviewer, do this modification and come back to the webapp and use the "load/change" which is clearly not an ergonomic experience. The idea is to give user the ability to do everything from the webapp (or tomorrow within ExB app).

Agree with you. It is more a function of the map widget rather than a "stand alone widget"
As explained above, if a user can save a webmap inside ExB but is not able to reload it later, "Save webmap function risk to be "useless". Of course I agree with you concerning the widget dependency. We should be able to configure widget without being linked to a specific webmap or content
As explained above, the idea is to do everything without moving from the webapp. Adding layers, changing symbology and labels of these layers and save the work as a webmap is an example of workflow we would like to be able to do without needing the portal map viewer
Same as previous point. If someone want to configure the pop window of any layer, he is obliged to do it through mapviewer and can't do it directly from the webapp
Again the idea is to be able to create content (such as hosted feature layer) without having to it through the portal. For example, drawing something and save the draw as an hosted feature layer or select feature from an existing layer and export that as an hosted feature layer or shapefile or simply create an empty feature layer and add it to the current map

Hope my explanations/descriptions of our use cases are clear. Feel free to let me know if you have other question. We could also organize a call if needed.

Regards,

Jérôme

Re: roadmap

Anonymous User — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 11:33:23 GMT

Jianxia,

For your first question, I've created an app using Web AppBuilder with the Jewelry Box Theme, mainly as a test to see what we're able to do OOTB. I'm pretty sure there is functionality to do most of what we want, but it is limited and requires the use of multiple widgets.

As for your second question, and as a follow up to the first, I think it would be a good idea to explain what we are trying to do, so it may be easier to understand.

We currently have a website where the public can go to find out information about floodplains and then submit a request for a permit application. They go to a map, click on a location, and gather lots of information like: flood zone, base flood elevation, floodplain manager, etc. This is printed on the screen in real time, but there is also the capability to export a report for printing (including a map). Then, from the same screen, the user can press a button to begin the application process by entering personal information to submit to our Agency. We'd like to update this website, and since we have access to Esri products, we'd like to utilize them! We've talked with our Esri Reps who suggested we try out ExB. The interface is exactly what we want, but the functionality isn't there. We'd like to have the user do exactly what they've been doing--just click once on the map. We'd like the information to appear on the screen in a bar (which I've gotten to work using the text widget); the information though is from multiple layers that the point intersects, most of which are polygon layers, but also pull the nearest base flood elevation from a point layer. Then, take all the information from these multiple layers and pass it to Survey123 so the user doesn't have to manually enter any floodplain data (all they'd have to enter is contact information). However, currently, the Survey123 widget in ExB only accepts information from one layer.

Does that help?

I've put using ExB on the back burner and am researching other options, such as using the JavaScript API to customize things, because it seems (currently) like that's the only way. Any insights would be appreciated!

Thank you!

Annina

Re: roadmap

Anonymous User — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 13:13:40 GMT

I'd love to see the ability to use custom fonts in the ArcGIS online-version of ExB. Ideally it would be great to have full control over all theme variables including fonts in the builder, like in the developer edition.

This would allow us to build apps that integrate better with existing websites, and to build stand-alone apps using customer-specific themes and branding.

Regards,

Peder

Re: roadmap

Jianxia — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 22:23:19 GMT

Annina,

Thanks for the explanation. An enhancement for the Survey widget has been submitted per your request.

Re: roadmap

Jianxia — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 22:37:46 GMT

Jerome,

Thanks for the clarification. It seems that you would expect ExB to be self-contained other than relying on Map Viewer to authorize the map. Although we currently have no plan to do so, I will share your requests with the team.

As far as saving the map and export graphics to hosted layers, I think these functions will be supported. Enhancements have been logged per your request.

Re: roadmap

Jianxia — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 22:51:09 GMT

Peder,

We do plan to support more variables in Theme including the font size and custom font. Thanks for your suggestions.

Re: roadmap

Anonymous User — Sun, 03 May 2020 23:55:54 GMT

Hi,

I would also like to see the Survey 123 enhancement to pass through data from more than 1 layer. Also, it would be helpful to be able to pass values to Survey 123 without needing to select something from a map.

My current use case is that a user selects a feature from a list in Experience Builder, then the feature information gets passed to S123. I have to use the embed widget instead of the S123 widget because the S123 widget only allows passing through values from a map selection.

Is there current capabilities to create a custom widget using Experience Builder developers version that will pass through values from multiple layers?