idea Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online in ArcGIS StoryMaps Ideas

Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

SaraJL — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:54:55 GMT

I know this is probably a long shot, but here goes!

I work with training a lot of new users - having the 2 separate sites for Story Maps projects is incredibly confusing. It presents 2 separate workflows for users. I'll essentially have to show the students 2 different ways to use the software because there is no way to reliably assume that people will click on one back button over the other.

If you click on the smaller arrow on Story Maps - it re-directs to https://storymaps.arcgis.com/

If you click on the back button on the browser - it takes you back to ArcGIS Online

It would be nice if everything was just consolidated into ArcGIS Online so users wouldn't be redirected to another site. I'm not sure if there is a functionality reason why there are 2, or if it has to do with licensing, but it can be quite a challenge for new users and for those that have to teach with the software.

Thank you!

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

PeterKnoop — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 13:55:50 GMT

I will add that we too are observing this kind of siloed user experience being detrimental to people understanding ArcGIS Online and StoryMaps. They may "get it", for StoryMaps, the day they go through a tutorial, however, they are often challenged on how to proceed again in the short term, and how to leverage other components of ArcGIS Online in the long run.

The current user experience develops an unfortunate perception and disconnect among our users that all they can do is work inside StoryMaps. Once the learn they can also access their stories directly from their ArcGIS Online content -- just like other content they may be working on, such as web maps, scenes, dashboards, insights workbooks, etc. -- then they are much more comfortable doing things, and better understand that StoryMaps is just piece of an overall picture; and a piece that can bring together other types of content they can generate.

A common observation is confusion around what the "filtered" view of their content -- showing just their stories -- is supposed to achieve. This is especially true when their story involves other types of ArcGIS Online content. And, a common question is, "why can't I start a new storymap or web map from 'New item' in My Content?" Often paired with observations like, "content is where all of my stuff is stored," or "content is where I create other kinds of ArcGIS Online content."

If one ditched the current StoryMap landing page, then it seems like the functionality that would need to be moved -- perhaps under New item in their content, or by clicking on the ArcGIS StoryMap app in the picker -- would be to choose between creating a new story, briefing, collection, or theme, and then proceeding directly with such.

This kind of user experience, shared by other tools too, enforces a siloed view of the system that might match development team structures, however, it appears to use to hinder usability.

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

OwenGeo — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 12:53:10 GMT

@PeterKnoop @SaraJL Thank you for these thoughtful comments. I certainly understand and acknowledge the situation you describe. Our intent is never to create more work or confusion because of our internal organization or development team practices, and we appreciate you raising some of the workflow difficulties you've encountered!

The solution prescribed here (consolidating into ArcGIS Online the StoryMaps site -- and potentially other similarly architected ArcGIS app sites like Hub, Experience Builder, Insights, Survey123, Urban, Business/Community Analyst, GeoPlanner, and more), however, is an enormous amount of effort (even for just one of those teams) and would eliminate many tangible benefits in terms of performance, frequent/flexible releases, improved SEO, and many other features. So while I'm not sure that suggestion is the best place to start, we're very interested in thinking about how we can address some of the usability issues that you've identified.

From my team's perspective, we'd like to understand more about specific pain points using StoryMaps (like the multiple BACK arrows, creating StoryMaps from the ArcGIS Content page, etc.) so we can look into addressing them. From a larger perspective, true consolidation is a complex issue that involves many parts of ArcGIS. It may be helpful to discuss it, as well as specific workflow issues, at our annual education group meeting at UC with some members of the core ArcGIS Online team and possibly other app teams. WDYT?

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

SaraJL — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:50:45 GMT

@OwenGeo I definitely wish that was possible and I would 100% go if I could! However, I won't be able to attend the conference in-person this year due to summer research groups I'm supporting and the cost of the conference.

If there is one of the virtual sessions that will talk about it, definitely let me know and I would be glad to go! Someday, I hope to be able to join the conference in person 😁 (maybe next year)

If there are any other opportunities or ideas that come up to share ideas, definitely let me know! I would be glad to participate is there is a chance.

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

PeterKnoop — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 01:20:26 GMT

@OwenGeo definitely a complicated problem! Happy as always to share pain points and use cases. Perhaps it would help to consider some more complete use cases too, rather than focusing on only the portion that intersects with StoryMaps in its current form?

(Even the organization of Ideas places in this community has the unfortunate side-effect of forcing things into specific silos, which makes it difficult to figure out where/how to discuss user scenarios that span multiple aspects of the system. @SaraJL's post getting moved around being an example.)

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

PlantPestSurveillancePROJECT — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 09:32:29 GMT

Dear all, thank you for this idea. From my organization point of view, it would be wonderful to have the the StoryMaps site within ArcGIS online. We have new people joining our team every six months or so and this issue always comes up. Our main problem is the creation and management of new themes, since most people go directly into ArcGIS online expecting to find everything there.

I understand the difficulties explained by @OwenGeo, so I look forward to the possibility of discussing this further.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

HelenCooper — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 10:54:33 GMT

Dear all, interesting thread. I've realised my browser shortcut bar reflects some of the difficulty here, as I shortcut to several different ESRI sites to get around some of these issues (the ideal solution would be to have everything available from the 'My Content' page, but I can see @OwenGeo that this isn't straightforward!)

Would it work to have a level above the 'my content' page, that linked out to everything (Experience Builder, Story Maps, Storymap Themes, Survey 123 etc.) so that users became accustomed to having that as the initial portal, and they can then explore relevant sub-sites as appropriate over time?

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

J_DavidMacLean — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 14:41:01 GMT

Thanks to @SaraJL & @PeterKnoop for "getting this topic" started and for replies/more ideas/things to look for by @OwenGeo & @HelenCooper. Similar to @PlantPestSurveillancePROJECT's situation, we have new users joining our organisation and many of these people have somewhat limited existing experience with the whole ArcGIS Online milieu. (The vast majority of our users are students and we have good course material to get them up-to-speed.)

I think I'll 1) update our short, introductory “get to know ArcGIS Online” StoryMap (has info on credits, groups, strongly suggested documentation ideas, ArcGIS Pro extensions, overall licensing, how-to access eTraining) with info on the variety of ArcGIS app sites and 2) ensure that all new users get an invite to read it. And, I'll stay-tuned to this thread topic, too.

Thanks!

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

SaraJL — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:08:38 GMT

Quick update - so there is another StoryMaps site that is causing a problem!

There is another ESRI StoryMaps site with a completely separate account system?! https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/storytelling-solutions

If you go to https://storymaps.com/ versus https://storymaps.arcgis.com/ you get 2 completely different sites......

When you try to sign in -

It doesn't have SAML sign on and there is re-route to the https://storymaps.arcgis.com/ site?

I've had 2 students try to create projects on this site by accident already. Has anyone else had this issue? The StoryMaps icon is completely different.

@OwenGeoDo you happen to know what this site is? We can't seem to log into the organization account here, so it's creating a lot of issues this semester. It looks like it's the 2nd search result (not sure how students are going to this one first)

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

OwenGeo — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:55:07 GMT

@SaraJL -- It looks like in an edit to your original post you found the storytelling solutions page that describes there are two different StoryMaps products, one for personal use and one for professional/organization use. Do you still have questions about what the other site is after reviewing the information on that page?

These two sites use different branding, colors, and logos, and as you noted there is a message on the StoryMaps.com login page that references ArcGIS StoryMaps to help people find the correct site; however, we understand despite these differences, there still may be some confusion between the sites.

If you have additional feedback or ideas on how to minimize the confusion your students are experiencing, it would be great if you could please create a separate thread/idea for that discussion.

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

ShanaCrosson2 — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 18:23:23 GMT

@SaraJL - we definitely experience this issue with the Storymaps.com site and the AGOL StoryMaps site. It is definitely a problem when students just google for storymaps. We actively train on this with classes, so it hasn't been a huge issue.

Honestly, unless they are collaborating on a StoryMap in a class, we don't worry about it as much anymore. They don't have the same functionality, but usually it's fine.

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

SaraJL — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 21:30:42 GMT

Just a quick update about this to keep this post alive -

This has been even more of an issue this semester. It's starting to create issues because we have to essentially show 2 workflows for simple things like adding metadata to StoryMaps. Users are pretty confused especially when they are working with Web Maps and other apps, but the site flipped back and forth between our SAML org site and storymaps.arcgis.com

Although I know that realistically there won't be a solution anytime soon, it's definitely still a problem!

I just had an email today from someone who was panicking because they added a description to the metadata in a StoryMap on ArcGIS Online, but when they went to storymaps.arcgis.com, they couldn't figure out how to get back to it. While there is an easy way to do this, for beginning/new users it's a lot of extra stress to have some many processes that do that same thing.

Sorry for the venting rant!

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

PeterKnoop — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 13:45:11 GMT

Another use case of confusion and lack of functionality resulting from having a separate ArcGIS StoryMaps landing page. If a user goes directly to https://storymaps.arcgis.com, then when they login successfully they do not see the ArcGIS Online Information Banner message.

At the end of each semester we need to encourage graduating students to do something proactively with their ArcGIS Online content. We do send an email notification out four weeks before the end of the semester; however, emails are often ignored. So we also add a note to the Information Banner four weeks prior to the end of the semester, and remove it at the end of the semester. That can be ignored as well, though the more channels we use to reach our people, the better our chance of success.

The separate ArcGIS StoryMaps landing page does not display the ArcGIS Online Information banner. Instead it has its own message banner over which administrators have no control. (Right now it is showing a message about Classic Esri StoryMaps retiring, which is not helpful in our organization, as we have already addressed that.)

(The same problem with not displaying the Information Banner exists with other siloed products that are supposed to be part of ArcGIS Online, such as https://experience.arcgis.com/ and https://survey123.arcgis.com/.)

Re: Consolidate Story Maps into ArcGIS Online

SaraJL — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 17:05:00 GMT

Just wanting to revive this idea a bit!

Even if we can't consolidate the sites (because that might not be feasible from a development standard) incorporating some of the StoryMaps functionality into ArcGIS Online would be super helpful.

Being able to create custom design themes
Creating Collections

I've had some users create templates from the ArcGIS Online side which was fantastic! It would be nice to give users the option to use some of the other storymaps.arcgis.com tools without having to flip back and forth between the sites.

Thank you!