topic Best Practices for retiring a publicly shared app in ArcGIS Online Questions

Best Practices for retiring a publicly shared app

JayJohnsonWashoeCounty — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:02:00 GMT

Any suggestions on how to gracefully handle the retirement of publicly-shared dashboards, experiences, or other web apps?

We have an experience for Polling Place Wait Times that was widely used during the recent election, but now it needs to be retired. If I just stop sharing it, people who may have bookmarked it will get a "Please login to AGOL" type message...which isn't a nice user experience.

Re: Best Practices for retiring a publicly shared app

RickeyFight — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:23:16 GMT

@JayJohnsonWashoeCounty

Was the layer hosted on AGOL or on your server?

Re: Best Practices for retiring a publicly shared app

JayJohnsonWashoeCounty — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 20:45:49 GMT

This particular app is completely hosted on AGOL (and at the moment is still publicly shared, even though its useful life is over): https://experience.arcgis.com/builder?id=2fe9e44b691a4e32a9f0b84df16531c0

I don't see why the source of the data would matter @RickeyFight .

To me, the problem is that users in the general public are bound to bookmark apps and then when they try to access them after those apps are retired they don't get any kind of message that will make sense to them.

Examples of what happens when general public tries to go to an app they've previously bookmarked, but which has been retired:

Experience Builder app deleted or app with public permissions removed: Sends public user to https://experience.arcgis.com/page/landing They will have no idea what that is or why they got re-directed there.

Dashboard app or WAB app with public permissions removed: Sends public user to ArcGIS Online login page; again, public user has no idea what is happening.

Dashboard app deleted: Returns arcane error message, confusing to general public:

Error

The item '130f23e5cdf7478582decce90ba78b2f' cannot be found. The item may have been deleted or you may have entered an incorrect URL.

WAB app deleted: Slightly better error message, but still rather ugly and not a good place for the general public to end up:

😞Item does not exist or is inaccessible.

I want to know how other agencies have managed this or what ESRI thinks we should be doing. In particular, I don't want potential users of GIS apps to come away with a bad experience that discourages them from using the technology.

Re: Best Practices for retiring a publicly shared app

JayJohnsonWashoeCounty — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:06:14 GMT

This app is completely hosted in AGOL (and is still publicly shared, even though its useful life is over): https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/2fe9e44b691a4e32a9f0b84df16531c0

I don't see why the source of the data would make any difference.

What I'm concerned about is public users having a bad experience that tarnishes their perception of the GIS apps we create.

Examples of bad user outcomes:

Experience Builder app deleted or with public permissions removed: Public user is sent to https://experience.arcgis.com/page/landing and will have no idea why they were re-directed or what to do from there.

Dashboard or WAB app with public permissions removed: Public user is sent to AGOL main login page and again they will have no idea what this means.

Dashboard deleted - User gets arcane message that will only confuse them:
Error

The item 'b9e8918b741a45c08459e4df4188dc7c' cannot be found. The item may have been deleted or you may have entered an incorrect URL.

WAB app deleted - somewhat better error message, but still kind of ugly and not a good place to dead-end a user:

😞 Item does not exist or is inaccessible.

I'm interested in what other agencies have done to mitigate this and what ESRI has to recommend as best practice.

Re: Best Practices for retiring a publicly shared app

RickeyFight — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:17:07 GMT

@JayJohnsonWashoeCounty

I have put up a splash screen that says this webapp has been retired with links to a new one or other sites.

Here is an idea that has been put forward.
https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-online-ideas/option-to-redirect-applications-that-have-been-retired/idi-p/953903

Re: Best Practices for retiring a publicly shared app

JayJohnsonWashoeCounty — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:24:51 GMT

Rickey,

The Splash screen is a good idea, but that only works for apps that have splash screen capability. And then you have to keep that app live indefinitely. I do really like the re-direct Idea that you pointed to and have voted it up. But I'm not holding my breath...

Re: Best Practices for retiring a publicly shared app

RickeyFight — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:55:29 GMT

@JayJohnsonWashoeCounty

I have seen a few post on redirecting but since we have our own server I have not run into this issue.